Biodiversity Loss in Freshwater Mussels: Importance, Threats, and Solutions

Abstract

The loss of biodiversity worldwide has been well documented for decades, and while much of the attention of the media and scientific community has been focused on terrestrial ecosystems, other biomes such as freshwater lakes and streams have received less consideration (Myers et al., 2000). Despite the current decade (2005-2015) being declared an International Decade for Action – ‘Water for Life’ by the United Nations General Assembly, freshwater ecosystems worldwide are as threatened as ever by the activities of a rapidly growing human population. Surface freshwater ecosystems only constitute 0.8% of the Earth’s surface, yet they contain almost 9.5% of the Earth’s known species, including as many as one-third all known vertebrate species (Balian et al., 2008; Dudgeon et al., 2006). The impact of human disturbances on this disproportionate amount of biodiversity has made the extinction rate in freshwater ecosystems equal to that of tropical rainforests (Ricciardi and Rasmussen, 1999).