MARBENA Creating a long-term infrastructure for MARine Biodiversity research in the European economic area and the Newly Associated states

Newly Associated States and Marine Biodiversity Research

General discussion - Synthesis

This topic is created for those who want to add messages of general issues on marine biodiversity, general aspects to the discussions held during the e-conference and to finalize the e-conference with a synthesis.

Understanding nature

In the scientific (?) discussion of today, we tend to use buzzwords of various reasons and for various purposes. "Biodiversity", of cource, is one of them. What it all comes down to, is about UNDERSTANDING NATURE, for purely scientific reasons, or in order to manage our environment (use or protect). One way of doing this is by focusing on the living components of the ecosystem (i.e. taxonomy); taxonomy is important, but it is even more important to know how these components interact, and how interactions are driven and altered by the (non-living) environment, i.e. "ecology": Biodiversity is part of ecology, and I feel science (in this case in the baltic Sea) should focus more on functions, and less on lists of species (stamp collections tend to be rather static by default). regards, Erik Bonsdorff

Posted by Erik Bonsdorff on 2003-06-10 14:47:59.550

Lookup Erik Bonsdorff in IMIS.

General coordination: Carlo Heip ,Herman Hummel and Pim van Avesaath Web site and conference hosted by VLIZ