Archived material and pdf files

Maïa Fourt [mfourt@club-internet.fr]

28/02/2002

Dear working group leaders (either the moderator or the rapporteur),

Many ideas were discussed during the e-conference concerning the different WG's.

Would it be possible to have a résumé of what has been said during the e-conference concerning your WG? We would appreciate if this résumé could be sent to the regional coordinators, the WP leaders and me (Maïa) in time for us to integrate it in the discussions prepared for Iraklion that is before end of next week. Thank you again for your help especially for those who are regional coordinators and responsible of working groups!

Cheers

Maïa 

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

18/02/02

Dear all

Another question regarding Taxonomic sufficiency. I have re-read the relevant literature on the topic and I want to share my feelings with you. Maybe I did not understand and I am ready to aknowledge my mistakes. Taxonomic sufficiency has been developed by Ellis (and further implemented by Warwick & Clarke, among others) to assess the impact of pollution on biodiversity. This is reasonable to me. The aim of the concept is not to assess biodiversity, but, instead, the impact of a stressor on biodiversity. I think that there is a great difference between the two things. 

Stretching this concept to assess biodiversity is maybe not so proper, and requires a completely different approach. Taxonomic sufficiency, then, is like the minimal sampling area. There is not a single minimal sampling area, you have to calculate it according to the environment you are sampling (if your goal is to have a representative sample of the species present at a given place within a given type of environment). The minimal sampling area is not the same on a rocky cliff or in a hadal mud, or in a cave. Instead of considering the area of the sample, taxonomic sufficiency considers taxonomic accuracy, but the idea is the same. The two can be even coupled, so to reduce effort even more. What is the outcome of all this? That rare species will be more and more neglected (since nobody recognises species anymore). If we evaluate biodiversity to detect its erosion (and this is one of the aims of biodiversity assessment) then taxonomic sufficiency is a very gross tool. I repeat that it is very appropriate to detect stress. But this is not all we want to do with biomare, right? 

It is crucial that we state very clearly what we want to do with our proposed indexes. I repeat my proposal of considering hydroids as a representative taxon for biodiversity assessment, of course while considering their life cycles and so their medusae. Unfortunately there are no more Northern specialists of the group, but this calls for some investment on this aspect, as I continue to say since ages. The good thing of these guys is that they are both benthic and planktonic and that the hydromedusae are top predators (since they feed on eggs and larvae of fish) and top predators are very sensitive to environmental change. Studying hydroids allow to consider both plankton (the medusae expressed in their potential production) and the benthos, so covering two environmental compartments with a single effort.

I have an almost complete library on the group, its content has generated a bibliographic data base ( available through the net) and there is the basis to train people in detecting with accuracy at least one component of biodiversity. I have nothing against Malacostraca, I just ask to add the Hydrozoa, both for ecological and for practical reasons. Besides Italy, there are other specialists (producing revisions of taxa, not only performing identification from manuals) in Switzerland and Spain, the rest of Western Europe being represented only by retired scientists or by researchers that do occasional contributions. Specialists are present in Russia, but their conditions are not so nice.

Along with this, I renew my proposal of photographic records of sessile organisms living on rocky cliffs in Marine Protected Areas.

 all the best

nando

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Sergej Olenin [serg@gmf.ku.lt]

18/02/02

Dear colleagues,

attached is an MS Word file containing a summary on alien species in marine environment. Sorry for late submission (one working day beyond deadline). I believe that this issue may be (and should be) used in respect to biodiversity indicators.

Best wishes

Sergej

Bella Galil [galil@post.tau.ac.il]

16/02/02

so, my proposal is: Make an inventory of European MPAs, set up a time series of photographic monitoring at a given depth or series of depths, with a proper experimental design of replicates (this is done already for Italian MPA), make up a picture data base thatconstitutes an actual record of biodiversity that can be consulted and compared byall participants, intercalibrating identifications and accuracy. this simple approach is to be implemented by studies on the species contingent atall sites, including also inconspicuous ones, those that do not come out in pictures, the epibionts, commensals, parasites and so on. so to have two levels ofaccuracy: the monitoring level and the inventorying level. as for soft bottoms, I remind the importance of potential biodiversity representedby resting stages of plankters, a memory of past biodiversity and the fuel offuture biodiversity in a crucial system: the planktonic one.

Fred Bucholz

15/02/02

Dear all,

to extend the topic further, Malacostraca-crustacea, as an indicator group, as being proposed by JMarcin Weslawski, recently, may also go as a candidate for an inter-site study along the lines I sketched below.

Cheers, Yours Fred

Christos Arvanitidis [arvanitidis@ns0.imbc.gr]

15/02/02

Dear colleagues,

Friedrich Buchholz [fbuchholz@awi-bremerhaven.de]

15/02/02

Thank you, Nando,

Friedrich Buchholz [fbuchholz@awi-bremerhaven.de]

14/02/02

The obvious is the North-South-one (1) as the climatic gradient. The one that somehow became forgotten was the West-East-one (2) that is dominated by the salinity gradient which clearly and strongly influences species number and community composition  this was just mentioned again by Doris Schiedek, however. The techniques for biodiversity-comparisons given by Richard and also Christos suggestions may fit into that and may be applied for an inter - site comparison in terms of salinity- (and/or thermal) influences on diversity. I would be much interested in your comments as I am trying to sponsor functional biodiversity in terms of the adaptive potential of species and consequences regards their distribution. The upcoming flagship sites along the North Sea and Baltic may contribute, particularly, as already existing and non-standardized species lists can be the data source, at least for a first try.

Dr Claude Amiard-Triquet [Claude.Amiard-Triquet@isomer.univ-nantes.fr]

14/02/02

2) From a scientific point of view, the state of the art has evolved since the paper of Adams et al in 1989 mapping the effects of pollutant at different levels of biological organization according to the latency of the response and to the field of interest from toxicology to ecology. According to these authors, responses of populations and communities had a high  ecological relevance, a low specificity but no value as warning system. On the other hand, biochemical changes had a poor ecological relevance, a high specificity and were early and sensitive indices of pollution.

AChE inhibition is due to neurotoxicity of common pesticides but also of metals. It has consequences on locomotor behaviour (Engenheiro et al., 2001) and thus may affect processes which are important in life cycles: research of food, research of sexual partner, care of young, inducingpotential threat at the population level (Caquet & Lagadic, 2000, in Use of Biomarkers for Environmental Quality Assessment, Science Publ Inc, Enfield, USA). It is considered as a core biomarker and thus included in European Intercalibration programmes (BEQUALM).

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Christos Arvanitidis [arvanitidis@ns0.imbc.gr]

14/02/02

Dear colleagues,

1. I have downloaded literature info, available on ASFA, relevant to "indicators of environmental changes" (WP1). I am also looking for papers on the topic available on the Internet. I think we should know what is available, first, and try to propose, next.

2. Perhaps we should start thinking on alternative methodology for community studies other than "classical" classification and ordination methods. Ecological cladistics may offer another insight to the analyses of the ecological data. Moreover, it could be taken as the "multivariate equivalent" of the indices incorporating phylogenetic info in the species distribution (TAXDEST). The method has been applied, tested and suggested a long time ago. Relevant literature:

Lambshead, P.J.D & G.L.J. Paterson, 1986. Journal of Natural History, 20: 895-909. Bellan-Santini, D., J.-C. Dauvin & G. Bellan, 1994. Oceanological Acta, 17: 331-340. Harvey, P.H., 1996. Journal of Animal Ecology, 65: 255-263.

I hope this helps.

Best wishes,

Christos.

Marcin Weslawski [weslaw@iopan.gda.pl]

13/02/02

Dear All, Some comments for the indicators of biodiversity (1) and scale (2)

1) The indicator will be used for "species richness" - number of species/taxa in given area, not the diversity per se "number of taxa related to number of individuals and samples" , since it is the public-political concern for species richness not for the species distribution. The species as basic tool is essential, and can not be replaced by broad categories. The "all taxa inventories" are feasible in few limited areas only, hence the more simple tool - bioindicator is needed for wide use. The bioindicator should be a pan-european and easy to use. It must be a groups of species or higher taxon, that has close relation to species richness in their area of occurrence. The taxon shall be a brooder, with no pelagic larvae that may cause rapid changes in occurrence, dispersal or breeding success. The taxon shall be a conspicious, well known, easy to identify, impossible to ommit during sorting - anything larger than 5mm.

The indicator taxon shall inhabit all habitats, depths, regions, and represent clear percentage of local fauna. My candidate for biodiversity monitoring tool are Malacostraca- crustacea, speciouse group representing 5 to 15% of European marine macrofauna species pool, wide spread brooders. The rough estimation shows that for 300 species pool in Baltic there are 40 Malacostraca taxa, in Svalbard shelf among 1800 macrofauna species there are 200 Malacostracans etc.......

2) now the problem of scale Looking on the map of Europe divided into 1000x1000km squares, we may fill each of the 36 squares with colour, more intense for more species in given 1000.000km2 unit. And the winner is........ probably square situated in Northern East Mediterranean with some 3500 taxa. If we want to have the smallest area, representing the highest percentage of European Marine Fauna, than stop in this one place. Does it mean we need not to study the pale square at NE corner of Europe on the Baltic Sea ? Look now for the different scale, like 50x50km - something of the "flagship" size, and have the scale of given geo-hydrological unit, say Baltic. We shall see, that among vast areas of "no diverse" sea, there are few 50x50km squares of intense colour, small areas containing very high percentage of local (Baltic) fauna. This are key areas for the regional biodiversity, and that is why they are important in pan-european scale. The monitoring of european biodiversity have to be based on the regional patterns, different in Mediterranean and in Baltic, the 60 species per m2 for Mediteranean is probably poor habitat, but for Baltic its a lot, a spot representing 20% of regional fauna, worth protection, monitoring and research. For the Crete meeting I shall have some pictures illustrating the scale problem. cheers jmarcin

Bella Galil [galil@post.tau.ac.il]

13/02/02

Good Morning all: Returning to WG2 - Which exotic taxa are the priority (Mediterranean perspective)? - follow the most dynamic spp in each of three categories: mariculture-transferred, ship-transported and IWP exotics. Understanding the dynamics within the first few years of arrival/introduction may be helpful in informing us on the possible impact.

Usefulness of genetic studies (exotics)? - Molecular techniques had been used to identify the home range of the exotic and its invasion route (Carcinus, Bagley & Geller, 2000), and the infamous Caulerpa. Genetic studies offer an important tool in identifying cryptic invasions - in the Mediterranean probably some of the ubiquitous fouling taxa. They are useful too in discerning the nature of the invasion: size of founding population, determining whether it was a single incursion or multiple arrivals - important for better management and, hopefully, helpful in prevention of further invasions.

I join with those voicing the need for better "systematics" - here is a cautionary tale we would do well to heed: Asterias amurensis, native to the northern Pacific was first collected (and misidentified as a native species) in Hobart, Tasmania,in 1986. Only years later, when its population exploded and harm done, was this large shellfish predator correctly identified.

Additions to the "key spp" categories: A. noncharismatic autogenic ecosystem engineers like crustose coralline algae, vermetid gastropods, sponges. B. allogenic engineers - like burrowing callianasid and alpheid shrimps - much depleted due to trawl-fishing on soft bottoms.

Thank you.

Bella Galil

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Bella Galil [galil@post.tau.ac.il]

12/02/02

Quoting indicators@biomareweb.org:

Over the past two weeks I have enjoyed the logic, rhetoric and the occasional poetic expression in the diverse contributions to the e-conference.

A perusal of the CIESM Atlas of exotic species in the Mediterranean, and the manuscript I attached, will establish that the greatest number of invaders into the Mediterranean are thermophilic species - i.e. the recent finds of the crab Percnon gibbesi in the Balearic Is., Sicily and islands nearby. I am convinced that the sudden influx of IWP exotic decapods & stomatopod into the southeastern Aegean in the past decade is to be attributed to the augmented salinity and to the more extensive inflow of the asia Minor Current (as consequence of the Eastern Mediterranean Transient) transporting warm, saline waters of levantine origin and their biota through the Rhodes & Karpathos Straits. In short (alluding to J.P. & Maia's requests) - autochthonous and allochthonous thermophilic spp would make good markers for termal change. 

Bella Galil

Richard Warwick [rmw@mail.pml.ac.uk]

12/02/02

I am working in New Zealand at the moment, and unfortunately I have not been able to follow the indicators e-mail debate in the detail that I would have liked. However, since “taxonomic distinctness” is explicitly mentioned under WG1, I felt that I should give some details of the method in the suggested format.

1. Name: Taxonomic distinctness
2. Origin: recent review in: Warwick, R.M. and Clarke, K.R. (2001). Practical measures of marine biodiversity based on relatedness of species. Oceanogr. mar. Biol. an. Rev. 39: 207-231.
3. Brief, but informative, summary of technique These are measures of the taxonomic spread of species, rather than the numbers of species. They are independent of sample size and sampling effort, they can be used with simple non-quantitative species lists, and there are possibilities of testing for representativeness using permutation tests. Average taxonomic distinctness (AvTD) is a measure of the average degree to which species in an assemblage are related to each other. Variation in taxonomic distinctness (VarTD) is a measure of the degree to which certain taxa are over- or under-represented in samples. For both indices, a simple permutation test of the hypothesis that the species inventory has a taxonomic structure that is representative of the full biodiversity can be constructed. These measures are beginning to find application in broad scale geographical comparisons of biodiversity, in environmental impact assessment and in evaluation of surrogates for biodiversity estimation.
4. Geographic scale(s) that are compatible All scales from single samples to regional (whatever that means!)
5. Possible targets (what is the goal of such an inventory) Broad-scale comparisons of diversity where the sampling effort, methodology etc have not bee standardised.
6. Data needed Simple non-quantitative species lists
7. Assessment of likely availability of data There is an enormous amount of data in the literature of this type, which by using more conventional species richness measures is not amenable to biodiversity analysis.
8. Cost involved (by action, by year, …) Cheap – especially if surrogates can be used, e.g. death assemblages of molluscs washed up on sandy beaches.
9. Human resources involved Not much
10. Human resources required Not much
11. Data generated (are they real, hypothetical, modelled?) Real
12. Time frame Fast
13. Examples of implementation, … if existing Indices have been applied to data on nematodes, demersal fish, corals, macrobenthos, molluscs (see Warwick & Clarke 2001 for references)
14. Points in favour: fast, cheap, accurate predictions, provides a manual for biodiversity managers, provides data compatible for collating information, applicable for all seas in Europe, data are directly comparable with other sites assessed by different methods.
15. Points against: none that I can think of.
16. Appraisals ?
17. Literature: See Warwick & Clarke 2001 for review of applications.

Richard Warwick

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Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

12/02/02

dear Wulf 

We are natural historians. and historians are scientists anyway. I speak about weak predictions, as opposed to the so called strong inference. I dispute that popperian logic can apply to our sciences and that prediction power is the only measure to test the value of what we do. it is philosophy, I know, but we cannot embrace a philosophy without discussing philosophically... of course if temperature rises we are going towards tropicalisation, this is a weak prediction. can we predict how many tropical species will arrive? and what will they be? let's be serious! did we predict mnemiopsis in the black sea? and after that, was it feasible to predict beroe cucumis, who ate mnemiopsis? this is the type of change we are facing. of course, once we detect a trend we can go on and predict that it will lead somewhere. but it is like driving a car by looking in the rear mirror. everything goes smoothly if the road is straight or the curves develop regularly, at the first irregularity we go out. we can infer about the future by looking at the past. developing then models that predict the future from past patterns. take the last figure of the enclosed paper. there are 25 years of records of fisheries. there is the total and the trends of the most important species. find a model that predicts the behaviour of the species (the total is almost constant) it is easy, take the first 20 years and predict the last five years. if you can do it, I will believe predictability. people are trying to do it with the stock exchange, with much stronger tools than ours. you see the result on tv every day: failure! you speak about keystones. we do not know about keystones! the mussel beds of paine are more diverse than the algal beds that developed without the keystone! we do not know about planktonic keystones, and it is very difficult to make experiments and test hypotheses in most marine environments. so we go on taking extreme environments (the intertidal is an extreme environment) that are easy to manipulate and then build up our models after them. because we test hypotheses. our science, I repeat, is a science of existential statements, an experiment in one place can demonstrate that a certain phenomenon occurs, not that it is general (it would be in a science of universal statements). I am speaking about diversity, you are speaking about unity! yes, I concur that we must find some unity in this diversity, but we have to be aware that life is a baroque achievement of nature, if you take a baroque painting and try to reduce it to a painting of piet mondrian, you do not do justice to the baroque painter. maybe we can try to remove redundancy from the painting, because we like simplicity. but, hey, you are manipulating the painting! you cannot remove the background of Mona Lisa and concentrate on her smile. Leonardo would be very angry! can we predict evolution? yes, people want predictions from us, and so we try. it is a hopeless task. I repeat, meteorologists demonstrated mathematically with the theory of chaos that, over a certain term, weather predictions are impossible. and weather influences ecology. if we cannot predict the weather over a medium term (with precision, I mean) then we cannot predict its effects. why try to do something that is impossible? it is like keeping trying to find the stone that transforms lead into gold, or perpetual motion. once you find that it is impossible, you keep working at things that are possible. of course, of course, the kyoto protocol is based on the prediction that if we go on like this, things will collapse. I am happy with the general prediction. but if we predict that in five and a half years things will be in a given state, and then this does not happen, then we will lose credibility. when the pinatubo volcano erupted, meteorologists predicted a drastic climate change. no way! their prediction failed. now they are more careful, much more careful. the failures of others should be of some help for us. if you ask to the guys in physics what was there before the big bang, they tell you that this is not a question! we have a lot to give, why trying to give what we cannot give? and we cannot not because we are stupid, but because it is impossible. it is in the realm of irreducible ignorance! sorry to be so pedantic, but these issues are to be made very clear if we want to have a common ground of discussion so to set our goals. we can describe the scenario, show trends and attempt weak predictions. we cannot predict episodic events that can perturbate the system. and life is full of such episodic events and perturbations. do we agree on this? a posteriori we can explain them (like the twin towers affair)..... the guys who make predictions on tv are astrologists, the future tellers... 

your turn nando

SNG Greve [wgreve@meeresforschung.de]

12/02/02

Dear Nando,

I share your criticism of many attempts to be predictive but it is the only way to test the credibility of our hypotheses. We are not "historians" if asked to work on global change issues but scientists who extract basic relationships from a very, very complex system. There is a difference in adding further and further descriptions to the existing mess (?) and the dedication to the development of testable hypotheses. We already can predict communities at certain locations, and we will be able to predict community changes under e.g. thermal modifications. But this discipline needs much more development. And it cannot be done to every population especially the rare-ones which have a higher value to classical biodiversity researchers (taxonomy is an important focus), it should be done to the keystone species if we know how top-down and bottom-up controls interfer. In each case functional biodiversity will deliver the controls to be incorporated into our predictive models which will have functional, statistical or just biologically logic elements. And it is these predcitive models we are expected to deliver in order to enable decision makers to sustain marine ecosystems under global change stress . But let´s discuss the subject further.

Best wishes

Wulf

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

12/02/02

dear all

I would like to comment on this: "There seem to be two incompatible goals which stand for different aims of research: the description of the system (1), the analysis of the system (2) and the prediction of future system behaviour (3). All three need (possibly separate) networks of European excellence and a specifically focussed approach." I think that the description and the analysis of the system might be the same thing (as a matter of fact the sentence speaks about wo goals that then become three). the description regards structure (the species and their relative abundances) and the function (who does what). both things are complementary. the concept of keystone species gives great importance to non abundant predators. sometimes they might be evident (like the starfish of paine) sometimes they might be tiny and play their role in strange ways (like the meiobenthos feeding on resting stages or the tiny jellyfish feeding on fish larvae and eggs). detecting putative keystones means to have a full appreciation of the species that are out there and also of what they do. keystones are detected a posteriori. if we look just at structural and obvious species we will not find most putative keystones. but I repeat the same thing over and over again. I am very worried about predictions. Ecology is a historical discipline. we go into philosophy again, sorry. we are natural historians. and historians are not asked to predict history. they are asked to describe past history and to explain why things happened in that way. they can depict scenarios, but they do not dare making predictions from equations. it is impossible. chaos theory demonstrated it also for our disciplines. the historians who try to make predictions are the economists. they fail all the time. their predictions are very loose, and there is not a magic algorhythm allowing to predict what will happen at time one while knowing what happened at time zero. the variables are too many, and dividing the system into subsystems for ease of analysis is not possible, ecology is characterised by emerging properties. nobody predicted the 11th of september. even though it was easy to predict that with this policy the western world is looking for trouble! I have weak predictions about what will happen in italy with this berlusconi story. but nobody can predict what will happen in one or two years. I concur that italian politics can be more complicate than a complex ecosystem but I hope you got what I mean. Our ecological predictions can be loose: if we inject an overload of nutrients in a basin we can have an increase in production. but we cannot predict what will be the species that will cause this increase. they can be diatoms, dinoflagellates, or even jellyfish with symbiotic zooxanthellae, as it happened in a Spanish lagoon (see the case study in the workshop account on gelatinous plankton that I sent around one or two messages ago). it is paradoxical to ask our students to know mathematics and statistics better than biology. so to be predictive. this is a blind alley. at present, throughout the world, biology and ecology students study more mathematics than zoology and botany. then they speak about biodiversity from a mathematical point of view. I have nothing against mathematics and statistics, but I dare to say that knowing the organisms is as important as knowing indexes. and numbering unknown objects is leading us to wrap our merchandise in a nice package, but what is inside is not as nice. this will be discovered sooner or later. I go for a nice package with a nice content. let's be very careful when we sell predictions, then it is easy to see if they happened or not. look at the guys in fisheries.... 

all the best nando

Sabine Cochrane [Sabine.Cochrane@akvaplan.niva.no]

12/02/02

Hello again, Just to clarity my intentions a bit further:

It's maybe useful to distinguish process and product. Or at least clarify what we aim for.

In my suggestion, I was in no way imagining that we would have a finished end-product ready, with definitive lists of indicators and things to monitor in different circumstances. Of course this is way beyond our scope.

However, as I understand our scope, we could present a tool concept outline within which to put our ideas as they develop. This tool development could be considered a product in itself. The scientific part of these kinds of ventures is an eternally ongoing process, which is as it should be.

Cheers, Sabine

Christos Arvanitidis [arvanitidis@ns0.imbc.gr]

12/02/02

Cher Jean-Pierre, This is an outstanding piece of work, which helps a lot to understand processes and tools for the study of genetic diversity in marine organisms, even for people who are not working in the field. Thank you. 

Cordially, Christos.

Doris Schiedek [doris.schiedek@io-warnemuende.de]

11/02/02

Dear All

I am also very much in favour to come up with well-defined deliverables and I think Sabine's suggestions lead into the same direction as the BIOMARE PROTOCOL ON BIOINDICATORS we first talked about during the Sopot meeting. At the end of the meeting Herman Hummel came up with a flow chart which was further developed and presented again during the Mallorca workshop. "The system is developed to present the results of the BIOMARE concerted action to the end-users (policymakers, specialists involved in management and nature conservation etc.) in a usable format. In the decision system, a grid of indicators can be chosen relevant for the specified level(s) of organization and spatial and temporal scales. The concept is a 3D grid (multi-layer) of multiple choice decision steps, which eventually lead to a set of suitable bio-indicators for the set task(s) of the end-user. The proposed model is compatible with the modern ways of communication (Internet), and can be published via a website or CDROM" (see Soport Report page 32/33),

I think Sabine's ideas would fit perfectly into this scheme and then it probably could be called BIOMARE PROTOCOL ON BIODIVERSITY. However, in my opinion it seems to be very ambitious to have such a general protocol already finished at the end of the concerted action. Having in mind the main instruments of the 6th framework as being 1. Network of Excellence and 2. Integrated Projects, we probably should start to think about how to fit the development of such an interactive tool into one or both of these two activities-

As Wulf Greve has stated in his message "There seem to be two incompatible goals which stand for different aims of research: the description of the system (1), the analysis of the system (2) and the prediction of future system behaviour (3). All three need (possibly separate) networks of European excellence and a specifically focussed approach."

I fully agree with him that this could be goals to be reached but maybe the aims are in fact not so different that they may fit under one umbrella (into one network) but with several subunits. The "specially focussed approach" he mentioned could be an integrated project.. Something which probably has to be further discussed during the regional meetings.

Best regards Doris Schiedek

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Jean-Pierre FERAL [feral@obs-banyuls.fr]

11/02/02

Dear colleagues

1/ An article I wrote entitled < How useful are the genetic markers in attempts to understand and manages marine biodiversity > has just come out to JEMBE. It mainly concerns infraspecific diversity. However, it summarizes genetic tools and also deals with the perispecific level. Most examples are taken from the results of the French network on marine diversity. It may help the discussion of WG3. In this article, after a definition of genetic diversity among other aspects of biodiversity, special features of the marine environment and processes governing genetic diversity are given together with the molecular tools required to study it. Then, an overview of scientific questions in marine biodiversity research is given concerning: +the population structure as a function of dispersal systems and spatial constraints: gene flow and speciation in a dispersive environment, +the phylogeography and historical biogeography of marine ecosystems; +the functional and adaptive aspects of polymorphism: larval phase and genetic control of recruitment. Some uses of genetic diversity for assessment, conservation and protection purposes are also detailed.

2/ Concerning the indice proposed by Herman, it's a bit new to say it's good or bad. In any case it's a nice idea to try to have such an indice, but it must be tested. FST gives an idea of the occurence of a genetic structuration among populations. I'm not sure I understand (but others probably did) what represents a sum of FST at different distances. Another point is that it is better to work with indices varying between 0 and 1. If not, it will be difficult to predict. And, I certainly miss something, but in the given example, I do not understand how such an indice may be superior to 3 by summing 3 indices which can have a value between 0 and 1 ? If I agree that there is a need of new genetic indices to work with biodiversity, I think that the context of BIOMARE is perhaps not the best place to test them or to test any very new things in general. I'm actually not against any new indicator, however I feel that we need to propose indicators that have been published and that are very well experimented. All of that depends of the end users. A thing which is quite sure is that most new things will be very welcome in the programs that will follow (pathologic optimism ?) BIOMARE. A solution may be to present these new things as a result of BIOMARE, but perhaps not systematically included in the grids of indicators we have to produce. To circulate a bibliography of the use of FST for biodiversity purposes would also be of great help.

Jean-Pierre FERAL

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

11/02/02

Dear All 

I think that this approach is very fruitful (thanks Sabine) and it is to be implemented with what Doris suggested. Again, I doubt that we really know what are the geographic limits of most species, but Doris' idea is VERY nice. If a species is somewhere just at the edge of its limits of tolerance, then it will answer quickly to changes: disappearing if the conditions become harsher, possibly increasing if the conditions become more favourable. But then we have to be sure that a species is really at its limit of distribution. maybe it might thrive somewhere and be simply outcompeted by another species, once this one declines (maybe for some disease) the other species might become suddenly abundant. to perform these things we have to know natural history VERY well, and I am not so confident that we do. but the idea is worth pursuing. it might be the early warning that we are looking for. to do this, though, we need to know the distribution of the target species, their environmental requirements and their interactions with other species. and we need to know the history of the biota. Just to give an idea, I work on hard bottoms and just the hydroids are usually between 50 and 100 species at particularly rich sites. sponges are twice as abundant, and so do bryozoans. at the end, it is easy to measure biodiversity where there are few species (e.g. the Baltic) wereas it is more difficult where biodiversity is very high (e.g. the med). I do not think that there is a one size fits all way to study biodiversity, this is a problem. it is intrinsic in the word diversity. we need to distinguish geographically, by biotopes, by taxa. but the way is the one Sabine and Doris showed, in my opinion. I am sorry, I am not a computer wizard, so I cannot "play" with Sabine's proposal. just have a look here, though: http://siba2.unile.it/ctle/hydro/index.php3 it is a search engine for hydrozoan literature. it contains more than 14000 records. and is indexed also by genera. I am working now at having scanned all the papers with species descriptions (the original descriptions first) and to have them available in pdf format. this will help those who want to know what are the components of biodiversity. bibliographic information is the key issue on these topics. we have to build databases that are freely available, like that very nice manual I have downloades last week. the thing is taking shape, I am glad 

nando

Attachment

SNG Greve [wgreve@meeresforschung.de]

11/02/02

Dear all,

the discussion is picking up speed and I would like to support Ferdinando Boero with respect to taxonomic rigorosity in biodiversity research. I would also like to support Doris Schiedek with respect to detecting functional biodiversity especially in the field of biometeorology. There seem to be two incompatable goals which stand for different aims of research: the description of the system (1), the analysis of the system (2) and the prediction of future system behaviour (3). All three need (possibly separate) networks of European excellence and a specifically focussed approach. As to the prediction of system behaviour we should do so and introduce iterative processes to improve our capacity in this respect. So far only temperature control renders an acceptable correlation coefficient at least in some cases. The fact, that trophic paradigms have prevented unbiassed regular sampling requires a re-orientation now. As in terrestrial biometeorology we will have to develop a public private partnership in order to obtain the required system information. We are using "ships of opportunity" in the CPR program, we must activate "people of opportunity" now, as professional marine biology itself must concentrate on the three topics mentioned. I add a draft of a starting network (EMBN) trying to activate such cooperation in a pilot study. You got the basic information in Palma already. I think it should be part of the 6th framework.

Wulf Greve

Jean VACELET [jvacelet@com.univ-mrs.fr]

11/02/02

Sabine's message (congratulations, this appears at leats clearer now): A very short comment. Did we decide to exclude metaphytes ? Restriction to metazoans would exclude many species, including very important structuring species.

At 09:48 11/02/02 +0000, you wrote:

WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY? Let's not reiterate the Rio statements (but maybe include a link). Let's instead make our statement for BIOMARE. For example - For this project, we consider biodiversity to include all metazoan animals (friendly link to define metazoa for non-biologists), the range of animals (diversity - link to mention the different types of diversity), their population structure and the factors that influence these.

Jean Vacelet

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

11/02/02

Dear All

 I think that this approach is very fruitful (thanks Sabine) and it is to be implemented with what Doris suggested. Again, I doubt that we really know what are the geographic limits of most species, but Doris' idea is VERY nice. If a species is somewhere just at the edge of its limits of tolerance, then it will answer quickly to changes: disappearing if the conditions become harsher, possibly increasing if the conditions become more favourable. But then we have to be sure that a species is really at its limit of distribution. maybe it might thrive somewhere and be simply outcompeted by another species, once this one declines (maybe for some disease) the other species might become suddenly abundant. to perform these things we have to know natural history VERY well, and I am not so confident that we do. but the idea is worth pursuing. it might be the early warning that we are looking for. to do this, though, we need to know the distribution of the target species, their environmental requirements and their interactions with other species. and we need to know the history of the biota. Just to give an idea, I work on hard bottoms and just the hydroids are usually between 50 and 100 species at particularly rich sites. sponges are twice as abundant, and so do bryozoans. at the end, it is easy to measure biodiversity where there are few species (e.g. the Baltic) wereas it is more difficult where biodiversity is very high (e.g. the med). I do not think that there is a one size fits all way to study biodiversity, this is a problem. it is intrinsic in the word diversity. we need to distinguish geographically, by biotopes, by taxa. but the way is the one Sabine and Doris showed, in my opinion. I am sorry, I am not a computer wizard, so I cannot "play" with Sabine's proposal. just have a look here, though: http://siba2.unile.it/ctle/hydro/index.php3 it is a search engine for hydrozoan literature. it contains more than 14000 records. and is indexed also by genera. I am working now at having scanned all the papers with species descriptions (the original descriptions first) and to have them available in pdf format. this will help those who want to know what are the components of biodiversity. bibliographic information is the key issue on these topics. we have to build databases that are freely available, like that very nice manual I have downloades last week. the thing is taking shape, I am glad

 nando

Sabine Cochrane [Sabine.Cochrane@akvaplan.niva.no]

10/02/02

Dear Biomare group,

Firstly thank you all for your thought-provoking inputs and also for the reminder to produce something tangible for WP2 "bioindicators". As moderator of the environmental change workgroup, I now try to suggest a way to do so.

Ok - I'm going to attempt to compile your general ideas, together with what we managed to come up with in Palma, into a skeleton suggestion for the deliverable. I know we had a working concept in Palma, but I'd like to start this from another angle, and it will lead to the original concept, so please bear with me. I prefer to have input on the scenario and questions asked, before defining monitoring strategy. I think we all got a bit stuck on this in Palma (or at least I did.... )

I'm toying with the idea to describe a bit of the background and qualifyers to the topic of biodiversity. This is to give the end user a summary of the problems and prevent unrealistic expectations. There will be no one method that will do the job for all questions, or all geographic areas. In parallel there is a series of links for the end user to follow - guiding him/her to the appropriate strategy for the pertinent question.

It's difficult to present here exactly what I imagine, in 2 dimentional form, but I'm keeping the concept of the interactive web page, with a start page, and a series of clickable units. These clickables I'll write in CAPITALS. Then each of these will be given a separate treatment, with more clickables within it.

Please - could this be made into at least a preliminary "clicky-tool", so we can see if it's worth following up on? Jean Pierre, can you arrange this?

I will not do justice to all the topics, so please, if you agree with the concept, but not with what I've noted under it, just write and tell how to improve it.

The reasons we got confused in Palma, I think, are because all the variables are inter-dependent, and none of them give a complete picture in themselves. I suggest starting with the big theme BIODIVERSITY (with our nice BIOMARE logo and some pictures of pieces of biodiversity). Yes, why not, let's make this visually appealing to our funding body!

Under there, we define PROJECT SCOPE (did we decide to limit this to metazoa?)

and:

WHAT IS BIODIVERSITY? Let's not reiterate the Rio statements (but maybe include a link). Let's instead make our statement for BIOMARE. For example - For this project, we consider biodiversity to include all metazoan animals (friendly link to define metazoa for non-biologists), the range of animals (diversity - link to mention the different types of diversity), their population structure and the factors that influence these.

BIODIVERSITY AS A MONITORING TOOL - links to some of the main uses for biodiversity monitoring - climate change (taxa at limits of distribution etc), pollution or disturbance studies, natural variation assessment etc etc

WHAT INFLUENCES BIODIVERSITY? (here I think of listing what makes the biodiversity in an area what it is, with a brief description under each, suitable for administrators. This may seem overlaboured to us, but I think end users may appreciate it)

- WATER MASS(ES) -TEMPERATURE -SALINITY -GEOGRAPHICAL ZONE -HABITAT -ANTHROPOGENIC IMPACT

Then a link to INDICATORS OF BIODIVERSITY (some of these will cross-link to the above) I think here we need first to look at indicators of "expected biodiversity", and this will largely be determined by a combination of the above:

The user is given a series of options to cross off: for starters: different water bodies (or mixes thereof) Temperature ranges (water column or bottom water???) easily identifiable biogeographical zones (eg Boreal, Arctic etc, also giving an option for transition areas) HABITAT- click on ... SOFT BOTTOM, HARD-BOTTOM, SEAGRASS BED etc etc. Then these are sub-divided according to existing habitat classifications Sedimentation info Human impact, such as nearby aquaculture, municipal waste, benthic trawling etc)

Under each of these then are expected biodiversity information DIVERSITY INDICES (care, care!!! - ref. also to Carlo-paper) TAXONOMIC DISTINCTNESS (I think this might show some relation to habitat?) DOMINANT TAXA (possible, I think - ) MISSING TAXA - an absolute must for environmental assessment! STRUCTURING TAXA (in seagrass habitats this is obvious, otherwise things like abundant digging prawns, large burrowing invertebrates etc etc - we have lots of suggestions for these, I prefer to stick to main structure for this round) TROPHIC/ BIOTURBATORY NICHES KNOWN CONTAMINANT LOADS please add more ......

Each of these topics can be clicked on to see some supplementary information.

Example: If you follow my line of thinking - I imagine for example clicking off a description of the site I want to monitor - eg. it's a mix of arctic and atlantic water, with a cold bottom water mass, seasonally variable salinity, frequented by trawlers, fine muddy bottom.....

Somehow, some computer genius amongst us makes an information filtering system, which then provides me with the following information (please expand on the information I'll miss):

My site is expected to contain: -low diversity (shannon wiener between 2-3) -low taxonomic distinctness - mostly polychaete worms and bivalves in the sediment -dominant taxa are the worms (Chaetozone, Tharyx-like "things", Lumbrineris (small forms, not the big fragilis), Leitoscoloplos, Cossura and bivalves Thiasita group and nuculanids -echinoderms missing (indicator of sedimentary disturbance), also large structuring taxa that require stable sediment, tube-worms absent - dominant feeding mode is detritus feeders with a shallow, but active burrowing activity. All animals capable of re-establishing themselves rapidly after disturbance

-Here also comes the Calanus issue raised by Henn (relationship with contaminants). Salinity and water masses might predict this. In the arctic, we also have a nice tracer of water masses, using the finmarchicus/glacialis ratio.

- more... please add your areas of expertise. Jan Marcin and I were discussing the project last week and he has some good input that I think could go here.

REFERENCES - to case studies, reports etc that have provided such information

OK - Here we have an "expected" situation, based on our knowledge of such habitats. This is a super resource for us to build up - we all have intuitive knowledge of out pet habitats, so lets join up the dots!

Now we have the QUESTIONS What do we want to ask about our site that we have described to the computer, and got an expected scenario out of (excuse the grammar, I'm thinking hard here..).

- SUSTAINABLE? eg for aquaculture areas - am I loading this site within its tolerance/ natural break-down capacity? - HAS IT CHANGED? -state what you are interested in - climate (ie water temperature etc), biodiversity, taxon composition, taxon inventory etc. -WHAT IS THE GENETIC DIVERSITY? - here comes Herman's input -OTHER QUESTIONS ???

The user will then be told that he/she needs to have BENCHMARK information.

Here you can list appropriate things to monitor and appropriate means of doing so. Aha - here we arrive at the "strategy" page already on the site. The examples given here are biased to my own field, so please add your own.

examples. IS MY AQUACULTURE SITE OVERLOADED? IS TINYTOWN HARBOUR POLLUTED? MAPPING BIOTA OF AREA X and so on...

the user will have to describe BOTTOM TYPE - if SOFT BOTTOM - methodology will be visual (diver or remote photography) and/or grab(core sampling -if HARD BOTTOM - methodology will be visual.

then - scope of monitoring -quick "look-see" (shall we call that a reconnaissance, or overview survey?) -scientific project -etc

This will provide a pointer to MONITORING STRATEGY - ie LONG-TERM or SHORT-TERM. Actually, most short-term studies are part of a chain - if results indicate threshold conditions, the user is told to conduct another more detailed survey, thereafter a series of follow-up surveys. These issues usually are prescribed by regional/national authorities.

The questions, site description and temporal scale of the survey will then dictate the MONITORING PARAMETERS --plankton -semi-quantitative or rapid assessment of benthos -fully quantitative benthic assessment -genetic analyses of selected taxa -etc etc. (more please)

Then, another cross link back to QUESTIONS -if we chose HAS IT CHANGED? the user is told to compare with PREVIOUS DATA if available (and here we can link to other resources in the future, such as MarLin, ICES North Sea Benthos Project, Brattegard & Holthe information on biogeography etc). IMaybe also a link to other information, or just tell the user to look in biological abstracts etc. (commercial hat on now - better still, tell the end user to get a consultant to compile information for him ;-)

Yippee! Now comes the fun bit - tools to compare past and present situation. The scope of this again depends on the questions. back to the TOOLS above (eg dominant taxa, taxonomic distinctness etc) -- then give some hints as to how these should be interpreted

This approach is extremely compatible with GIS and modelling tools.

***********************************

WARNING - we must make sure we find the right balance between providing information and prescribing action. Simple assessments can be made by end users themselves, but always we must recommend that monitoring is carried out by qualified (and standardised) organisations, or we end up in monitoring red-neck territory again. This is after all why we have applied scientists drawing together scientific knowledge to meet the needs of users, following all sorts of standards and accreditation schemes. Doing otherwise carries the risk of misleading information. And also means people like me are out of a job...

BUT - at the same time, our aim MUST be to remove some of the mystique of what scientists do, make this appealing for end-users (in a broad sense - schools might also benefit). Maybe (with a stretch of imagination) we just might contribute to recruitment into the field too.

********************************

If someone could make this idea interactive, I'm sure we will be able to knock it into an acceptable format, and then slot in all the many great examples of indicators already received from the group. I haven't mentioned them all, or any in detail, because I believe we should make the tool first, then put in the approaches.

I also believe this concept is "doable" within our time framework. If the group agrees with the suggestion, perhaps it could be made interactive before the Horta meeting, then we could divide into groups and slot in our favourite tools.

Thanks again for your inspirations and ideas. I hope the above is useful. On the other hand, if everybody hates it, then there will come a better suggestion pretty soon!

with best wishes to you all, Sabine

Doris Schiedek [doris.schiedek@io-warnemuende.de]

08/02/02

here are some ideas from Warnemünde..

# The biological effects of which precise environmental changes do we want to measure (temperature changes, changes in seasonal patterns, interaction of climate changes with other environmental changes)? Why and what to monitor (which target?)

The overall aim should be to estimate effects of climate change on biodiversity and the interaction with other environmental changes. This will include temperature changes and possible changes in seasonal pattern. This is of high scientific and political relevance. Why to monitor?? What to monitor, see next question:

#Which taxa are appropriate to survey on long term of global changes and with which method for studying: Changes in biodiversity. Which habitats have to be covered? Spatial and temporal scale of the survey? · Key species population dynamics (possibly keystone, long-lived and sensible taxa) · Species at their limit of distribution (bathymetric and geographic) · Changes in the seasonal distribution (migration) · The effect on the physiology, reproduction, life cycles

long living sessil taxa , i.e. bivalves - (e. g. Macoma balthica or Mytilus), not only because I work with them. Shells could provide information regarding changes in environmental conditions (Arctica would be very useful as "tree of the sea", at least in the Northern part of Europe.) in addition, most bivalves are large enough to measure also effects on physiology, reproduction. I could imagine that in southern Europe there are some other suitable sessil species...

zooplankton to follow for instance changes in seasonal distribution of dominant species changes in composition

probably some key fish species e.g. changes in distribution pattern, stock size, reproduction period

·Changes in biodiversity. Which habitats have to be covered? Spatial and temporal scale of the survey? No general answer possible, since it very much depends on the ecosystem. In the Baltic, for example, salinity gradient would be one key factor when defining the spatial scale whereas in other ecosystems other factors are of greater importance (hard bottom versus soft bottom etc.)

I am very much in favour with the concept of monitoring species at their limit of distribution (bathymetric and geographic). The Baltic could offer suitable habitats to apply this concept in regard to geographic distribution. One key factor determining species distribution is salinity. Due to the low number of species changes in diversity are easier to follow. Additional anthropogenic impacts (changes in temperature, pollution effects) should therefore be recognisable.

So much for now.

Doris

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

08/02/02

this is very useful I will try to condense my views and proposals point by point.

New questions to answer for WG1 through the electronic forum: Indicators of environmental changes (Moderator: Sabine Cochrane, Rapporteur: Chris Emblow) # The biological effects of which precise environmental changes do we want to measure (temperature changes, changes in seasonal patterns, interaction of climate changes with other environmental changes)? Why and what to monitor (which target?) #Which taxa are appropriate to survey on long term of global changes and with which method for studying: · Changes in biodiversity. Which habitats have to be covered? Spatial and temporal scale of the survey? · Key species population dynamics (possibly keystone, long-lived and sensible taxa) · Species at their limit of distribution (bathymetric and geographic) · Changes in the seasonal distribution (migration) · The effect on the physiology, reproduction, life cycles

of course for this we have to know the initial state, the one that we consider as "the good one". I speak now for hard bottom substrates, since I am more familiar with these. Long-lived species, in hard bottom benthos, are also evident and easy to monitor. think of gorgonians, sponges, big bryozoans. recently there have been mass mortalities of gorgonians in the ligurian sea, due to extremely high temperatures. of course these are good target species. even more recently, along the apulian coast, there has been a mass mortality of Sardinella aurita, due to extremely low temperatures for a series of days. what about blooming species? can we consider outbreaks as indices of something? I am not speaking about the seasonal blooms of plankton, but about episodic outbreaks of let's say jellyfish, dinoflagellates, ctenophores and othe plankters. we can have mass mortalities from one side and mass natalities from another side. these episodic events can re-direct the functioning of entire systems.

New questions to answer for WG2 through the electronic forum: Invasive species (autochtone and allochtone) (Moderator: Carlo Heip, Rapporteur: Ahmet Kideys) Which taxa (exotic or alloctone invaders) are the priority at local and European levels? Answer must be precise (which? why? how? how much?) What are their well-known effects on marine biodiversity? Usefulness of population (invasive species) dynamics studies? Usefulness of genetic variability studies? Which target taxa, which methods? How to measure their effect (invasive species) on marine biodiversity (shifting taxa, disease outbreaks, etc.)?

of course, in this pack, we have fast reproducing and potentially blooming species, such as dinoflagellates and jellies. the place that is more prone to invasion is the Mediterranean since it experiences tropical features in the warm season and temperate features in the cold season, so providing favourable conditions to two sets of possible invaders. invasions are currently going on both from suez and from gibraltar, plus the input of species carried by ships. the case of ctenophores in the black sea is paradigmatic. the med is surely a megalaboratory where the biota are subjected to monumental changes. we have several case studies (caulerpa, mnemiopsis, ropilema) that are striking, but there are much much more.

New questions to answer for WG3 through the electronic forum: Genetic and molecular diversity (Moderator: Herman Hummel, Rapporteur: Doris Schiedek) This aspect was addressed only by one person. Nobody else ? What about macro fauna and flora? What about the bioindicators to be used? The question is for each method cited, on which taxa should they be applied in order to obtain the most information on the changes occurring in biodiversity? Do we have to consider also genetic diversity per se? Is microbial diversity a reliable indicator of general biodiversity? (Here is also focused a more general problem: how to pass from a scale to another? micro-meio-macro) Do we have to take into account protection and conservation (e.g. genetic erosion)?

the book phylogeography, by Avise provides a very nice framework to trace the history of biodiversity with molecular markers, reconstructing the history of biota. in this way we can recontruct the routes of invasive species, find the boundaries of metapopulations, find source and sink areas for target species, and many other things. very few people are doing this in Europe. I would be much much interested in workshops and courses to build up expertise and laboratories in Europe, so to pursue this very important approach.

WG4: Methodologies (Moderator: Fred Buchholz, Rapporteur: Ricardo Santos) This aspect is also addressed in the other document sent to the regional coordinators. We wish to remind you that we have absolutely nothing on the rapid assessment methods although there is a very important need of such methods. These methods are based on the premise that certain aspects of biological diversity can be quantified without knowing the scientific names of the species involved. The main characteristic of RAM is the minimisation of the formal taxonomic content in the classification and identification of organisms. There are two type of methods by which this can be achieved: # Only those taxonomic levels needed to achieve the goals of the assessment in question are used. For example, if it is known from prior studies that the presence or absence of a particular taxon indicates disturbance or pollution, it may only be necessary to resolve the species collected at a site to the level of family or genus to ascertain environmental quality.

What happens if we discover that Capitella capitata is a set of sibling species with much different ecological requirements? Anyway, all this has nothing to do with bioDIVERSITY. We simply use species that indicate pollution.

# Only specimens that can be distinguished by easily observable morphological criteria are taken into account. The units of variety recorded by such a scheme may be called “morphospecies”, operational taxonomic units (OTUs), or recognisable taxonomic units (RTUs). Depending on whether operational procedures have been standardised and calibrated by conventional taxonomic measures, these units may or may not be less representative of natural biological variation than species per se. Biodiversity technicians trained by taxonomists may be used to separate specimens into RTUs. this is nice. technicians that do the sorting and taxonomists who identify species. I go for this. My question is: do we have these taxonomists? What is a taxonomist? a guy using a key to identify specimens? the problem here is that we will end up having lousy identifications backed by beautiful statistics. I am sympathetic with Charles Darwin who made a revision of barnacles because he heard a guy saying that one cannot speak about species while never having described one! the poor Charles spent ten years to build up a virginity so to be able to sign a book with "species" in the title. without defining what is a species. on the other hand, for non-Darwin people, I would call a taxonomist a person that has revised at least one taxon. The world is packed with identifiers of polychaetes, but the taxonomists are VERY few. most identifications of polychaetes are made by people who compare specimens to pictures and give names. the same happens in my business, the hydrozoa. two influential monographs are very widespread: Millard for South Africa and Naumov for USSR. the species described in these monographs are being found everywhere! now that Cornelius has pubished the synopsis of the British fauna, british species pop up everywhere too, replacing south-african and russian ones.

To be usable, the further propositions of RAM should follow the model below: 1/ Name of the RAM

you mean name of the species? I am confused. if it is the name of the species, see the above comment.

2/ Origin (basic literature, first article which described it, … if available) all these things are available to taxonomists, otherwise they are not taxonomists. once cannot be a taxonomist without having literature.

3/ Brief, but informative, summary of technique the technique used to identify the specimen? or the technique to implement the Rapid Assessment Method? according to this point, however, once the technician has sorted the RTU, the taxonomist should give them a name, right? the end product is: I assess biodiversity according to the available expertise. this is a great problem. if one measures physical variables, then he measures temperature, no matter what is the thermometer he will end up with the same result. with biodiversity, one says that meiofauna is the good one, another says sponges, another one says worms. guess what? the specialist of meiofauna says meiofauna, the specialist of worms says worms and so on. at the end the same thing "biodiversity" is expressed in many different ways. and there is not a single place in the world with a group of taxonomists that can identify properly all organisms. unless they do it as I described above. another question: are we sure that the species that are easy to identify are the ones that inform us properly about not only static but also dynamic biodiversity?

4/ Geographic scale(s) that are compatible 5/ Possible targets (what is the goal of such an inventory) 6/ Data needed 7/ Assessment of likely availability of data 8/ Cost involved (by action, by year, …) 9/ Human resources involved 10/ Human resources required 11/ Data generated (are they real, hypothetical, modelled?) 12/ Time frame 13/ Examples of implementation, … if existing 14/ Points for (e.g. fast, cheap, maps, accurate predictions, accurate estimation of population size, assign categories of threat to individual species, provides a manual for biodiversity managers, provide data compatible for collating information, …) 15/ Points against (e.g. [hugely] expensive, time consuming, invasive sampling, never used or used only in particular conditions, not applicable for all seas in Europe, data are only directly comparable with other sites assessed by precisely the same method, the relationships between biodiversity in different groups of sampled invertebrates and the others are not well understood) I think that our knowledge is much far behind the needed standards to be able to say such things. at least for some types of environment. to find something that is good for the baltic and for the mediterranean is probably an illusion.

16/ Appraisals 17/ Literature (reports on the application of the method, … if available). Concerning other types of methods to monitor biodiversity, the reading of "The Marine Monitoring Handbook" may be very useful. It addresses the principles behind, and the procedures for, monitoring the habitats and species within marine SACs in UK waters to assess their condition. These assessments are intended to fulfil the requirements of the EC Habitats and Species Directive and the UK's common standards for monitoring. The Handbook provides guidance on the different options and their relative costs and benefits and describes best practise through a series of procedural guidelines for the common survey/monitoring techniques. It draws on the information gathered from extensive trials of different techniques and their deployment undertaken during the UK Marine SACs project to ensure all advice has a sound practical basis. It can be consulted/downloaded at < http://www.jncc.gov.uk/marine/mmh/MMH_0601.pdf >.

I have seen this book. beautiful. I have passed to to all my colleagues. it implies, though, that one can recognize species. a little requisite that is often neglected. I work a lot on marine caves. The only big book on caves has been written by Rupert Riedl, in thick german. riedl identified the hydroid zones, using hydroids as indicators of conditions in the cave. you cannot detect hydroids from pictures, besides the big eudendrium at the entrance of the cave. if you are a cave specialist, you have to know the little hydroids, I dare to say. and of course sponges, bryozoans, serpulids and madreporarians.

You will also find attached a document proposed by Maïa MARINE BIODIVERSITY MONITORING. Monitoring protocol for marine benthos: Intertidal and subtidal macrofauna, which is A REPORT BY THE MARINE BIODIVERSITY MONITORING COMMITTEE (ATLANTIC MARITIME ECOLOGICAL SCIENCE COOPERATIVE, HUNTSMAN MARINE SCIENCE CENTRE) TO THE ECOLOGICAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT NETWORK OF ENVIRONMENT CANADA which is quite interesting and which can be discussed. The thinking of other scientists is always interesting.

I have read it. I found 90 species of hydroids on a 25 m high vertical wall in the Med, across a seasonal cycle. the number of 100 species in a sample is a gross underestimate of what we can find in rocky subtidal habitats. we can mask our lack of ability in identifying them with beautiful statistics. but the goodness of statistics is based on the goodness of the data you put in. my wife (Simonetta Fraschetti) has followed courses by Clarke and Warwick, I have organised here two courses given by Tony Underwood on these things, I fully concur with them that good statistics is an extremely powerful tool. I have invested time and money in having people trained in these topics. But good statistics coupled with lousy taxonomy (let's identify the easy ones and the hell with the other crap) gives.... you name it.

And for the last point, but not the least: Nobody proposed any indicator usable as an early warning of biodiversity change (decrease). Please, try to answer this particularly important point. If somebody has something to suggest at least equal or better than biomarkers, let us know. This is a big gap in our panel.

This depends on habitat types. let's take Posidonia meadows, the common seagrass in the med. you can take the number of leaves per bunch as a measure of the integrity of the meadow. but you can also take species that live on posidonia. again hydroids. there is a set of hydroids that live ONLY on the leaves of posidonia. these guys have short life cycles and presumably answer much faster than posidonia to environmental changes. posidonia is resistent, also due to its perennial habit. if the obligate hydroids disappear, you have a sign similar to that of the rats that leave the sinking ship. There are no formalised evaluations of this, though. the rationale might be: key species, those who have a strong strucutring and structural role, are often long lived and resistent to change. when they succumb, then it is too late to do something. early warnings can be provided by species with fast life cycles that live associated with them and that are not as resistent as they are. maybe they are resilient, and come back rapidly after the disturbance. we need to identify these species and make experiments on them, and field observations. in other words: if there is a threat to biodiversity, what are the most sensitive species? this has to be assessed environment by environment, while having prior knowledge of the resident biodiversity pool. sorry. there are no short cuts to this. if we speak about bioDIVERSITY, otherwise we have to invent another word. so we have to categorise habitats, like in that book above, also from a biogeographical point of view. identify community types, like what pérès and picard did in the med, with all the ameliorations of the case, and look for sensitive species there. to me, put mussels where they do not live, and then look how they are doing is not what I would do. finding these species, though, requires research. it might be one of the aims of the project.

Conclusion This is a lot, but we hope that the two next meetings in Heraklion and in Horta will be productive if they are actually very well prepared. Each institute involved should participate and the regional coordinators are supposed to prepare a synthesis (for their region) to be presented next Spring during these meetings.

Very cordially, Jean-Pierre & Maïa

anyway, just to say something original, nobody will ever convince me that biodiversity can be assessed without studying the diversity of life, but simply by identifying "some" species. Especially for the dynamic part of biodiversity. Yes, I like theoretical approaches. In the world of physics, saying OK let's put apart these nice theories now, and let's do some real work, would be taken as nonsense. good practice is to be based on sound theoretical ground. To me there is much much more to do on the theoretical side. and to me, again, theory is not producing formulas. I am speaking about theoretical natural history. reducing diversity is denying the value of diversity! before doing practice we have to be very much aware of the theory. I know that taxonomists still debate about what is a species, and we cannot wait for a nice definition to perform species description and identification. but this is not equal to disregard theoretical problems about what is diversity. 

your turn nando

sorry, I do not have access to oceanis. is it possible to circulate pdf copies of these articles? are they further steps in respect to magurran's book? all the best nando

Henn Ojaveer [henn@sea.ee]

08/02/02

Dear colleagues,

A few note for the WG1 below.

- Give indicators for specific impacts

Natural effects Salinity in the Gulf of Finland (Baltic Sea), formed as a function of saline water inflows from the Danish Straits and riverine freshwater inflows, and abundance of the copepod Pseudocalanus minutus elongatus: significant correlation for 1974-1992 (R2= 0.73).

Anthropogenic impacts: pollution Copepod biomass (dominating taxa Eurytemora hirundoides, Acartia spp) was remarkably lower in coastal areas of a small bay in the Gulf of Finland during heavy industrial pollution load (e.g., Fe, Cu, Mn, Mo, Zn, Ni, Th, Ti, U, As) in 1975-1987 than during the mean for the entire study period (1975-1992) which incorporates the years when pollution load has been reduced considerably. In the reference area (nearby unpolluted bay) such differences were not observed.

Source: Ojaveer, E, Lumberg, A., and Ojaveer, H. 1998. Highlights of zooplankton dynamics in Estonian waters. ICES Journal of Marine Science 55: 748-755.

Best wishes,

Henn Ojaveer

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Henn Ojaveer [henn@sea.ee]

08/02/02

Dear colleagues,

***Due to spelling errors of the e-mail address earlier, I'll resend the message to correct address***

please find attached copy of the paper (corrected proofs) that will be published this year. Although dealing to a large extent with freshwater environment, the paper is highly relevant to WG2 (invasive species) and might be of interest to many of you. Citation of the paper is:

Ojaveer, H., Leppäkoski, E., Olenin, S., and Ricciardi, A. 2002. Ecological impacts of Ponto-Caspian invaders in the Baltic Sea, European inland waters and the Great Lakes: an inter-ecosystem comparison. In (eds. E. Leppäkoski, S. Gollasch and S. Olenin) Invasive Aquatic Species of Europe: Distribution, Impacts and Management. Kluwer Scientific Publishers, Dorthrecht, The Netherlands.

Best wishes,

Henn Ojaveer

Herman Hummel [hhummel@westbrabant.net]

08/02/02

Dear colleagues,

To further the discussion I will try to be a bit extreme.

Most contributions to the e-conference until now show philosophical points of view. These contributions are of high value for composing our next follow-up projects. However, they do seldomly give concrete answers to the questions. I agree with Boero that there is at this moment not a rapid way to assess biodiversity, and that such may have been caused by not having formalized our key concepts in ecology (and because they are still contradictory), but we at least should try to condense from the information that we have some indicators.

My opinion now is that we have to escape from the to deep scientific debate and help Jean-Pierre in giving concrete measures of biodiversity.

Several of you mention "predation, grazing, spatial competition", "population dynamics" or "the structure of communities". My comment: Good for follow-up studies, but for this moment questionable: how to catch this in some concrete values?

To my opinion the most concrete were: - Greve indicating Single taxa , Seasonality (if we take the inclination of the regression between temperature and start of appearance/reproduction of a species), laterl displacement. Although some indices could be more or less environmental quality or global change indicators - Ducrotoy states that classic tools should be assessed/monitored: species richness. biodiversity indices. OK, this is concrete, although we still have to choose which formula is the best.

And here is my short proposal for a diversity indicator in the genetics section (WG3), based on the fact that in Europe you can find for different organisms (as I studied bivalves and polychaetes) at the same place/region some areas with high variation/differences/changes in genetic diversity and further large areas where the animals are homogenous over thousands of kilometers. Therefore I do propose a new genetic diversity tool/measure based on the genetic differentiation (Fst)

Fh = Fst-5 + Fst-50 + Fst-500

Where Fh is the sum of the Fst indices indicating how homogenous/heterogenous a population is, and Fst-5, Fst-50 and Fst-500 are the Fst values of the central population with populations at 5, 50, and 500 km distance, respectively (we can discuss whether other distances should be used) In homogenous areas (i.e. low relative diversity in comparison to surrounding communities) the value will be near to zero, whereas in areas with a high genetic differentiation to populations at short distance the index will be more than 1, exceeding to 3 or more). The measure can be determined per species, and an average for several species can be calculated. The positive point is that several classical and modern techniques can be condensed into this one value. Maybe it is even suitable for the microbial phylotypes (mentioned by Rossello-Mora).

Hope I was not too cruel and too condense,

Best wishes, Herman Hummel

Heip, Carlo [heip@cemo.nioo.knaw.nl]

08/02/02

I think the journal counts, and this cites 1998 and not 2001. I will check it with a professional. Carlo.

Jean-Pierre FERAL [feral@obs-banyuls.fr]

07/02/02

Dear colleagues Sometime ago Carlo sent to everybody his updated article on the indices of biodiversity. He was published in 2001, not in 1998. Even if the French summary disapeared in this copy, this article should be cited correctly : Heip C., P.M.J. Herman & K. Soetaert 2001.- Indices of diversity and eveness. In Concepts and methods for studying marine biodiversity, from gene to ecosystem, J.-P. Féral (ed), European TMR / CNRS practical training course. Océanis 24 (4): 61-87 [1998] The other article by Serge Dallot concerning the bias of biodiversity indices should be cited: Dallot S. 2001- Sampling properties of biodiversity indices. In Concepts and methods for studying marine biodiversity, from gene to ecosystem, J.-P. Féral (ed), European TMR / CNRS practical training course. Océanis 24 (4): 89-105 [1998] ) 

Sincerely Jean-Pierre Féral

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Jean-Pierre FERAL [feral@obs-banyuls.fr]

07/02/02

Dear colleagues

We thank all of you who participate to this e-forum.

The regional persons in charge received or will receive summary tables made from the analysis of the results of questionnaire WP2 < http://194.167.19.106/biomare/viewR.php4 >. This work has perhaps been made by some of them, but that is not evident in the contributions on the electronic forum. Too much of them are too general at this stage of BIOMARE. Too much of them seem to be unaware of that the final goal is insertion in a network and/or a program of the 6th framework program. It is a question of being extremely practical.

Most discussions for as interesting as they are do not lead yet to precise facts. To help to go in this direction, to answer the "new" questions proposed in the report of Palma's meeting may help < http://194.167.19.106/biomare/reports/WP2-report_PALMAmeeting_nov%202001/BIOMARE_palma_WP2_REPORT261101.htm >:

New questions to answer for WG1 through the electronic forum: Indicators of environmental changes (Moderator: Sabine Cochrane, Rapporteur: Chris Emblow) # The biological effects of which precise environmental changes do we want to measure (temperature changes, changes in seasonal patterns, interaction of climate changes with other environmental changes)? Why and what to monitor (which target?) #Which taxa are appropriate to survey on long term of global changes and with which method for studying: · Changes in biodiversity. Which habitats have to be covered? Spatial and temporal scale of the survey? · Key species population dynamics (possibly keystone, long-lived and sensible taxa) · Species at their limit of distribution (bathymetric and geographic) · Changes in the seasonal distribution (migration) · The effect on the physiology, reproduction, life cycles

New questions to answer for WG2 through the electronic forum: Invasive species (autochtone and allochtone) (Moderator: Carlo Heip, Rapporteur: Ahmet Kideys) Which taxa (exotic or alloctone invaders) are the priority at local and European levels? Answer must be precise (which? why? how? how much?) What are their well-known effects on marine biodiversity? Usefulness of population (invasive species) dynamics studies? Usefulness of genetic variability studies? Which target taxa, which methods? How to measure their effect (invasive species) on marine biodiversity (shifting taxa, disease outbreaks, etc.)?

New questions to answer for WG3 through the electronic forum: Genetic and molecular diversity (Moderator: Herman Hummel, Rapporteur: Doris Schiedek) This aspect was addressed only by one person. Nobody else ? What about macro fauna and flora? What about the bioindicators to be used? The question is for each method cited, on which taxa should they be applied in order to obtain the most information on the changes occurring in biodiversity? Do we have to consider also genetic diversity per se? Is microbial diversity a reliable indicator of general biodiversity? (Here is also focused a more general problem: how to pass from a scale to another? micro-meio-macro) Do we have to take into account protection and conservation (e.g. genetic erosion)?

WG4: Methodologies (Moderator: Fred Buchholz, Rapporteur: Ricardo Santos) This aspect is also addressed in the other document sent to the regional coordinators. We wish to remind you that we have absolutely nothing on the rapid assessment methods although there is a very important need of such methods. These methods are based on the premise that certain aspects of biological diversity can be quantified without knowing the scientific names of the species involved. The main characteristic of RAM is the minimisation of the formal taxonomic content in the classification and identification of organisms. There are two type of methods by which this can be achieved: # Only those taxonomic levels needed to achieve the goals of the assessment in question are used. For example, if it is known from prior studies that the presence or absence of a particular taxon indicates disturbance or pollution, it may only be necessary to resolve the species collected at a site to the level of family or genus to ascertain environmental quality. # Only specimens that can be distinguished by easily observable morphological criteria are taken into account. The units of variety recorded by such a scheme may be called “morphospecies”, operational taxonomic units (OTUs), or recognisable taxonomic units (RTUs). Depending on whether operational procedures have been standardised and calibrated by conventional taxonomic measures, these units may or may not be less representative of natural biological variation than species per se. Biodiversity technicians trained by taxonomists may be used to separate specimens into RTUs.

To be usable, the further propositions of RAM should follow the model below: 1/ Name of the RAM 2/ Origin (basic literature, first article which described it, … if available) 3/ Brief, but informative, summary of technique 4/ Geographic scale(s) that are compatible 5/ Possible targets (what is the goal of such an inventory) 6/ Data needed 7/ Assessment of likely availability of data 8/ Cost involved (by action, by year, …) 9/ Human resources involved 10/ Human resources required 11/ Data generated (are they real, hypothetical, modelled?) 12/ Time frame 13/ Examples of implementation, … if existing 14/ Points for (e.g. fast, cheap, maps, accurate predictions, accurate estimation of population size, assign categories of threat to individual species, provides a manual for biodiversity managers, provide data compatible for collating information, …) 15/ Points against (e.g. [hugely] expensive, time consuming, invasive sampling, never used or used only in particular conditions, not applicable for all seas in Europe, data are only directly comparable with other sites assessed by precisely the same method, the relationships between biodiversity in different groups of sampled invertebrates and the others are not well understood) 16/ Appraisals 17/ Literature (reports on the application of the method, … if available).

Concerning other types of methods to monitor biodiversity, the reading of "The Marine Monitoring Handbook" may be very useful. It addresses the principles behind, and the procedures for, monitoring the habitats and species within marine SACs in UK waters to assess their condition. These assessments are intended to fulfil the requirements of the EC Habitats and Species Directive and the UK's common standards for monitoring. The Handbook provides guidance on the different options and their relative costs and benefits and describes best practise through a series of procedural guidelines for the common survey/monitoring techniques. It draws on the information gathered from extensive trials of different techniques and their deployment undertaken during the UK Marine SACs project to ensure all advice has a sound practical basis. It can be consulted/downloaded at < http://www.jncc.gov.uk/marine/mmh/MMH_0601.pdf >.

You will also find attached a document proposed by Maïa MARINE BIODIVERSITY MONITORING. Monitoring protocol for marine benthos: Intertidal and subtidal macrofauna, which is A REPORT BY THE MARINE BIODIVERSITY MONITORING COMMITTEE (ATLANTIC MARITIME ECOLOGICAL SCIENCE COOPERATIVE, HUNTSMAN MARINE SCIENCE CENTRE) TO THE ECOLOGICAL MONITORING AND ASSESSMENT NETWORK OF ENVIRONMENT CANADA which is quite interesting and which can be discussed. The thinking of other scientists is always interesting.

And for the last point, but not the least: Nobody proposed any indicator usable as an early warning of biodiversity change (decrease). Please, try to answer this particularly important point. If somebody has something to suggest at least equal or better than biomarkers, let us know. This is a big gap in our panel.

Conclusion This is a lot, but we hope that the two next meetings in Heraklion and in Horta will be productive if they are actually very well prepared. Each institute involved should participate and the regional coordinators are supposed to prepare a synthesis (for their region) to be presented next Spring during these meetings.

Very cordially, Jean-Pierre & Maïa

Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

06/02/02

Dear all I have some more. consider this: you take any type of environment, especially at tropical and temperate latitudes though (I know that northern seas can be somehow different), and you will find a few abundant species and a host of rare species. Botanists call this the law of infrequency (see an article of Palmer in the american naturalist). if you use diversity indexes that look at the contribution of species to the total biomass, then you will be happy to have just the most abundant ones. the rest is "noise". but if you look at a long term series, you will see that the species that were abundant 20 years ago are now rare and the species that were rare 20 years ago are now abundant. fisheries reports are full of this type of patterns. if we do not consider all species we end up considering just the picture of that particular moment, but if something changes we are not able to understand why. the newly abundant species is an alien or was there since ever, just being rare? there is a big difference! if we have a dynamic concept of biodiversity, we have to know biodiversity at the species level. then we can even infer about the quantities, but first we have to know the quality. a good species list is a prerequisite to ALL studies that claim the name of biodiversity. what is the objection? knowing species is a time consuming task, it requires expertise that is not available, it is not rapid. OK, so we give up and do lousy work? in other fields they ask a lot of money to do accurate things that have zero value. I have heard bob may complaining that the funds used to sustain the hubble telescope match what is spent on biodiversity on the whole planet. and the results of the hubble telescope (hey, here's a new star down there) are almost irrelevant and we might live without them, whereas losing biodiversity (with the extinction of species that are even still unknown) is of vital importance for our welfare (they agreed on this at rio, remember? we do not have to convince people on this, they are already convinced). The rest of the scientific community agrees with this, just the biologists do not. and beg for taxonomic sufficiency. instead of using the power of biodiversity to gain proper dignity, we mortify what we do. some of you wrote me, expressing their support to my views. this is not enough.

if we have a chance to have a project under the label of biodiversity, and we agree that species recognition is a prerequisite, we must ask money to enhance this kind of expertise. and to do other things, of course. let's identify the strong points in biodiversity recognition, at group level and at a regional scale. let's cross fertilize, let's organize courses, phd curricula at an european level, and ask for money to map biodiversity at a community level and at a species level. let's perform phylogeography and train new specialists on this. check this out: Speciation and phylogeography in the cosmopolitan marine moon jelly, Aurelia sp

Werner Schroth, Gerhard Jarms, Bruno Streit and Bernd Schierwater BMC Evolutionary Biology 2002, 2:1 http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2148/2/1 it is very interesting. let's spread this way of doing biodiversity research, performing accurate work on target taxa, expanding taxonomic coverage as much as we can. this will require decades of study. and decades of funding. the question of bob may "how many species are there on earth?" is not answered yet. is it irrelevant in a project on biodiversity? I agree that we have to provide also quick evaluations, but this is just because we are ignorant and we cannot wait to gain all the necessary knowledge. but we have to work to knock down our ignorance. projects are there for this, the goal of science is to reduce ignorance. and we are pretty ignorant in species recognition. I do not have contacts with the executives of the EC, I am not so much in this game. But I have very clear ideas about what can be done and what has to be done. I do not want to waste my time in cumbersome forms that will be discarded by some bureaucrat. These things have to be decided in advance, as far as I know, while having a substantial confidence that our effort will be successful because we are offering what is perceived as needed. Being right is useless if one cannot obtain results with it. Lobbying is a vital activity and those who are working in this direction are doing something that we can only praise and appreciate. MAYBE we can provide ideas on how to use this lobbying power. that's what I am trying to do with these annoying contributions. I see a long list of people but very few are expressing their views. so they are not interested. the list is probably the wrong one. I have many things to do, trust me. but I find it crucial to spend some of my time in discussing these things. even if I do not agree with what has been proposed in the first place. please, prove me wrong, show that you deserve to have your name in that list ! or be honest enough to ask to remove it and, possibly, suggest names of others who are more interested in these topics. now I will remain silent, unless expressly asked for further provocation all the best to you all 

nando

Friedrich Buchholz [fbuchholz@awi-bremerhaven.de]

06/02/02

Dear Nando,

Thanky you very much indeed! This is the first real comment to WG4 - and as you say: a hot one! If this would go unheard - then we would be really stuck! Please join in! May I ask Richard Warwick specifically for a comment?

Cheers, Yours Fred

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Ferdinando Boero [boero@unile.it]

05/02/02

I concur that, for first approaches to biodiversity we can use the concept of taxonomic sufficiency and be happy with a reduced taxonomic precision. but this can be only a preliminary step. reducing taxonomic precision and recognise only genera or families is the negation of the value of biodiversity. we are on very thin ice. I think that we need good taxonomy to do good biodiversity and even if we cannot hope to have a whole bunch of taxonomists right away, we will be unwise to theorise the lack of utility of biodiversity recognition. so I strongly disagree with the value of taxonomic sufficiency per se. alng with it, we have to launch projects to build the expertise able to recognize biodiversity at the species level. using traditional and modern techniques. Sorry, there is not a rapid way to assess biodiversity. the only way is to reduce diversity. but then let's not fool ourselves calling bioDIVERSITY what we are studying. biodiversity at family level is an oxymoron. in high diversity habitats, like the mediterranean, the overwhelming majority of species is rare. identifying only the common and obvious species is appreciating only a ghost of the diversity. this is a perception that is good for television programs, not for scientists. the people who study physics do not say that physics can be done by non specialised scientists. this is giving zero value to our knowledge. a guy with a computer can identify biodiversity comparing pictures to specimens. again, I do not want to be misunderstood. I am doing picture databases for non specialists, I am working at a project where biodiversity is assessed from underwater pictures, I know that this is very useful. but I am horrified to see that then this is considered enough. This is what is to be done as a start. how can we recognise alien species of the same genus of the local ones if we recognise only genera? or even families? this will kill biodiversity studies. the word biodiversity is in the hands of people who do not study biodiversity! if this is all we want to do. much more is needed. much much more. and we cannot agree that taxonomy is important and then say that it is enough to recognise families! give me some example of hypothesis testing in biodiversity while knowing only families. we do not have faunal lists, we do not know what we are talking about. we make hypotheses on unknown objects. we are hiding our biological ignorance with elaborated mathematical modelling. If we want to discuss about popperian logic, let's go. but our systems do not rely on universal statements, they are based on existential statements. a hypothesis can work under some circumstances and do not work under others, and having falsified it once does not mean that we have to throw it away. there are three models of community evolution. each one, when it applies, falsifies the other two. applying the logic (and the language) of physics (classical physics) to biology will lead to conceptual disaster. I am fed up with biodiversity projects for non-specialists, saying that taxonomy is of course important, but that we'll do it LATER. I'm hearing this since 20 years. taxonomists are extinct and we are happy to identify families!

I hope that this is hot enough as a start. now start to throw your stones, I have much more at hand. thanks for your patience, I know that I am extremistic, but mine is a reaction to an extreme situation. I repeat that NSF has recognised the value of all the above, and they are doing projects to revive expertise in biodiversity recognition. I have the impression that we are launching a strategy to KILL biodiversity recognition in the name of biodiversity, this is paradoxical. of course I am angry! many of you will have already received the little article attached here. but some have not. have a look at it.

My position is exemplified in a series of steps: 1) biodiversity assessment at community level is a priority in unexplored areas (e.g. Albania), this must lead to cartography of community distribution, just for benthos though. this is not done even in many partially explored areas. so there is a lot to do. 2) biodiversity assessment at species level is a parallel strategy to the above step. we have to compile fau