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About a third of the world’s people depend on protein from the world’s oceans, rivers and lakes. But the full nutritional value of these seafood depends on the species diversity in the ecosystem from which they were mined, according to a new study by researchers at Yale and the University of British Columbia.
High levels of biodiversity in aquatic environments provide a wide range of vitamins, minerals and fatty acids essential for human health, including nutrients that are lacking in ecosystems where the number of species has been reduced by overfishing , pollution or climate change, report the researchers. April 5 in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.
“What we’ve found is that biodiversity is critical to human health,” said Joey Bernhardt of Yale, G. Evelyn Hutchinson postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology and co-author of the article.
While humans can meet their protein needs even with seafood from less diverse systems, meeting their needs for key micronutrients such as calcium, iron, and zinc requires high levels of biodiversity. Seafood from biodiverse ecosystems can help fight a phenomenon known as “hidden hunger,” in which people have access to enough calories, but not enough micronutrients, Bernhardt said.
The effects of changing aquatic biodiversity on human health are particularly acute in coastal areas of the world where populations rely heavily on seafood for their diets.
For the study, Bernhardt and co-author Mary I. O’Connor of the University of British Columbia analyzed 7,245 nutrient samples from 801 marine and freshwater fish and invertebrates. They found that different species have distinct and complementary nutritional profiles. Although they detected little difference in protein content among aquatic species, they found that the concentrations of micronutrients – including calcium and iron – and essential fatty acids varied widely. The greater the variety of species, the better able these diets were to achieve the nutrient levels recommended by the American Institute of Medicine.
The results illustrate the importance of monitoring and preserving biodiversity in the evolution of aquatic ecosystems around the world, say the authors.
“While we knew that biodiversity on earth is important for benefits such as forest production, this study provides new evidence that the benefits of biodiversity in oceans and freshwater are as great as on land,” said Bernhardt. “Ecological concepts of biodiversity can deepen our understanding of the benefits of nature for people and unite the goals of sustainability for biodiversity and human well-being.”
Reference: Bernhardt JR, O’Connor MI. Aquatic biodiversity enhances multiple nutritional benefits for humans. PNAS. 2021 and 118 (15). doi: 10.1073 / pnas.1917487118
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