Marine biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and carbon cycles.

Expanding scales in biodiversity-based research: challenges and solutions for marine systems

As in terrestrial biodiversity, human influences over marine biodiversity will alter the way ecosystems contribute to biogeochemical or ecosystem processes. While many studies have documented how alterations of terrestrial biology affect ecosystem functioning, few studies have examined marine systems. The main challenge faced by biodiversity and ecosystem functioning (BEF) research in marine ec...

Top-down control of marine phytoplankton diversity in a global ecosystem model

The potential of marine ecosystems to adapt to ongoing environmental change is largely unknown, making prediction of consequences for nutrient and carbon cycles particularly challenging. Realizing that biodiversity might influence the adaptation potential, recent model approaches have identified bottomup controls on patterns of phytoplankton diversity regulated by nutrient availability and seas...

The Role of Biodiversity in the Functioning of Freshwater and Marine Benthic Ecosystems

Marine biodiversity-ecosystem functions under uncertain environmental futures.

Anthropogenic activity is currently leading to dramatic transformations of ecosystems and losses of biodiversity. The recognition that these ecosystems provide services that are essential for human well-being has led to a major interest in the forms of the biodiversity-ecosystem functioning relationship. However, there is a lack of studies examining the impact of climate change on these relatio...

IDEA AND PERSPECT IVE The biodiversity-dependent ecosystem service debt

Forest Isbell,* David Tilman, Stephen Polasky and Michel Loreau Abstract Habitat destruction is driving biodiversity loss in remaining ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning and services often directly depend on biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity loss is likely creating an ecosystem service debt: a gradual loss of biodiversity-dependent benefits that people obtain from remaining fragments of natur...