Biodiversity and Ecosystem function

Introduction

The world's oceans are facing multiple, escalating threats from human disturbance. Over-extraction of resources, degradation of coastal and benthic habitats from coastal development and destructive fishing practices, pollution, and climate change are causing extensive loss of biodiversity. Although documented global extinctions are rare in the marine environment, local extinctions and dramatic changes in abundance are widespread. The causes of this loss and its consequences for the functioning and stability of ecosystems are the current focus of intense research activity, partly because of the threat to the goods and services that ecosystems provide to society. Much of the research to date has been controversial, with disagreement over the role of diversity per se as opposed to the roles of individual species or functional groups. Marine environments are potentially very valuable in resolving this debate because they are diverse at higher taxonomic levels than terrestrial systems and have high levels of functional diversity.

See also

The influence of the lugworm (Arenicola marina) on biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in an intertidal mudflat [1]