Aquatic Functional Biodiversity: An Ecological and Evolutionary Perspective provides a general conceptual framework by some of the most prominent investigators in the field for how to link eco-evolutionary approaches with functional diversity to understand and conserve the provisioning of ecosystem services in aquatic systems. Rather than producing another methodological book, the editors and authors primarily concentrate on defining common grounds, connecting conceptual frameworks and providing examples by a more detailed discussion of a few empirical studies and projects, which illustrate key ideas and an outline of potential future directions and challenges that are expected in this interdisciplinary research field. Recent years have seen an explosion of interest in using network approaches to disentangle the relationship between biodiversity, community structure and functioning. Novel methods for model construction are being developed constantly, and modern methods allow for the inclusion of almost any type of explanatory variable that can be correlated either with biodiversity or ecosystem functioning. As a result these models have been widely used in ecology, conservation and eco-evolutionary biology. Nevertheless, there remains a considerable gap on how well these approaches are feasible to understand the mechanisms on how biodiversity constrains the provisioning of ecosystem services.

Includes bibliographical references and index

Section 1 Theoretical background : From metabolic constraints on individuals to the dynamics of ecosystems / Samraat Pawar, Anthony I. Dell and Van M. Savage -- Ecological effects of intraspecific consumer biodiversity for aquatic communities and ecosystems/Eric P. Palkovacs, David C. Fryxell, Nash E. Turley and David M. Post -- How does evolutionary history alter the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem function? / David A. Vasseur and Susanna M. Messinger -- Effects of metacommunity networks on local community structures: from theoretical predictions to empirical evaluations. Section 2 Across aquatic ecosystems : Limited functional redundancy and lack of resilience in coral reefs to human stressors / Camilo Mora -- Biodiversity, ecosystem functioning, and services in fresh waters: ecological and evolutionary implications of climate change / Guy Woodward and Daniel M. Perkins -- Global aquatic ecosystem services provided and impacted by fisheries: a macroecological perspective / Jonathan A.D. Fisher, Kenneth T. Frank and Andrea Belgrano -- Valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services in a complex marine ecosystem / Ute Jacob, Tomas Jonsson, Sofia Berg, Thomas Brey, Anna Eklöf, Katja Mintenbeck, Christian Möllmann, Lyne Morissette, Andrea Rau and Owen Petchey. Section 3 In the wild: biodiversity and ecosystem service conservation : The role of marine protected areas in providing ecosystem services / Pierre Leenhardt, Natalie Low, Nicolas Pascal, Fiorenza Micheli and Joachim Claudet -- Freshwater conservation and biomonitoring of structure and function: genes to ecosystems / Clare Gray, Iliana Bista, Simon Creer, Benoit O.L. Demars, Francesco Falciani, Don T. Monteith, Xiaoliang Sun and Guy Woodward. Epilogue: the robustness of aquatic biodiversity functioning under environmental change: the Ythan Estuary, Scotland / David Raffaelli. Index.

Provides a general conceptual framework by some of the most prominent investigators in the field for how to link ecological and evolutionary approaches with functional diversity, to understand and conserve the provisioning of ecosystem services in aquatic systems. Rather than a methodological book, the work primarily concentrates on defining common areas, connecting conceptual frameworks, and providing examples through a more detailed discussion of a few empirical studies and projects; this helps illustrate key ideas and offers an outline of potential future directions and challenges expected in this interdisciplinary research field.--