Oceans in balance: marine biodiversity is essential and it's up to humans to restore and protect it

摘要

Biodiversity is essential to healthy oceans, which in turn help stabilise the planet. There's a growing body of research showing that marine ecosystems with a wide array of species and functions have well-balanced food webs and they're more able to adapt to climate change, the current extinction crisis and other major ecological disruptions. Generations of overfishing and poor fishery management removed most of the large fish from the ocean and brought many whale species to the brink of extinction. Those are the most obvious impacts to the oceans' biodiversity, but scientists have begun to develop more detailed understandings of the complex dynamics involved in this vast aquatic space.