Meet Sandra Díaz:
Tyler Prize 2025 Laureate
A Leader Forging New Connections For Biodiversity and Humankind
Key concepts in Sandra Díaz’s work
Functional Diversity: Plant Traits Matter
Instead of just counting the number of species in a particular ecosystem, Díaz looked at what makes plants different from each other. By studying the specific traits of plants, like leaf size, toughness, and how quickly they grow, she showed how plants use resources, interact with their environment, and change ecosystems. This is known as functional diversity: the variety of roles organisms play within ecosystems.
From this work, Sandra Díaz’ developed the key idea that it is not just the number of species that matters, but their different qualities, as different plant traits directly impact how an ecosystem functions. Plant traits help define how much carbon an ecosystem can store, or how well they regulate water. This understanding is crucial to managing ecosystems in ways that maximize the benefits they provide us.
In the same way that the body of a ballet dancer or a bricklayer might reflect their work, plant structures reveal their ecological roles. For both plants and people, genetics influence - but do not fully determine - our traits.
Díaz built the first global quantitative database of functional diversity in vascular plants, known as the "global spectrum of plant form and function" (Díaz et al. 2016: Nature). It showed that despite immense diversity, plant traits fall into a few key “lifestyles” that influence ecosystems in predictable ways. These lifestyles shape and are shaped by human values, reinforcing the ongoing relationship between plants and people. We are affecting plants, and they are affecting us, all the time.
The Fabric of Life: a New Way to Understand Biodiversity
Díaz describes biodiversity as the fabric of life - seeing the whole of the living world as a woven fabric or tapestry, shaped by nature over millions of years and, crucially, woven in conjunction with humans for many thousands of years. Seeing humanity as simply one of the threads of the fabric, this metaphor challenges the notion that humanity is separate from nature.
The ‘fabric’ underpins our livelihoods, our institutions, our images and stories, and, in turn, we are constantly reshaping the fabric.
“It is only in our minds that we feel separate from the natural world around us”, argues Diaz. She argues that this illusion is reinforced by institutions, business models, and even technical language like “biodiversity”. In reality, humans are just one thread in the living tapestry, deeply entangled with other species. This connection is not just cultural—it’s biological, ecological, and psychological. Our influence on the living world is undeniable - we depend on nature, we shape nature, we use nature in every aspect of our lives, and in turn, nature shapes us. (Key paper: Díaz, 2022, Nature).
Mutual Links Between People and Nature
Díaz pioneered the concept of ‘nature’s contributions to people’ (NCP) —the benefits (and detriments) that people derive from and with nature. The idea of “nature’s contributions to people” goes beyond the economic focus of “ecosystem services” to recognize diverse ways of valuing nature, including relational and intrinsic values.
NCP highlights that nature’s value is not absolute—it depends on social context and perspective. Most natural elements have both positive and negative values, shaped by who is perceiving them and under what circumstances (Díaz et al., 2018, Science).