Marine Biodiversity loss

Despite expanding pressures on ocean resources and associated new challenges for ocean sustainability, rapid scientific tool development creates new opportunities to advance our understanding of marine biodiversity and its importance to our planet’s life support system. The growing alphabet soup of conservation aspirations, from CBD to IUCN to IPBES to SDGs, illustrate society’s growing recognition of biodiversity, the science that informs it, and the desire to improve sustainability. Examples from seafloor studies of biodiversity drivers, ecosystem functioning, and population connectivity illustrate how expansion of the toolbox available to support biodiversity research in recent decades has enabled more comprehensive analyses to address the daunting spatial and temporal scales of marine ecosystems to consider when providing science advice to inform policy. Simultaneously, new approaches provide process measurements and considerations that policy makers can consider in prioritizing the where, when and how of management efforts.  Effective translation of our science to policy makers and the public will help to ensure that the 21^st century achieves its full potential as a golden age for sustainable marine biodiversity.

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Invited talk: Paul Snelgrove Department of Ocean Sciences and Biology at Memorial University of Newfoundland in Canada