Collection

Discovering the water column: integrated taxonomic approaches for measuring marine pelagic biodiversity

Submission status
Closed

There is a strong evidence that the abundance of many species is declining, and that species distributions have already been substantially altered due to habitat conversion, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources and, more recently, climate change. Consequently, losses in biodiversity are predicted for future scenarios worldwide, posing one of the major threats to marine ecosystems. Mitigation measures and management strategies require solid knowledge on ecosystem biodiversity causing a crucial need for assessment tools that provide comprehensive baselines of species richness and allow reliable monitoring of species communities. Morphological identification of many marine taxa is time-consuming, demands comprehensive taxonomic knowledge, and has been shown to often underestimate true diversity due to occurrence of numerous cryptic species. While taxonomic expertise remains the keystone for community monitoring, rapid advances in molecular and optical techniques have provided unprecedented opportunities to conduct taxonomic research more comprehensively and efficiently. They will therefore vastly enhance and accelerate the assessments of all groups of pelagic organisms, from genetic variability of individuals, through species, populations, and communities, to the whole ecosystems, and will foster understanding of interactions and functions on all levels, including changes related to natural and anthropogenic environmental pressures.

This topical collection will accept contributions on integrated approaches for understanding species diversity, distribution, biogeography, monitoring and functioning of marine pelagic ecosystems, including the wide-spectrum of ecological groups: from bacterioplankton through phytoplankton and zooplankton to fish and mammals, with a specific focus on the use of morphological, molecular and optical techniques.

Editors

  • Elaine Fileman Elaine Fileman , 

    Elaine Fileman

    Plymouth Marine Laboratory, UK

  • Jasmin Renz Jasmin Renz  &

    Jasmin Renz

    Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg, German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research, Hamburg, Germany

  • Agata Weydmann-Zwolicka Agata Weydmann-Zwolicka

    Agata Weydmann-Zwolicka

    Department of Marine Plankton Research, Institute of Oceanography, University of Gdańsk, Poland

Articles (7 in this collection)