Trophic Roles and Ecological Services Provided by a Multi-species Assemblage of Freshwater Mussels

Clean, freshwater is a necessity to sustain human life. Maintenance of freshwater biodiversity is critical to sustain vital ecological functions, such as biofiltration, that promote clean water. In addition to clean water, functionally intact and biologically complex freshwater ecosystems also provide many other economically valuable services and long-term benefits to human societies such as food supply, flood control, habitat for animal and plant life and the adaptive capacity to respond to future environmental alterations such as climate change (Baron et al. 2002, Loreau et al. 2002). Our understanding of the influence of biodiversity on ecosystem goods and services is incomplete (Naidoo et al. 2008), but it has been proposed that greater biodiversity in the form of greater functional diversity can “insure” that ecosystem functions and processes continue in the wake of environmental fluctuations (Naeem and Li 1997, Yachi and Loreau 1999, Naeem and Wright 2003, Balvanera et al. 2006). The implications of species losses for sustaining water quality are poorly understood. Thus, we need a stronger understanding of the linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem services in freshwaters.