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Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services
Journal or Book Title: Science
Keywords: Biodiversity; Fishery data; Nature conservation; Population dynamics; Potential resources; Restoration; Species diversity; Water quality
Volume/Issue: 314/5800
Page Number(s): 787-790
Year Published: 2006
Abstract:
Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the oceans capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible.
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132294
Type of Publication: Journal Article
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