Sustainable use of the freshwater resources of the world is an urgent challenge. The World Health Organization recently estimated that 1.1 billion people lack access to safe drinking water, a problem the United Nations highlights in its Millennium Development Goals. To address the scale and urgency of this challenge, IBM, The Nature Conservancy, and the Center for Sustainability and the Global ...

Freshwater ecosystems provide vital resources for humans and support high levels of biodiversity, yet are severely threatened throughout the world. The expansion of human land uses, such as urban and crop cover, typically degrades water quality and reduces freshwater biodiversity, thereby jeopardizing both biodiversity and ecosystem services. Identifying and mitigating future threats to freshwa...

Bacterial diversity in soil is high relative to more homogeneous environments (e.g., freshwater or marine habitats). Isolation imparted by fragmented aquatic microhabitats in unsaturated soil likely plays a large role in creating this diversity. We evaluate the role of soil texture, which determines the extent and connectivity of microhabitats, in constraining bacterial diversity. Soil samples ...

Article history: Received 22 May 2005 Received in revised form 19 September 2005 Accepted 26 September 2005 Available online 16 November 2005 Two prominent and alternate approaches, ecosystem service valuation and ecological footprints, link the production of ecosystem services with their consumption by societies. An overlapping goal of both approaches is to promote the sustainable use of ecosy...

Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action - 'Water for Life' - 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million - almost 6% of all described species. Inland wate...

Large-bodied, top-predators are often highly mobile, with the potential to provide important linkages between spatially distinct food webs. What biological factors contribute to variation in cross-ecosystem movements, however, have rarely been examined. Here, we investigated how ontogeny (body size), sex and individual-level behaviour impacts intrapopulation variation in cross-ecosystem foragin...

Article history: Received 16 November 2015 Received in revised form 26 June 2016 Accepted 11 July 2016 Available online xxxx Deforestation is amajor threat to global aquatic biodiversity and ecosystem services. Regional studies are needed to understand and mitigate impacts of deforestation on local inland waters, yet such studies remain unavailable inmany regions of the world where the risks of...

While micro-organisms actively mediate and participate in freshwater ecosystem services, we know little about freshwater microbial genetic diversity. Genome sequences are available for many bacteria from the human microbiome and the ocean (over 800 and 200, respectively), but only two freshwater genomes are currently available: the streamlined genomes of Polynucleobacter necessarius ssp. asymbi...

[1] The Chicxulub asteroid impact produced massive extinction in terrestrial environments most likely through an intense heat pulse and subsequent widespread fires. Aquatic environments were shielded from this heat and fire but nevertheless showed massive extinction in marine environments and, for reasons unexplained, far less extinction in freshwater environments. Extinction in marine environm...

Heightened competition for freshwater supplies has intensified water scarcity and compromised the ability of freshwater ecosystems to generate goods and services required for human well-being. Water markets and accompanying water rights reforms have featured prominently in the establishment of robust water allocations to restore freshwater ecosystem health. Because many freshwater ecosystems ha...