The relationship between biodiversity and the rapidly expanding research and policy field of ecosystem services is confused and is damaging efforts to create coherent policy. Using the widely accepted Convention on Biological Diversity definition of biodiversity and work for the UK National Ecosystem Assessment we show that biodiversity has key roles at all levels of the ecosystem service hierarchy: as a regulator of underpinning ecosystem processes, as a final ecosystem service and as a good that is subject to valuation, whether economic or otherwise. Ecosystem science and practice has not yet absorbed the lessons of this complex relationship, which suggests an urgent need to develop the interdisciplinary science of ecosystem management bringing together ecologists, conservation biologists, resource economists and others.

http://max2.ese.u-psud.fr/epc/conservation/PDFs/HIPE/Mace2012.pdf

Biodiversity and ecosystem services: a multilayered relationship

Summary
1. Ecosystem services are defined as the benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems. Employing the ecosystem service concept is intended to support the development of policies and instruments that integrate social, economic and ecological perspectives. In recent years, this concept has become the paradigm of ecosystem management.

2. The prolific use of the term ‘ecosystem services’ in scientific studies has given rise to concerns about its arbitrary application. A quantitative review of recent literature shows the diversity of approaches and uncovers a lack of consistent methodology.

3. From this analysis, we have derived four facets that characterise the holistic ideal of ecosystem services research: (i) biophysical realism of ecosystem data and models; (ii) consideration of local trade-offs; (iii) recognition of off-site effects; and (iv) comprehensive but critical involvement of stakeholders within assessment studies.

4. These four facets should be taken as a methodological blueprint for further development and discussion. They should critically reveal and elucidate what may often appear to be ad-hoc approaches to ecosystem service assessments.

5. Synthesis and applications: Based on this quantitative review, we provide guidelines for further development and discussions supporting consistency in applications of the ecosystem service concept as well as the credibility of results, which in turn can make it easier to generalise from the numerous individual studies.

/pdf/a-quantitative-review-of-ecosystem-service-studies-k7pp99m6sv.pdf

A quantitative review of ecosystem service studies: approaches, shortcomings and the road ahead

Changes in the perception and goals of nature conservation require a solid scientific basis Conservation biology is a mission-driven discipline (1) and is therefore subject to both drift and the periodic adoption of fads and fashions (2). Although many basic conservation principles, conservation organizations, and initiatives of global reach and impact have persisted almost unchanged for decades, the framing and purpose of conservation have shifted (3). These shifts mainly relate to how the relationships between people and nature are viewed, with consequences for the science underpinning conservation.

Ecology. Whose conservation

https://www.uvm.edu/~jfarley/UFBAEE/PES%20local%20to%20global%20online.pdf

Payments for ecosystem services: From local to global

The global reach of human activities affects all natural ecosystems, so that the environment is best viewed as a social–ecological system. Consequently, a more integrative approach to environmental science, one that bridges the biophysical and social domains, is sorely needed. Although models and frameworks for social–ecological systems exist, few are explicitly designed to guide a long-term interdisciplinary research program. Here, we present an iterative framework, “Press–Pulse Dynamics” (PPD), that integrates the biophysical and social sciences through an understanding of how human behaviors affect “press” and “pulse” dynamics and ecosystem processes. Such dynamics and processes, in turn, influence ecosystem services –thereby altering human behaviors and initiating feedbacks that impact the original dynamics and processes. We believe that research guided by the PPD framework will lead to a more thorough understanding of social–ecological systems and generate the knowledge needed to address pervasive environmental problems.

https://www.fs.fed.us/pnw/pubs/journals/pnw_2010_collins001.pdf

An integrated conceptual framework for long‐term social–ecological research

It has become essential in policy and decision-making circles to think about the economic benefits (in addition to moral and scientific motivations) humans derive from well-functioning ecosystems. The concept of ecosystem services has been developed to address this link between ecosystems and human welfare. Since policy decisions are often evaluated through cost–benefit assessments, an economic analysis can help make ecosystem service research operational. In this paper we provide some simple economic analyses to discuss key concepts involved in formalizing ecosystem service research. These include the distinction between services and benefits, understanding the importance of marginal ecosystem changes, formalizing the idea of a safe minimum standard for ecosystem service provision, and discussing how to capture the public benefits of ecosystem services. We discuss how the integration of economic concepts and ecosystem services can provide policy and decision makers with a fuller spectrum of information for making conservation–conversion trade-offs. We include the results from a survey of the literature and a questionnaire of researchers regarding how ecosystem service research can be integrated into the policy process. We feel this discussion of economic concepts will be a practical aid for ecosystem service research to become more immediately policy relevant.

/pdf/ecosystem-services-and-economic-theory-integration-for-1che9x4p35.pdf

Matthew Zylstra

Papers

Ecosystem services and economic theory: integration for policy-relevant research.