Industrial fisheries have depleted entire communities of large oceanic predators (such as sharks, groundfish, tuna, billfish, sea turtles, whales and some seabirds) worldwide. Fishery effects are further compounded by habitat destruction, eutrophication, and climate change.

Worm will show how these impacts lead to extinctions of sensitive species, declining diversity, and depletion of ecosystem goods and services. In order to reverse current destructive trends we need to:

(1) reduce fi shing effort,

(2) conserve key areas such as recently found diversity hotspots, and

(3) protect critical habitats from destruction.

Further, we need to learn from our actions by treating them as experiments. We require a dedicated focus on ecosystem- wide impacts, and a network of high-seas protected areas to serve as “experimental controls" and as insurance against our ignorance and failures.

Worm argues that the alternative — continuing to transform global ocean ecosystems blindly — is irresponsible and dangerous.

About Boris Worm
Prof. Boris Worm works at Biology Department, Dalhousie University, Halifax, Canada and Leibniz Institute for Marine Science, Kiel, Germany.

Boris Worm is a marine ecologist whose work focuses on the interaction of natural and human-induced forces that regulate species diversity and ecosystem functioning in marine food webs.

He has worked in coastal, as well as shelf and open ocean ecosystems, using a combination of field experiments, metaanalysis of fi eld data, and modeling. Currently, he works on a global assessment of predator diversity in the world´s oceans.