The main objective of the project BEFmate was to explore the understanding of the relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning across the interfaces between marine and terrestrial ecosystems. For this purpose, twelve experimental islands were established in the back-barrier tidal flats of the island of Spiekeroog in 2014. Furthermore, experimental plots were established in the nearby salt marsh to support the research. Within the project, the description of the functional consequences of loss of biodiversity over the entire "tree of life" and from genes to ecosystems should be further investigated. Accordingly, the project should not only focus on one model organism. Further aims of the project were to fuse ecological and evolutionary aspects of functional biodiversity research; to synthesize BEF-research with ecological theory on stoichiometry, allometry, and food web structure; and to understand how neutral and dispersal processes affect BEF-relationships in space and time. The BEFmate project subsequently gave rise to the research unit DynaCom.