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Life Sciences Commons

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Ecology and Evolutionary Biology

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William & Mary

Series

2009

Biological Sciences Peer-Reviewed Articles

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Life Sciences

Accelerating Loss Of Seagrasses Across The Globe Threatens Coastal Ecosystems, Michelle Waycott, Carlos M. Duarte, Tim J. Carruthers, Robert J. Orth, Wc Dennison, Suzanne Olyarnik, Ainsley Calladine, James W. Fourqurean, Kl Heck, A. Randall Hughes, Gary A. Kendrick, W. Judson Kenworthy, Frederick T. Short, Susan L. Williams May 2009

Accelerating Loss Of Seagrasses Across The Globe Threatens Coastal Ecosystems, Michelle Waycott, Carlos M. Duarte, Tim J. Carruthers, Robert J. Orth, Wc Dennison, Suzanne Olyarnik, Ainsley Calladine, James W. Fourqurean, Kl Heck, A. Randall Hughes, Gary A. Kendrick, W. Judson Kenworthy, Frederick T. Short, Susan L. Williams

VIMS Articles

Coastal ecosystems and the services they provide are adversely affected by a wide variety of human activities. In particular, seagrass meadows are negatively affected by impacts accruing from the billion or more people who live within 50 km of them. Seagrass meadows provide important ecosystem services, including an estimated $1.9 trillion per year in the form of nutrient cycling; an order of magnitude enhancement of coral reef fish productivity; a habitat for thousands of fish, bird, and invertebrate species; and a major food source for endangered dugong, manatee, and green turtle. Although individual impacts from coastal development, degraded water quality, …


Diversity Has Stronger Top-Down Than Bottom-Up Effects On Decomposition, Ds Srivastava, Bj Cardinale, Al Downing, Je Duffy, Et Al Mar 2009

Diversity Has Stronger Top-Down Than Bottom-Up Effects On Decomposition, Ds Srivastava, Bj Cardinale, Al Downing, Je Duffy, Et Al

VIMS Articles

The flow of energy and nutrients between trophic levels is affected by both the trophic structure of food webs and the diversity of species within trophic levels. However, the combined effects of trophic structure and diversity on trophic transfer remain largely unknown. Here we ask whether changes in consumer diversity have the same effect as changes in resource diversity on rates of resource consumption. We address this question by focusing on consumer-resource dynamics for the ecologically important process of decomposition. This study compares the top-down effect of consumer (detritivore) diversity on the consumption of dead organic matter (decomposition) with the …