The loss of seemingly inconsequential animal species in the marine benthos – the top 6 inches or so of mud and sediment on the floors of the worldââ?¬â?¢s oceans – is giving scientists a new look ahead at the consequences of the steady decline of the worldââ?¬â?¢s biological diversity.
This is one of the first stabs at trying to see what will happen in ocean ecosystems as species go extinct,” says Bradley Cardinale, a University of Wisconsin-Madison postdoctoral fellow in zoology and a co-author of the paper.