Article #2: Marine Biodiversity Strongly Linked to Ocean Temperature

Biodiversity is a word used to describe the variety of life in genes, species and habitats.  Biodiversity can be used to describe any environment, but in terms of marine biology, biodiversity would refer to the variety of species and habitats within the ocean.  This would also include diversity within and between species and ecosystems.
In recent years species diversity has been extremely low and a group of scientists might have found out why.  According to the article “Marine Biodiversity Strongly Linked to Ocean Temperature” put out by Science Daily in July of 2010, a group of scientists have concluded that marine species biodiversity for over 11,000 groups of species could be strongly associated with ocean temperature. The scientists took many samples of species ranging from the smallest species to some of the largest species that inhabit the ocean, they found that corals and coastal fish had a higher diversity off the shores of Asia and open-water fish diversity was broader across the mid-latitude oceans.  They then researched if there was a similar factor contributing to the different diversities, and concluded that the temperature in the ocean could rearrange the diversity of different species of marine life.  Along with that, they found that human impacts on the ocean were found to be in places with high biodiversity which could threaten many of the species in those areas.  Human impacts can really affect marine environments ‘Says co-author Camilo Mora of Dalhousie University, "the combined effects of exploitation, habitat alteration, pollution and climate change are threatening the diversity of life in the global ocean. Our research provides further evidence that limiting ocean warming and other human impacts will be particularly important in securing these hotspots of marine biodiversity into the future."’ (Science Daily). 

Dalhousie University. "Marine biodiversity strongly linked to ocean temperature." ScienceDaily, 29 Jul. 2010. Web. 14 Apr. 2013. http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2010/07/100728131707.htm

I thought this article was really interesting but I feel like I already knew the information that was presented in it.  Marine biodiversity is important in keeping the ocean at a stable level for all life, there has to be a certain number of every species to make each ecosystem run correctly.  The impact that global warming is having on the biodiversity of different marine species was an interesting aspect of this article.  I think that marine biodiversity is an important part of marine biology because in order to understand life in the ocean you need to have proper levels of each species/ a healthy level of each species that help the ocean thrive with abundance of life.