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Science 3 November 2006:
Vol. 314. no. 5800, pp. 787 - 790
DOI: 10.1126/science.1132294
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Research Articles

Impacts of Biodiversity Loss on Ocean Ecosystem Services

Boris Worm,1* Edward B. Barbier,2 Nicola Beaumont,3 J. Emmett Duffy,4 Carl Folke,5,6 Benjamin S. Halpern,7 Jeremy B. C. Jackson,8,9 Heike K. Lotze,1 Fiorenza Micheli,10 Stephen R. Palumbi,10 Enric Sala,8 Kimberley A. Selkoe,7 John J. Stachowicz,11 Reg Watson12

Human-dominated marine ecosystems are experiencing accelerating loss of populations and species, with largely unknown consequences. We analyzed local experiments, long-term regional time series, and global fisheries data to test how biodiversity loss affects marine ecosystem services across temporal and spatial scales. Overall, rates of resource collapse increased and recovery potential, stability, and water quality decreased exponentially with declining diversity. Restoration of biodiversity, in contrast, increased productivity fourfold and decreased variability by 21%, on average. We conclude that marine biodiversity loss is increasingly impairing the ocean's capacity to provide food, maintain water quality, and recover from perturbations. Yet available data suggest that at this point, these trends are still reversible.

1 Department of Biology, Dalhousie University, Halifax, NS, Canada B3H 4J1.
2 Department of Economics and Finance, University of Wyoming, Laramie, WY 82071, USA.
3 Plymouth Marine Laboratory, Plymouth PL1 3DH, UK.
4 Virginia Institute of Marine Sciences, Gloucester Point, VA 23062–1346, USA.
5 Department of Systems Ecology, Stockholm University, Stockholm, SE-106 91 Sweden.
6 Beijer International Institute of Ecological Economics, Royal Swedish Academy of Sciences, SE-104 05, Stockholm, Sweden.
7 National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, Santa Barbara, CA 93101, USA.
8 Center for Marine Biodiversity and Conservation, Scripps Institution of Oceanography, La Jolla, CA 92093–0202, USA.
9 Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute, Box 2072, Balboa, Republic of Panama.
10 Hopkins Marine Station, Stanford University, Pacific Grove, CA 93950, USA.
11 Section of Evolution and Ecology, University of California, Davis, CA 95616, USA.
12 Fisheries Centre, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, BC, Canada V6T 1Z4.

* To whom correspondence should be addressed. E-mail: bworm{at}dal.ca

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