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Archive for November, 2014

The Best of Both Worlds:
Planning for Ecosystem Win-Wins

By Claire Asher, on 16 November 2014

The normal and healthy function of ecosystems is not only of importance in conserving biodiversity, it is of utmost importance for human wellbeing as well. Ecosystems provide us with a wealth of valuable ecosystem services from food to clean water and fuel, without which our societies would crumble. However it is rare that only a single person, group or organisation places demands on any given ecosystem service, and in many cases multiple stakeholders compete over the use of the natural world. In these cases, although trade-offs are common, win-win scenarios are also possible, and recent research by GEE academics investigates how we can achieve these win-wins in our use of ecosystem services.

Ecosystem services depend upon the ecological communities that produce them and are rarely the product of a single species in isolation. Instead, ecosystem services are provided by the complex interaction of multiple species within a particular ecological community. A great deal of research interest in recent years has focussed on ensuring we maintain ecosystem services into the long term, however pressure on ecosystem services worldwide lis likely to increase as human demands on natural resources soars. Ecosystem services are influenced by complex ecosystem feedback relationships and food-web dynamics that are still relatively poorly understood, and increased pressures on ecosystems may lead to unexpected consequences. Although economical signals respond rapidly to global and national changes, ecosystem services are thought to lag behind, often by decades, making it difficult to predict and fully understand how our actions are influences the availability of crucial services in the future.

Trade-offs in the use of ecosystem services occur when the provision of one ecosystem service is reduced by increased use of another, or when one stakeholder takes more of an ES at the expense of other stakeholders. However, this needn’t be the case – in some scenarios it is possible to achieve win-win outcomes, preserving ecosystem services and providing stakeholders the resources they need. Although attractive, win-win scenarios may be difficult to achieve without carefully planned interventions, and recent research from GEE indicates they are not as common as we might like.

In a comprehensive meta-analaysis of ecosystem services case studies from 2000 to 2013, GEE academics Prof Georgina Mace and Dr Caroline Howe show that trade-offs are far more common than win-win scenarios. Across 92 studies covering over 200 recorded trade-offs or synergies in the use of ecosystem services, trade-offs were three times more common than win-wins. The authors identified a number of factors that tended to lead to trade-offs rather than synergies. In particular, if one or more of the stakeholders has a private interest in the natural resources available, trade-offs are much more likely – 81% of cases like this resulted in tradeoffs. Furthermore, trade-offs were far more common when the ecosystem services in question were ‘provisioning’ in nature – products we directly harvest from nature such as food, timber, water, minerals and energy. Win-wins are more common when regulating (e.g. nutrient cycling and water purification) or cultural (e.g. spiritual or historical value) ecosystem services are in question. In the case of trade-offs, there were also factors that predicted who the ‘winners’ would be – winners were three times more likely to hold private interest in the natural resource in question, and tended to be wealthier than loosing stakeholders. Overall, there was no generalisable context that predicted win-win scenarios, suggesting that although trade-off indicators may be useful in strategic planning, the outcome of our use of ecosystem services is not inevitable, and win-wins are possible.

They also identified major gaps in the literature that need to be addressed if we are to gain a better understanding of how win-win scenarios may be possible in human use of ecosystems. In particular, case studies are currently only available for a relatively limited geographic distribution, and tend to focus of provisioning services. Thus, the lower occurrence of trade-offs for regulating and cultural ecosystem services may be in part a reflection of a paucity of data on these type of services. Finally, relatively few studies have attempted to explore the link between trade-offs and synergies in ecosystem services and the ultimate effect on human well-being.

Understanding how and why trade-offs and synergies occurs in our use of ecosystem services will be valuable in planning for win-win scenarios from the outset. Planning of this kind may be necessary if we are to achieve and maintain balance in our use of the natural world in the future.

Original Article:

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This research was made possible by support from the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation (ESPA) programme, which is funded by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC), and the UK Department for International Development (ERC)

Life Aquatic:
Diversity and Endemism in Freshwater Ecosystems

By Claire Asher, on 6 November 2014

Freshwater ecosystems are ecologically important, providing a home to hundreds of thousands of species and offering us vital ecosystem servies. However, many freshwater species are currently threatened by habitat loss, pollution, disease and invasive species. Recent research from GEE indicates that freshwater species are at greater risk of extinction than terrestrial species. Using data on over 7000 freshwater species across the world, GEE researchers also show a lack of correlation between patterns of species richness across different freshwater groups, suggesting that biodiversity metrics must be carefully selected to inform conservation priorities.

Freshwater ecosystems are of great conservation importance, estimated to provide habitat for over 125,000 species of plant and animal, as well as crucial ecosystem services such as flood protection, food, water filtration and carbon sequestration. However, many freshwater species are threatened and in decline. Freshwater ecosystems are highly connected, meaning that habitat fragmentation can have serious implications for species, while pressures such as pollution, invasive species and disease can be easily transmitted between different freshwater habitats. Recent work by GEE academics Dr Ben Collen, in collaboration with academics from the Institute of Zoology, investigated the global patterns of freshwater diversity and endemism using a new global-level dataset including over 7000 freshwater mammals, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, crabs and crayfish. Many freshwater species occupy quite small ranges and the authors were also interested in the extent to which species richness and the distribution threatened species correlated between taxonomic groups and geographical areas.


The study showed that almost a third of all freshwater species considered are threatened with extinction, with remarkably little large-scale geographical variation in threats. Freshwater diversity is highest in the Amazon basin, largely driven by extremely high diversity of amphibians in this region. Other important regions for freshwater biodiversity include the south-eastern USA, West Africa, the Ganges and Mekong basins, and areas of Malaysia and Indonesia. However, there was no consistent geographical pattern of species richness in freshwater ecosystems.

Freshwater species in certain habitats are more at risk than others – 34% of species living in rivers and streams are under threat, compared to just 20% of marsh and lake species. It appears that flowing freshwater habitats may be more severely affected by human activities than more stationary ones. Freshwater species are also consistently more threatened than their terrestrial counterparts. Reptiles, according to this study, are particularly at risk from extinction, with nearly half of all species threatened or near threatened. This makes reptiles the most threatened freshwater taxa considered in this analysis. The authors identified key process that were threatening freshwater species in this dataset – habitat degradation, water pollution and over-exploitation are the biggest risks. Habitat loss and degradation is the most common threat, affecting over 80% of threatened freshwater species.

That there was relatively little congruence between different taxa in the distribution of species richness and threatened species in freshwater ecosystems suggests that conservation planning that considers only one or a few taxa may miss crucial areas of conservation priority. For example, conservation planning rarely considers patterns of invertebrate richness, but if these groups are affected differently and in different regions than reptiles and amphibians, say, then they may be overlooked in initiatives that aim to protect them. Further, different ways to measure the health of populations and ecosystems yield different patterns. The metrics we use to identify threatened species, upon which conservation decisions are based, must be carefully considered if we are to suceeed in protecting valuable ecosystems and the services the provide.

Original Article:

() Global Ecology and Biogeography

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This research was made possible by funding from the Rufford Foundation and the European Commission