which ultimately should decrease

Hello everyone,

From the book Thank You for Being Late by Thomas Friedman.

An average plot containing one plant species is less than half as productive as an average plot containing 24–32 species. Lower plant diversity also leads to greater rates of loss of limiting soil nutrients through leaching, which ultimately should decrease soil fertility, further lowering plant productivity.

What is the meaning of should in "which ultimately should decrease"?
Does it mean the same as will, i.e. "which ultimately will decrease"?

Thank you.

Michael30000 said:

Does it mean the same as will, i.e. "which ultimately will decrease"?

Click to expand...

This is the easy question: No.

It looks very much to me as if the author got a little confused here, possibly because they originally wrote the sentence the other way round (higher plant diversity...should increase soil fertility), where "should" means ought to or is expected to, but "should" is only used with a positive expected outcome and I doubt that Friedman is encouraging lower soil fertility.

"Would" is possible, introducing a hypothetical effect, but "should" appears to be a mistake.

Thank you, Uncle Jack.

I agree that “should” is meant in the sense of “is likely to” or “can be expected to” — the closest dictionary definition to that being “indicating what is probable”. It’s not the most appropriate word, but not drastically wrong.

Thank you, lingobingo.