Human well-being responses to species’ traits

Abstract

People rely on well-functioning ecosystems to provide critical services that underpin human health and well-being. Consequently, biodiversity loss has profound negative implications for humanity. Human–biodiversity interactions can deliver individual-level well-being gains, equating to substantial healthcare cost savings when scaled up across populations. However, critical questions remain about which species and/or traits (for example, colours, sounds and smells) elicit well-being responses. The traits that influence well-being can be considered ‘effect’ traits. Using techniques from community ecology, we have analysed a database of species’ effect traits articulated by people to identify those that generate different types of well-being (physical, emotional, cognitive, social, spiritual and ‘global’ well-being, the latter being akin to ‘whole-person health’). Effect traits have a predominately positive impact on well-being, influenced by the identity and taxonomic kingdom of each species. Different sets of effect traits deliver different types of well-being. However, traits cannot be considered independently of species because multiple traits can be supported by a single species. Indeed, we have found that numerous effect traits from across the ecological community can elicit multiple types of well-being, illustrating the complexity of biodiversity experiences. Our empirical approach can help to implement interdisciplinary thinking for biodiversity conservation and nature-based public health interventions designed to support human well-being.