**7. References**

72 Biodiversity Loss in a Changing Planet

where there was a tendency for continuing accumulation of additional species with

It is important to have continuity for single surveys such as the present in order to be able to evaluate relational databases that may in the future be derived from disparate studies that do not have equivalent metadata. The PMLS database has been used to assess bull kelp abundance (Lamb et al., 2011) and it has been found that biodiversity does not change when bull kelp disappears from a location. That publication by Lamb et al. (2011) also includes a complete species list with abundance data for the greater Strait of Georgia region, and

The biodiversity of the shallow seabeds of the Strait of Georgia and surrounding regions including Johnstone Strait, Puget Sound and the west coast of Vancouver Island show considerable stability through time. The most obvious biodiversity shifts appear to be in seaweeds in the most recent climate regime, but advances in taxonomic identification suggest that more monitoring effort is required. There are stable and reliable differences, however, in the biodiversity of shallow benthos in the different regions. The Strait of Georgia has a very high biodiversity in comparison to the adjacent inland seas of Johnstone Strait (to the north) and Puget Sound (to the south), but those other two inland seas have subsets of their biodiversity at uniquely high levels of abundance. The present data compilation, together with the more exhaustive records for Strait of Georgia in Lamb et al. (2011) will provide a baseline for comparison to future trends. In all, the news is encouraging that marine biodiversity can demonstrate such resilience in the face of documented fisheries exploitation, climate change and ocean acidification. The present study also serves to demonstrate that it is important to evaluate existing data archives for continuous records of such important aspects of marine biology as species identification and abundance estimates, as well as records of physical seawater quality, such as seawater pH. Models for ecosystem-based management need to minimize the assumptions made and incorporate as much quantified information as possible in order to ensure the greatest possible precision and accuracy of predictions. This work presents descriptive data without any attempt at statistical analyses, in the hope that the obvious data trends can be incorporated into future models. The current academic trend toward producing expertise in quantitative scientific methods needs to be balanced with training of taxonomists for the front line, in order that existing marine biodiversity can be fully monitored now and into the future. The work presented here would not have been produced with any continuity in any existing academic or government biological monitoring programs in this part of the world,

The authors (CG, DG, AL) gratefully acknowledge years of expert taxonomic verifications by Roland Anderson, Bill Austin, David Behrens, Sheila Byers, Chris Cameron, Roger Clark, Jim Cosgrove, David Denning, Daphne Fautin, Jayson Gillespie, Daniel Gotshall, Rick Harbo, Leslie Harris, Mike Hawkes, Lea-Anne Henry, Fumio Iwata, Greg Jensen, Tom Laidig, Charles Lambert, Gretchen Lambert, Philip Lambert, Robert Lea, Neil McDaniel, Valerie McDonald, Catherine Mecklenburg, Sandra Millen, Claudia Mills, Chris Pharo,

serves as an adjunct to this present publication for reference purposes.

repeated monitoring (Figure 3).

**5. Conclusion** 

and perhaps not anywhere.

**6. Acknowledgments** 


**4** 

*France* 

**Coral Reef Biodiversity** 

*Station Biologique F-29682, Roscoff* 

Stéphane La Barre

**in the Face of Climatic Changes** 

*Université Pierre et Marie Curie-Paris 6, UMR 7139 Végétaux marins et Biomolécules,* 

*CNRS, UMR 7139 Végétaux marins et Biomolécules, Station Biologique F-29682, Roscoff* 

Loss of marine biodiversity seems inevitable in the 21st century. In benthic marine systems, survivors will have to acclimatize to seawater constantly increasing in temperature and evolving chemically, while also needing to out-compete new opportunistic neighbors and possibly facing increased predation pressure. Last but not the least, with a metabolism

Recent studies have shown that thermal stresses on coral reef scleractinians (Vega Thurber et al., 2009), sponges (Webster et al., 2008) and coralline algae (Webster et al., 2010a) induce changes from a balanced, functional associated microflora to a pathogen-dominated one, causing disease before the physiological tolerance limits of the hosts are reached. Changes in water chemistry (loss of bioavailable calcium carbonate due to acidification) and other stress factors (temperature, salinity, oxygen, sedimentation, etc., due to the greenhouse effect or to its climatic consequences) will affect biodiversity and community structure, and in the long

The first section of this chapter is devoted to a presentation of the mechanisms involved in the climate-driven loss of coral reef biodiversity predicted within the next few decades in response to increasing anthropogenic pressure. Most of the arguments developed in the following sections reflect recent work published on reef-building corals, sponges and algae and their associated macro- and micro- biota, as major reef "engineers" (Wild et al., 2011). *Biodiversity* and *chemodiversity* have always been linked in the history of our planet. Both have undergone explosively creative periods, and at other times suffered dramatic losses or even extinctions followed by the emergence of better-adapted forms of life. Coral reefs have existed for many millions of years and are no exception to this. The final part of this chapter is a reflection on how a few generations of humans have been able to overexploit the planet's biodiversity for their own immediate benefit, and harm it by producing and disseminating freak molecules and genomes for which the ocean is the final depository. The threat to coral reefs comes more from effluents of highly industrialized nations than from the daily activities of low-revenue populations living on site (Donner & Potere, 2007). We now need to apply our creativity or *"intello-diversity*" to preserving existing natural

already pushed to its limits, survivors will have to fight against emerging diseases.

term induce disaggregation of limestone scaffolds.

equilibriums to make the planet safe for future generations.

**1. Introduction** 

