| Title | Variability of species' role in marine communities: change of paradigms for conservation priorities |
| Abstract | The structure and organisation of aquatic communities, moulded in each environment by combinations of abiotic factors, recruitment and productivity rates, rely upon a network of both pairwise and transitive interactions among organisms. In many cases, a few strong interactors drive basic ecological processes by playing a leading role in channelling the available resources. Among these, keystone species may control the outputs of local biodiversity through large indirect effects, disproportionately large relative to their abundance. Functional roles are not fixed labels, and species interactions have variable outputs in both time and space: also, in spite of a growing literature on species interactions, terminology is often poorly applied. This leads to the loss of the informative value of concepts, like the keystone species, which might represent useful trade-offs between science and environmental politics. Species' roles are often used to set taxonomic conservation priorities, although this might even be regarded as unethical, ecologically wrong, or in disregard of the evolutionary meaning of species coexistence and interaction. A re-assessment of species' roles is given here, attempting to highlight their limits and applicability. Electronic supplementary material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer LINK server located at http://dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227-001-0769-2. |
| Source | Marine biology (Berl.) 140, pp. 1067–1074 |
| Keywords | Keystone speciesSpecies interactionsFunctional diversityMarine ecologyConservation ecology |
| Journal | Marine biology (Berl.) |
| Editor | Springer, Heidelberg ;, Germania |
| Year | 2002 |
| Type | Articolo in rivista |
| Authors | Piraino S. 1, Fanelli G. 2, Boero F. 1 |
| Text | 6246 2002 Keystone species Species interactions Functional diversity Marine ecology Conservation ecology Variability of species role in marine communities change of paradigms for conservation priorities Piraino S. 1, Fanelli G. 2, Boero F. 1 1 Dipartimento di Biologia, Universita di Lecce, 73100, Lecce Italy 2 IAMC CNR, Sede Talassografico A. Cerruti , Via Roma 3 74100 Taranto Italy The structure and organisation of aquatic communities, moulded in each environment by combinations of abiotic factors, recruitment and productivity rates, rely upon a network of both pairwise and transitive interactions among organisms. In many cases, a few strong interactors drive basic ecological processes by playing a leading role in channelling the available resources. Among these, keystone species may control the outputs of local biodiversity through large indirect effects, disproportionately large relative to their abundance. Functional roles are not fixed labels, and species interactions have variable outputs in both time and space also, in spite of a growing literature on species interactions, terminology is often poorly applied. This leads to the loss of the informative value of concepts, like the keystone species, which might represent useful trade offs between science and environmental politics. Species roles are often used to set taxonomic conservation priorities, although this might even be regarded as unethical, ecologically wrong, or in disregard of the evolutionary meaning of species coexistence and interaction. A re assessment of species roles is given here, attempting to highlight their limits and applicability. Electronic supplementary material to this paper can be obtained by using the Springer LINK server located at http //dx.doi.org/10.1007/s00227 001 0769 2. 140 Il lavoro, ha avuto una vasta eco internazionale per la pubblicazione su Marine Biology IF 1,473 e anche perche e stato oggetto di una entusiastica review pubblicata nella sezione News Comments della rivista Trends in Ecology and Evolution IF 10,508 Gili, 2002 . Anche in campo nazionale larticolo ha suscitato un notevole interesse grazie alla recensione pubblicata sul bollettino della Societa Italiana di Ecologia Gatto, 2002 . Variability of species role in marine communities change of paradigms for conservation priorities Articolo in rivista Springer 0025 3162 Marine biology Berl. Marine biology Berl. Mar. biol. Berl. Marine biology. Berl. Marine biology Berlin. Print Berl. giovanni.fanelli FANELLI GIOVANNI |
