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Article: Ecodiversity and biodiversity.(EDITORIAL)
- Article from:
- Environment
- Article date:
- December 1, 2005
- Author:
CopyrightCOPYRIGHT 2005 Heldref Publications. This material is published under license from the publisher through the Gale Group, Farmington Hills, Michigan. All inquiries regarding rights should be directed to the Gale Group. (Hide copyright information)
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Near the beginning of this year, the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) came to completion. Launched by UN Secretary-General Kofi A. Annan in 2001, it sought to link changes in biodiversity to alterations in ecosystem services. The assessment defined "biodiversity" as the complexities of species interdependencies, but the term has many interpretations. One relates to resilience of species composition and interconnectedness as well as the capacity to cope with changes in habitat, species structure, and functional relationships. Changes in the resilience capacity of ecosystems can impair the functioning of ecosystem services, particularly the ecosystem functions that ...