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This two-part volume presents a series of papers on the theme of Ecosystem Services (ES). ES are the natural functions and processes of ecosystems that have social, economic or ecological value to humans. The ubiquity of these socioeconomic-ecological inter-relationships means that the ES framework has almost universal potential and its importance in policymaking is growing. However, a full decade after the publication of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA 2005), which catalysed the field. there is surprisingly little empirical data that brings together social, economic and ecology thinking about ecosystems. and much of the theory is similarly embryonic.
Part 1 opens by assessing the current state of the field and future prospects, in the context of the MEA, its precursors and the revolutionary changes that have occurred since its publication. This is followed by a series of papers that grapple with some of the more fundamental ecological issues that underpin service provision, but which have yet to be resolved. Amongst the papers in Part 2, the editors present how molecular NGS data might be used to monitor ES by reconstructing networks of interaction and function and how network-based data can improve visualisation of these complex systems, to facilitate communication and to act as tools to improve engagement, advocacy and ES management. The theme closes with papers that take us further into realms where the natural and social sciences interact, and the drivers and responses associated with human decision-making are explicitly part of an integrated socioeconomic-ecological system.
The chapters in this volume provide a snapshot of ES research: illustrating the current state-of-the-art and spanning a full spectrum, from developing a mechanistic understanding of the ecological processes that ultimately deliver services, through to the implementation of policies designed to optimise service delivery. There is clearly much work to be done, but this volume offers an important step towards developing the next generation of approaches that we will need to ensure humanity remains within a "safe operating space" in a more sustainable future.
Learning Ecological Networks from Next-Generation Sequencing Data
Corinne Vacher, Alireza Tamaddoni-Nezhad, Stefaniya Kamenova, Nathalie Peyrard, Yann Moalic, Régis Sabbadin, Loïc Schwaller, Julien Chiquet, M. Alex Smith, Jessica Vallance, Virgil Fievet, Boris Jakuschkin and David A. Bohan
The Visualisation of Ecological Networks, and Their Use as a Tool For Engagement, Advocacy and Management
Michael J.O. Pocock, Darren M. Evans, Colin Fontaine, Martin Harvey, Romain Julliard, Órla McLaughlin, Jonathan Silvertown, Alireza Tamaddoni-Nezhad, Piran C. L. White and David A. Bohan
The Challenges of Linking Ecosystem Services to Biodiversity: Lessons from a Large-Scale Freshwater Study
Isabelle Durance, Michael W. Bruford, Rachel Chalmers, Nick A. Chappell, Mike Christie, B. Jack Cosby, David Noble, Steve J. Ormerod, Havard Prosser, Andrew Weightman and Guy Woodward
Protecting an Ecosystem Service: Approaches to Understanding and Mitigating Threats to Wild Insect Pollinators
Richard J. Gill, Katherine C.R. Baldock, Mark J.F. Brown, James J.E. Creswell, Lynn V. Dicks, Michelle T. Fountain, Michael P.D. Garratt, Leonie A. Gough, Matt S. Heard, John M. Holland, Jeff Ollerton, Graham N. Stone, Cuong Q. Tang, Adam J. Vanbergen, Alfried P. Vogler, Guy Woodward, Andres N. Arce, Nigel D. Boatman, Richard Brand-Hardy, Tom D. Breeze, Mike Green, Chris M. Hartfield, Rory S. O’Connor, Juliet L. Osborne, James Phillips, Peter B. Sutton and Simon G. Potts
Tradeoffs and Compatibilities Among Ecosystem Services: Biological, Physical and Economic Drivers of Multifunctionality
Bradley J. Butterfield, Ashley L. Camhi, Rachel L. Rubin and Christopher R. Schwalm
Disentangling the Pathways and Effects of Ecosystem Service Co-Production
Ignacio Palomo, María R. Felipe-Lucia, Elena M. Bennett, Berta Martín- López and Unai Pascual
Guy Woodward is Professor of Ecology in the Department of Life Sciences at Imperial College London and Series Editor for Advances in Ecological Research. He has authored over 100 peer-reviewed publications, including recent papers in Nature, Science and Nature Climate Change, with a strong emphasis on understanding and predicting how aquatic ecosystems and food webs respond to a wide range of biotic and abiotic stressors, including climate change, chemical pollution, habitat degradation and invasive species. Much of this work covers multiple scales in space and time and also a range of organisational levels – from genes to ecosystems. His research group and ongoing collaborations span the natural and social sciences, reflecting the need for multidisciplinary approaches for addressing the environmental challenges of the 21st Century.
Dave Bohan is an agricultural ecologist with an interest in predator-prey regulation interactions. Dave uses a model system of a carabid beetle predator and two agriculturally important prey; slugs and weed seeds. He has shown that carabids find and consume slug prey, within fields, and that this leads to regulation of slug populations and interesting spatial 'waves' in slug and carabid density. The carabids also intercept weed seeds shed by weed plants before they enter the soil, and thus carabids can regulate the long-term store of seeds in the seedbank on national scales. What is interesting about this system is that it contains two important regulation ecosystem services delivered by one group of service providers, the carabids. This system therefore integrates, in miniature, many of the problems of interaction between services. Dave has most recently begun to work with networks. He developed, with colleagues, a learning methodology to build networks from sample date. This has produced the largest, replicated network in agriculture. One of his particular interests is how behaviours and dynamics at the species level, as studied using the carabid-slug-weed system, build across species and their interactions to the dynamics of networks at the ecosystem level.
