Ecology

Twenty years after the Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro, 17 ecologists are calling for renewed international efforts to curb the loss of Earth's biological diversity.

The loss is compromising nature's ability to provide goods and services essential for human well-being, the scientists say.

Over the past two decades, strong scientific evidence has emerged showing that decline of the world's biological diversity reduces the productivity and sustainability of ecosystems, according to an international team led by the University of Michigan's Bradley Cardinale.

It also decreases ecosystems' ability to provide society with goods and services like food, wood, fodder, fertile soils and protection from pests and disease.

 

"Water purity, food production and air quality are easy to take for granted, but all are largely provided by communities of organisms," said George Gilchrist, program director in the National Science Foundation's Division of Environmental Biology, which funded the research.

 

"This paper demonstrates that it is not simply the quantity of living things, but their species, genetic and trait biodiversity, that influences the delivery of many essential 'ecosystem services.'''

 

Human actions are dismantling ecosystems, resulting in species extinctions at rates several orders of magnitude faster than observed in the fossil record.

 

If the nations of the world make biodiversity an international priority, the scientists say, there's still time to conserve much of the remaining variety of life--and possibly to restore much of what's been lost.

 

The researchers present their findings in this week's issue of the journal Nature.