Considerable amount of research on the relationships between species richness and productivity at different spatial, ecological, and taxonomic scales has been conducted. However, the overall trend of the correlation at the global scale still remains sketchy. In this study we use the MODIS NDVI as the surrogate of productivity, and the WWF ecoregion systems and its species distribution information to test correlations between species compositions and MODIS NDVI at different taxonomic ranks on a global scale. Matrix correlation is performed between species compositions measured as beta diversities using S?rensen similarity index and MODIS NDVI variations measured as Bhattacharyya distances through Mantel permutation tests. The correlation coefficients and Mantel test significance levels are reported at the global, realm, and biome levels respectively. Significant correlations are found at all three taxonomic ranks. Results from realm and biome tests suggest that the highest correlations are reached at the mid-latitude when species rank is used. The results of this study may have important implications for global biodiversity assessment and conservation management.