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Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity / ARIANNA CHITI

Swansea University Author: ARIANNA CHITI

Abstract

Marine megafauna (i.e. large-bodied marine animals with a body mass of >45 kg) perform important ecological roles in the oceans, yet their contributions to the stability and resilience of ecosystems are undermined by ongoing population decay due to intensified anthropogenic activities. Given the...

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Published: Swansea 2022
Institution: Swansea University
Degree level: Master of Research
Degree name: MRes
Supervisor: Pimiento, Catalina ; Griffin, John
URI: https://cronfa.swan.ac.uk/Record/cronfa59624
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first_indexed 2022-03-15T13:05:15Z
last_indexed 2022-03-16T04:32:03Z
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spelling 2022-03-15T13:13:32.2201808 v2 59624 2022-03-15 Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity 19de5ccce21cb931cafce46795c193bc ARIANNA CHITI ARIANNA CHITI true false 2022-03-15 Marine megafauna (i.e. large-bodied marine animals with a body mass of >45 kg) perform important ecological roles in the oceans, yet their contributions to the stability and resilience of ecosystems are undermined by ongoing population decay due to intensified anthropogenic activities. Given the limited resources available to invest in conservation programs and the increasing numbers of threatened species due to fast-paced rate of biodiversity loss, recent efforts have been made into identifying species and areas of high conservation priority for protecting their ecological functionality. While species diversity has often been considered in guiding conservation actions, such recent interest in preserving species’ ecological contributions has advocated for integrating functional diversity in conservation planning. In this study, I assessed the global patterns of the functional and taxonomic diversity (i.e. functional richness and species richness, respectively) of marine megafauna to identify areas of exceptional functional importance. Accordingly, I identified the degree of congruence between locations of high species and functional richness by means of hotspots overlap analysis and applied a novel conservation index, FUSE (Functionally Unique, Specialized, and Endangered) to identify areas of conservation prioritization according to species’ contributions to functional diversity and their endangerment status. Hotspots of functional richness overlapped only marginally with those of species richness (by 34.5%). The South-West Pacific resulted as a major hotspot of exceptionally high functional richness, while the Caspian Sea and Gulf of Mexico were identified as areas of potential conservation priority harbouring species with high-ranking FUSE scores. Furthermore, the South-West Pacific was also an aggregation centre of high-ranking FUSE species. Overall, this study showed that setting conservation priority areas based on metrics of species diversity alone would be insufficient for safeguarding the ecological contributions of marine megafauna to the ecosystem, and that larger protection areas should be considered. E-Thesis Swansea Marine megafauna; functional diversity; functional biogeography 15 3 2022 2022-03-15 COLLEGE NANME COLLEGE CODE Swansea University Pimiento, Catalina ; Griffin, John Master of Research MRes 2022-03-15T13:13:32.2201808 2022-03-15T12:47:48.6780066 Faculty of Science and Engineering School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences ARIANNA CHITI 1 59624__22600__bce66e66ad8c480dbd3215ad0cab7de5.pdf Chiti_Arianna_MRes_Thesis_Final_Redacted_Signature.pdf 2022-03-15T13:10:03.7510760 Output 2658128 application/pdf E-Thesis – open access true Copyright: The author, Arianna Chiti, 2022. true eng
title Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
spellingShingle Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
ARIANNA CHITI
title_short Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
title_full Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
title_fullStr Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
title_full_unstemmed Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
title_sort Global patterns of marine megafauna functional diversity
author_id_str_mv 19de5ccce21cb931cafce46795c193bc
author_id_fullname_str_mv 19de5ccce21cb931cafce46795c193bc_***_ARIANNA CHITI
author ARIANNA CHITI
author2 ARIANNA CHITI
format E-Thesis
publishDate 2022
institution Swansea University
college_str Faculty of Science and Engineering
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hierarchy_top_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_top_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
hierarchy_parent_id facultyofscienceandengineering
hierarchy_parent_title Faculty of Science and Engineering
department_str School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences{{{_:::_}}}Faculty of Science and Engineering{{{_:::_}}}School of Biosciences, Geography and Physics - Biosciences
document_store_str 1
active_str 0
description Marine megafauna (i.e. large-bodied marine animals with a body mass of >45 kg) perform important ecological roles in the oceans, yet their contributions to the stability and resilience of ecosystems are undermined by ongoing population decay due to intensified anthropogenic activities. Given the limited resources available to invest in conservation programs and the increasing numbers of threatened species due to fast-paced rate of biodiversity loss, recent efforts have been made into identifying species and areas of high conservation priority for protecting their ecological functionality. While species diversity has often been considered in guiding conservation actions, such recent interest in preserving species’ ecological contributions has advocated for integrating functional diversity in conservation planning. In this study, I assessed the global patterns of the functional and taxonomic diversity (i.e. functional richness and species richness, respectively) of marine megafauna to identify areas of exceptional functional importance. Accordingly, I identified the degree of congruence between locations of high species and functional richness by means of hotspots overlap analysis and applied a novel conservation index, FUSE (Functionally Unique, Specialized, and Endangered) to identify areas of conservation prioritization according to species’ contributions to functional diversity and their endangerment status. Hotspots of functional richness overlapped only marginally with those of species richness (by 34.5%). The South-West Pacific resulted as a major hotspot of exceptionally high functional richness, while the Caspian Sea and Gulf of Mexico were identified as areas of potential conservation priority harbouring species with high-ranking FUSE scores. Furthermore, the South-West Pacific was also an aggregation centre of high-ranking FUSE species. Overall, this study showed that setting conservation priority areas based on metrics of species diversity alone would be insufficient for safeguarding the ecological contributions of marine megafauna to the ecosystem, and that larger protection areas should be considered.
published_date 2022-03-15T04:17:05Z
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score 11.037603

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