The ongoing loss of biodiversity has raised concerns that the functioning of ecosystems and the services they provide to humans may be compromised (e.g., Millenium Ecosystem Assessment). To date, the majority of biodiversity-ecosystem functioning research has focused on experimental grassland systems and on a relatively small number of ecosystem processes. The European FP7 “FunDivEUROPE” project is the first that aims to quantify the effects of forest tree diversity on a broad spectrum of ecosystem functions and services on a large geographical scale. The project involves 24 scientific organisations from 15 different EU countries. Three scientific platforms (experiments, forest inventories and observational exploratories) will be established in the major European forest types (from Finland to southern Spain). The FORBIO experiment (http://forbio.biodiversity.be) will be included in the experimental platform. The Laboratory of Forestry coordinates the implementation of the different scientific platforms and takes care of the workpackage on the understorey plant diversity.