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PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 9(4) April 2011

On the functionality of reef diversity.Existing experimental knowledge suggests that in diverse ecosystems, given the redundancy in the ecological roles of species, the efficiency of ecosystem processes stabilizes after a certain number of species is reached, and that the functioning of such processes is not considerably impacted when few species are lost. A new field study shows evidence of the contrary. Mora et al. (e1000606) show the existence of accelerating relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in coral reefs worldwide and conclude that the functionality of the most diverse reef systems is the most impaired by the deleterious effects of human populations worldwide.Image Credit: Thomas Vignaud

On the functionality of reef diversity. Top

Existing experimental knowledge suggests that in diverse ecosystems, given the redundancy in the ecological roles of species, the efficiency of ecosystem processes stabilizes after a certain number of species is reached, and that the functioning of such processes is not considerably impacted when few species are lost. A new field study shows evidence of the contrary. Mora et al. (e1000606) show the existence of accelerating relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in coral reefs worldwide and conclude that the functionality of the most diverse reef systems is the most impaired by the deleterious effects of human populations worldwide.

Image Credit: Thomas Vignaud

Citation: (2011) PLoS Biology Issue Image | Vol. 9(4) April 2011. PLoS Biol 9(4): ev09.i04. doi:10.1371/image.pbio.v09.i04

Published: April 26, 2011

Copyright: © 2011 Vignaud. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

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On the functionality of reef diversity.

Existing experimental knowledge suggests that in diverse ecosystems, given the redundancy in the ecological roles of species, the efficiency of ecosystem processes stabilizes after a certain number of species is reached, and that the functioning of such processes is not considerably impacted when few species are lost. A new field study shows evidence of the contrary. Mora et al. (e1000606) show the existence of accelerating relationships between biodiversity and ecosystem functioning in coral reefs worldwide and conclude that the functionality of the most diverse reef systems is the most impaired by the deleterious effects of human populations worldwide.

Image Credit: Thomas Vignaud

doi:10.1371/image.pbio.v09.i04.g001
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