A Global Agenda for Advancing Freshwater Biodiversity Research (original) (raw)

FRESHWATER BIODIVERSITY AND CONSERVATION CHALLENGES: A REVIEW

International Journal of Biological Innovations, 2021

The distinctive feature of Earth is life, and the most exclusive and extraordinary feature of existing life is its vast diversity. Currently, natural freshwater resources are under critical crisis. A contemporary environmental issue is basically conservation of freshwater biodiversity which will lead to the strengthening of ecosystem resilience. It was detected that the reality of increasing anthropogenic activities were continuously degrading the earth's aquatic ecosystem. The conservation of freshwater resources are the most unprecedented challenges for human interferences ranging from depletion of physical structure to extinction of gens, species and biological traits at an alarming rate. Overexploitation, loss of aquatic habitat and fragmentation, water pollution, destruction by land use activities, the introduction of invasive aquatic species, over harvesting and changes in geochemical cycles and global climate change are major threats to freshwater biodiversity. Human survival is basically affected by the loss of aquatic biodiversity as well as being plaintive for its own sake. Biodiversity can be conserved only by proper understanding, knowing the facts of proper planning and effective management of human affairs.

The freshwater biodiversity crisis

Science, 2018

This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Editorial: Freshwater biodiversity crisis: Multidisciplinary approaches as tools for conservation

Frontiers in Environmental Science

Editorial on the Research Topic Freshwater biodiversity crisis: Multidisciplinary approaches as tools for conservation Freshwater ecosystems represent less than 0.5% of Earth's surface, and less than 0.01% of Earth's water volume (Miller, 2021; Val et al., 2022). Despite comprising just a small percentage of space compared to terrestial and marine environments, freshwater ecosystems support astonishing levels of biodiversity (Albert et al., 2020; Miller, 2021; Val et al., 2022). For instance, freshwater fishes alone correspond to more than 20% of all vertebrate species (Miller, 2021; Val et al., 2022). Freshwater ecosystems encompass extremely diverse habitats, such as streams, medium to large sized rivers (e.g., Amazon, Nile and Mekong), small ponds, lakes or even very large lakes (e.g., African Great Lakes), waterfalls, rapids, marshes, flooded areas, swamps, puddles, pools (temporary or permanent), underground waters, and rivers or lakes inside caves. The conditions and characteristics of these environments can vary greatly, including the type of the substrate (rocky, sandy or muddy), water flow (lotic or lentic), water pH (ranging from acidic to alkaline), amount of water dissolved oxygen, sunlight exposure, water temperature, vegetation cover, type of bank (rocky, sandy or with plants), depth, turbidity, and many other variables. Environmental filtering drives the composition of species assemblages and the diversification of freshwater species, often resulting in niche specialists with specific habitat adaptations (Dudgeon et al., 2006). Human activities pose serious threats to the persistance of freshwater biodiversity due to damage and modification of ecosystems that specialist species rely on, and even complete habitat destruction (Figure 1) (

Concordance of freshwater and terrestrial biodiversity

Conservation Letters, 2011

Efforts to set global conservation priorities have largely ignored freshwater diversity, thereby excluding some of the world's most speciose, threatened, and valuable taxa. Using a new global map of freshwater ecoregions and distribution data for about 13,300 fish species, we identify regions of exceptional freshwater biodiversity and assess their overlap with regions of equivalent terrestrial importance. Overlap is greatest in the tropics and is higher than expected by chance. These high-congruence areas offer opportunities for integrated conservation efforts, which could be of particular value when economic conditions force conservation organizations to narrow their focus. Areas of low overlap-missed by current terrestrially based priority schemes-merit independent freshwater conservation efforts. These results provide new information to conservation investors setting priorities at global or regional scales and argue for a potential reallocation of future resources to achieve representation of overlooked biomes.