Healthy oceans provide a wide range of goods and services essential for human life. Provision of food and medicines, detoxification of pollutants and recycling of nutrients are of value for human use. These goods and services are ‘for free’ but require intact marine ecosystems. Coastal and marine biodiversity and their supporting ecosystems are now subject to a multitude of threats. The intensity and scale of anthropogenic impacts in the world’s ocean have increased dramatically during the industrial age and these impacts are combining to accelerate the loss and fragmentation of important coastal marine habitats. The present review focuses on types and impacts of anthropogenic threats to coastal and marine biodiversity with respect to diseases, overexploitation, extinction, genetic and behavioural degradation of taxa, global climate change, habitat destruction or loss, habitat degradation and fragmentation, non-indigenous species, coastal and marine pollution, altered salinity and altered sedimentation.
Pawar P. R., 2016. Anthropogenic threats to coastal and marine biodiversity: A review. International Journal of Modern Biological Research 4:35-45. Article.
