Идея о том, что экосистемы обладают избыточной способностью, так что если небольшое количество видов вымирает, вреда little, была greatly overestimated, according to the largest global study of its kind. New research led by King's College London and Imperial College London предупреждает, что недостаток биоразнообразия может угрожать продовольственной безопасности и климатической защите, since diverse ecosystems provide a wide range of benefits that people depend on, including pollination, water purification, carbon storage and natural pest control. The study, by King's College London and Imperial College London with the Natural History Museum and The Alan Turing Institute, has found that ecosystems have far less 'spare' capacity than previously thought, with the ocean potentially having the most to lose.
Across 23 categories of ecosystem services and functions, most benefits rose steadily with biodiversity rather than leveling off once a handful of species were present. The findings suggest that functional redundancy—the idea that species can substitute for one another, so losses do little harm—has been overestimated. Dr. Emma Moffett, study lead and lecturer in geography at King's College London, said, 'Our findings challenge the comfortable assumption that ecosystems carry plenty of backup, so losing a species here and there doesn't change much. Across most of the benefits ecosystems provide that we looked at, the data doesn't support that.
The ecological benefits keep climbing as diversity rises, which means they fall as we lose species.' Ocean carbon sequestration showed by far the strongest positive response to biodiversity of any service measured, indicating that blue carbon sinks depend on sustaining diverse marine communities. The authors caution that this result rests on a small number of data sets and identify it as an urgent gap in current knowledge. Not all services depend on diversity; protection against hazards such as coastal flooding and erosion was relatively insensitive to biodiversity overall, because it often depends on one or two foundational species.
The full database and model forecasts across all 23 ecosystem service and function categories are publicly available to support policy and planning.
Источник: Hacker News · Сводку подготовил HeadlinesBriefing