Global human footprint on the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in reef fishes.

ABSTRACT: Difficulties in scaling up theoretical and experimental results have raised controversy over the consequences of biodiversity loss for the functioning of natural ecosystems. Using a global survey of reef fish assemblages, we show that in contrast to previous theoretical and experimental studies, ecosystem functioning (as measured by standing biomass) scales in a non-saturating manner with biodiversity (as measured by species and functional richness) in this ecosystem. Our field study also shows a significant and negative interaction between human population density and biodiversity on ecosystem functioning (i.e., for the same human density there were larger reductions in standing biomass at more diverse reefs). Human effects were found to be related to fishing, coastal development, and lan

SUBMITTER: Mora C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3071368 | biostudies-literature | 2011 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature