Ecosystem services are the benefits obtained from the environment that increase human well-being. Economic valuation is conducted by measuring the human welfare gains or losses that result from changes in the provision of ecosystem services. Bats have long been postulated to play important roles in arthropod suppression, seed dispersal, and pollination; however, only recently have these ecosystem services begun to be thoroughly evaluated. Here, we review the available literature on the ecological and economic impact of ecosystem services provided by bats. We describe dietary preferences, foraging behaviors, adaptations, and phylogenetic histories of insectivorous, frugivorous, and nectarivorous bats worldwide in the context of their respective ecosystem services. For each trophic ensemble, we discuss the consequences of these ecological interactions on both natural and agricultural systems. Throughout this review, we highlight the research needed to fully determine the ecosystem services in question. Finally, we provide a comprehensive overview of economic valuation of ecosystem services. Unfortunately, few studies estimating the economic value of ecosystem services provided by bats have been conducted to date; however, we outline a framework that could be used in future studies to more fully address this question. Consumptive goods provided by bats, such as food and guano, are often exchanged in markets where the market price indicates an economic value. Nonmarket valuation methods can be used to estimate the economic value of nonconsumptive services, including inputs to agricultural production and recreational activities. Information on the ecological and economic value of ecosystem services provided by bats can be used to inform decisions regarding where and when to protect or restore bat populations and associated habitats, as well as to improve public perception of bats.

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Ecosystem services provided by bats

Ecosystem services are natural processes that benefit humans. Birds contribute the four types of services recognized by the UN Millennium Ecosystem Assessment-provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services. In this review, we concentrate primarily on supporting services, and to a lesser extent, provisioning and regulating services. As members of ecosystems, birds play many roles, including as predators, pollinators, scavengers, seed dispersers, seed predators, and ecosystem engineers. These ecosystem services fall into two subcategories: those that arise via behavior (like consumption of agricultural pests) and those that arise via bird products (like nests and guano). Characteristics of most birds make them quite special from the perspective of ecosystem services. Because most birds fly, they can respond to irruptive or pulsed resources in ways generally not possible for other vertebrates. Migratory species link ecosystem processes and fluxes that are separated by great distances and times. Although the economic value to humans contributed by most, if not all, of the supporting services has yet to be quantified, we believe they are important to humans. Our goals for this review are 1) to lay the groundwork on these services to facilitate future efforts to estimate their economic value, 2) to highlight gaps in our knowledge, and 3) to point to future directions for additional research.

Ecosystem Services Provided by Birds

Desert plants are hypothesized to survive the environmental stress inherent to these regions in part thanks to symbioses with microorganisms, and yet these microbial species, the communities they form, and the forces that influence them are poorly understood. Here we report the first comprehensive investigation of the microbial communities associated with species of Agave, which are native to semiarid and arid regions of Central and North America and are emerging as biofuel feedstocks. We examined prokaryotic and fungal communities in the rhizosphere, phyllosphere, leaf and root endosphere, as well as proximal and distal soil samples from cultivated and native agaves, through Illumina amplicon sequencing. Phylogenetic profiling revealed that the composition of prokaryotic communities was primarily determined by the plant compartment, whereas the composition of fungal communities was mainly influenced by the biogeography of the host species. Cultivated A. tequilana exhibited lower levels of prokaryotic diversity compared with native agaves, although no differences in microbial diversity were found in the endosphere. Agaves shared core prokaryotic and fungal taxa known to promote plant growth and confer tolerance to abiotic stress, which suggests common principles underpinning Agave-microbe interactions.

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Plant Compartment and Biogeography Affect Microbiome Composition in Cultivated and Native Agave Species

INTERSPECIFIC mutualisms inherently possess a conflict of interests between the interacting species in that fitness increases of one species occur at the expense of the other. This holds for mutualisms as diverse as plant associations with mycorrhizal fungi or nitrogen-fixing bacteria, animals and endosymbionts, and obligate plant-pollinator associations1–6. Prevailing models of interspecific cooperation predict that mutualistic interactions are evolutionary stable only when both interacting species possess mechanisms to prevent excessive exploitation3–6. In light of this, it is paradoxical that some of the classical examples of coevolved obligate mutualism seemingly do not meet this criterion. In mutualisms involving seed parasites that actively pollinate their hosts, such as yucca/ yucca moth and fig/fig wasp interactions, there is no apparent means of retaliation on behalf of the plant. Predictions from theory suggest that a cryptic mechanism, such as selective abortion of flowers with heavy egg loads, could stabilize these interactions4,6–9. Here we present the first empirical evidence that such a mechanism in fact exists in the yucca/yucca moth interaction. A strong nega-tive effect exists between moth egg number and probability of flower retention. Furthermore, we show a strong positive effect between the number of pollinations received and the probability of flower retention. Selective maturation of fruit with low egg loads and high pollen loads provides a mechanism to increase the quantity and possibly quality of seeds produced, and simultaneously select against moths that lay many eggs per flower or provide low-quality pollinations4,6,8,10. Not only can these results explain the stability of this type of interaction, but selection for high-quality pollination also provides a mechanism to help explain the evolution of active pollination among yucca moths.

Evolutionary stability of mutualism between yuccas and yucca moths

https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1027&context=anthropologyfacpub

A. J. Willis

Papers

Agaves of Continental North America.