Jef Huisman, an
aquatic microbiology professor and theoretical ecologist at the University of Amsterdam in the Netherlands, said that the Princeton research shows that recently proposed early - warning signals for the desertification of arid
ecosystems can be too simple, and possibly
result in projections of future climate change that do not account for the complexity of nature.
«These
results indicate that protection of natural habitats at a watershed level, including wetlands and forests, will increase the proportion of rare species and reduce the risk of extinction, which is much greater in
aquatic than in terrestrial
ecosystems,» Passy said.