The Interrelation of Biodiversity Dynamics, Ecosystem Processes and Abiotic Factors: A Review

The ecological consequences of wetland loss have aroused global interest in recent years. Major advances have been made in describing the relationship between species diversity and ecosystem processes, in identifying functionally important species and in revealing tolerant mechanisms. There is, however, uncertainty as to how results obtained in recent experiments scale up to landscape and regional levels and generalize across ecosystem types and processes. Under stress, a plant has minimal mobility and control of its environment; wetland plants are exposed to environmental conditions outside the range normally exposed due to natural or anthropogenic changes, such as exposure to environmental pollution. The mechanism of defense breakdown and the production of activated oxygen exceed the plant’s capacity to detoxify it, leading to deleterious degenerative occurrences as loss of osmotic responsiveness, wilting and necrosis. A future challenge is to determine how biodiversity dynamics, ecosystem processes and abiotic factors interact. The strengths and limitations of the various measures used to assess the successes of the interaction are now being discussed. This paper reviews the challenges of heavy metals, highlight on challenges of wetland loss and ecosystem processes in a changing environment.