Biodiversity indicators have a history of use in the assessment of marine mammals, seabirds, and fish; however, it hasn’t been easy to integrate pelagic habitat indicators into a routine biodiversity assessment process, despite the valuable ecosystem services pelagic habitats provide, such as regulation of water quality, food webs, and global climate.
Assessment of these habitats is challenging due to several reasons, including the difficulties associated with subdividing pelagic habitats into discrete geographic areas, the small size of plankton, limited data, and lack of understanding in the importance of plankton for many of the activities that we need to survive.