AEF Prowe, M Pahlow, S Dutkiewicz and A Oschlies. Small diversity effects on ocean primary production under environmental change in a diversity-resolving ocean ecosystem model. Biogeosciences Discussion 10: 12571-12591. Doi: 10.5194/bgd-10-12571-2013
Almost everybody has heard of diversity, mostly in connection to for example tropical rain forest or nature reserves. Therefore it is surprising how little is known about diversity in the oceans: what is diversity, where is it, does it matter for so-called "services" like fish production the ocean provides to us, and last, but not least, will it change and affect the oceans when the climate will change in the future? All these questions are still up to discussion.
This study approaches these questions by using a global ocean model simulating diverse plankton communities in a future climate scenario. Surprisingly small diversity effects bring up the question how to actually capture diversity in such models, and point towards traits and trade-offs as essential model ingredients.
Read the full article at Biogeosciences