Glossary Convention on biological diversity The Convention was first enacted in June 1992, has been signed by many countries, and its objectives are the conservation of biological diversity, the sustainable use of its components and the fair and equitable sharing of the benefits arising out of the utilization of genetic resources, including by appropriate access to genetic resources and by appropriate transfer of relevant technologies, taking into account all rights over those resources and to technologies, and by appropriate funding. Functional type A group of species that share morphological and physiological characteristics that result in a common ecological role. Global biodiversity assessment (GBA) The Global Biodiversity Assessment is an independent peer-reviewed analysis of the biological and social aspects of biodiversity commissioned by United Nations Environment Programme. Niche complementarity Refers to how the ecological niches of species may not fully overlap and complement each other. Consequently, an increase in the number of species that complement each other may result in a larger volume of total resources utilized and in higher rate of ecosystem processes. Sampling effect Refers to the phenomenon where increases in the number of species increase the probability of including in the community a species with a strong ecosystem effect (Huston, 1997). This phenomenon yields an increase in ecosystem processes with increases in diversity without invoking niche complementarity. See Functional Diversity chapter (00061) in this work for ways of distinguishing between niche complementarity and sampling effect.