Marine Biodiversity - CALL FOR PAPERS: Topical Collection on Discovering the water column: integrated taxonomic approaches for measuring marine pelagic biodiversity
Discovering the water column: integrated taxonomic approaches for measuring marine pelagic biodiversity
Short title for type of papers in the EM System: Pelagic Biodiversity
Guest Editors (alphabetical order)
Elaine Fileman
ese@pml.ac.uk (this opens in a new tab)
Plymouth Marine Laboratory
Prospect Place
Plymouth
PL1 3DH
United Kingdom
Jasmin Renz
jasmin.renz@senckenberg.de (this opens in a new tab)
Forschungsinstitut Senckenberg
DZMB-Deutsches Zentrum für Marine Biodiversitätsforschung
-German Centre for Marine Biodiversity Research-
Martin-Luther-King Platz 3
D-20146 Hamburg
Tel.: +49(0)40 42838-2294
Fax: +49(0)40 42838-3937
Agata Weydmann-Zwolicka
agata.weydmann@ug.edu.pl (this opens in a new tab)
Department of Marine Plankton Research
Institute of Oceanography, University of Gdańsk
al. Marszałka Piłsudskiego 46
81–378 Gdynia, Poland
Tel.: +48 58 523 68 47
There is a strong evidence that the abundance of many species is declining, and that species distributions have already been substantially altered due to habitat conversion, pollution, overexploitation of natural resources and, more recently, climate change. Consequently, losses in biodiversity are predicted for future scenarios worldwide, posing one of the major threats to marine ecosystems. Mitigation measures and management strategies require solid knowledge on ecosystem biodiversity causing a crucial need for assessment tools that provide comprehensive baselines of species richness and allow reliable monitoring of species communities. Morphological identification of many marine taxa is time-consuming, demands comprehensive taxonomic knowledge, and has been shown to often underestimate true diversity due to occurrence of numerous cryptic species. While taxonomic expertise remains the keystone for community monitoring, rapid advances in molecular and optical techniques have provided unprecedented opportunities to conduct taxonomic research more comprehensively and efficiently. They will therefore vastly enhance and accelerate the assessments of all groups of pelagic organisms, from genetic variability of individuals, through species, populations, and communities, to the whole ecosystems, and will foster understanding of interactions and functions on all levels, including changes related to natural and anthropogenic environmental pressures.
This topical collection will accept contributions on integrated approaches for understanding species diversity, distribution, biogeography, monitoring and functioning of marine pelagic ecosystems, including the wide-spectrum of ecological groups: from bacterioplankton through phytoplankton and zooplankton to fish and mammals, with a specific focus on the use of morphological, molecular and optical techniques.
Please submit your manuscript to https://www.editorialmanager.com/marb (this opens in a new tab)
Submission Deadline July 1, 2024