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4 - Extinction Threats to Life in the Ocean and Opportunities for Their Amelioration

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  19 August 2019

Partha Dasgupta
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
Peter Raven
Affiliation:
Missouri Botanical Garden
Anna McIvor
Affiliation:
University of Cambridge
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Summary

‘The oceans not only contain most of the planet, but also most of the wide variety of living things’ (Pope Francis, 2015). With this statement, Pope Francis summarised a central point about life on Earth: we cannot understand and protect Earth’s biodiversity without considering the ocean. Covering over 70 per cent of the Earth’s surface, the ocean represents an estimated 99 per cent of its habitable living space (Costanza, 1999). The ocean harbours a remarkably rich diversity of species, with almost twice as many major groups, or phyla, of animals living in the ocean as on land. (Of the 34 known phyla of animals, 33 are found in the ocean and only 12 are found on land.) A single type of marine habitat, the coral reef, holds over 50 per cent more phyla than all terrestrial and freshwater habitats combined, despite having a surface area more than 460 times smaller (Birkeland, 2015).

Type
Chapter
Information
Biological Extinction
New Perspectives
, pp. 113 - 137
Publisher: Cambridge University Press
Print publication year: 2019

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