13. How Relevant to Conservation Are Studies Linking Biodiversity and Ecosystem Functioning?

Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity: Ecosystems provide a multitude of benefits to humanity, from food, clean water and flood protection to cultural heritage and a sense of place, to name but a few. However, many of these benefits, known as ‘ecosystem services’, are under severe threat from man-made pressures. Decision makers need clear information on how biodiversity underpins these services, the demand for them, the capacity of ecosystems to provide them and the pressures impairing that capacity. In this report we explore four core facets of the ecosystem services concept: the links between biodiversity and ecosystem services; current techniques for mapping and assessing ecosystems and their services; valuation of ecosystem services and the importance of considering all ecosystem services and biodiversity as part of an interconnected system.

The last two decades have seen a shift of emphasis in ecology; from a focus on the drivers of biodiversity change toward a consideration for its effects on ecosystem functioning. Ecosystem functioning is affected by individual species (i.e. species with functionally dominant biological traits), but can also be influenced by other factors, such as interspecific interactions. Current evidence suggests that biotic influence over marine ecosystem functioning is largely underpinned by the effects of individual species. However, there are indications that this might not constitute a complete understanding of the link between marine biodiversity and ecosystem function (BEF). For this thesis, I applied our current understanding of marine BEF relationships (i.e. the causal link between particular biological traits and particular ecological functions) to long-term benthic community time series and investigated the causes of ecological change and its consequences for ecosystem functioning. A shift in the taxonomic composition of the species assemblage was explained by underlying variation in extrinsic drivers. However, the long-term conservation of trait composition suggests that functioning can be sustained in the face of environmental and ecological change. Experiments conducted to test BEF relationships in intertidal marine benthos reaffirmed the functional importance of the biological traits of species, but also showed that interactions among species can influence the delivery of ecological functions in various ways, including facilitation (i.e. function delivery is enhanced) and antagonism (i.e. function delivery is reduced). The results suggest that biotic influence over marine ecosystem functioning is more complex than previously suggested, and that the impacts of biodiversity change (e.g. species extinctions or shifts in species densities) could be either exacerbated or mitigated depending on the composition of the affected assemblage and the ecological function considered. To produce more realistic results, future indirect assessments of ecosystem functioning would benefit from incorporating interactions among species as well as their biological traits.

In the current decade, the main goals for biodiversity conservation and environmental protection at the level of the European Union are set in the EU Biodiversity Strategy to 2020: halting biodiversity loss and restoring ecosystem services. A key requirement for the implementation of the Strategy in terms of targeting measures and funds, and monitoring trends is the construction of a biodiversity knowledge base, including spatially explicit information on biodiversity distribution and ecosystem condition. The work presented in this report is based on the analysis of two primary datasets on biodiversity and habitat status. The first one is the Habitats assessment carried out by EU Members States under Art.17 of the Habitats and Birds Directive. Information reported by Member States is analysed to derive the links between pressures and conservation status, showing that agriculture-related habitats have, on average, a worse conservation status when compared to other habitats. Consequently, threats and pressures having most influenced the status of the agricultural-related habitats can be identified. The second one is the global dataset on species threat status elaborated by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). Spatially explicit representations of species distribution, status and richness across the EU 28 are provided, and most importantly the identification of wide geographic variables linked to ecological theory is presented, that explain to a large extent the continental trend in species richness. Finally, an example is presented of how the two exploited datasets can be jointly used by cross-tabulating data on habitats assessments and species threat status in a spatially explicit way at 10 km resolution, aiming at identifying hotspots were policy intervention is needed

The effect of biodiversity loss on ecosystem functioning is a relatively new research topic in ecology. The motivation for this research comes largely from current forecasts of ongoing loss of biodiversity. However, the intellectual link between biodiversity and ecosystem processes was first inferred by Darwin based on his Principle of Divergence. In the notes for his Big Species Book Darwin explicitly states that communities composed of organisms developed under “many and widely differing forms” should have higher rates of productivity and decomposition. Darwin also cites supporting evidence in the form of the Hortus Gramineus Woburnensis: a grass garden at Woburn Abbey in the South of England that contains early experiments on the relationship between organisms and their environment.

<p>Project acronym: EU BON<br> Project name: EU BON: Building the European Biodiversity Observation Network<br> Call: ENV.2012.6.2-2<br> Grant agreement: FP7-308454<br> Project duration: 01/12/2012 – 31/05/2017 (54 months)<br> Co-ordinator: MfN, Museum für Naturkunde - Leibniz Institute for Research on Evolution and Biodiversity, Germany</p> <p>uploaded by Plazi</p>

The Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) established to be achieved by 2030 are an ensemble of 17 goals to address global environmental and social economic concerns [1]. SDG 15 concerns the protection of terrestrial ecosystems to halt biodiversity loss. Target 15.9 states that by 2020, ecosystem and biodiversity values should be integrated into national and local planning, and is related to Aichi Biodiversity Target 2 of the Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, which also involves integrating biodiversity values into national accounting and reporting systems [2]. The importance of maintaining ecosystem integrity is becoming widely recognized, not only to halt biodiversity loss, but also to preserve Nature’s benefits to human well-being, and has been included in many other targets such as the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy’s target 2, which requires the restoration of at least 15% of degraded ecosystems as well as the establishment of green infrastructures to enhance ecosystem services (ES) [3]. The Green Infrastructures (GI) framework is used as a policy tool and promotes the multi-functional use of landscapes to improve biodiversity conservation and benefits to society. It is formulated as a “strategically planned network of natural and semi-natural areas” [4] and is based on three main pillars: key habitats for target species, connectivity and ES [5]. As part of ERA-PLANET’s GEOEssential project (Essential Variables workflows for resource efficiency and environmental management), our study aims at demonstrating how the GI framework can be implemented at any geographical area or time-period through reproducible modeling workflows from field data to Essential Variables (EV) data products and policy relevant indicators to monitor and inform advances towards environmental targets. A proof of concept workflow was already set in place for computing the indicator 15.1.2: Proportion of important sites for terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity that are covered by protected areas, by ecosystem, while other workflows will follow. The execution platform is the GEOEssential Virtual Laboratory, a cloud-based virtual platform which enables access to, and execution of workflows for the ecosystem science community of practice and even more. REFERENCES: 1. UNSD, 2016. Sustainable Development Goals Report. https://unstats.un.org/sdgs/report/2016/ (accessed 18 May 2018). 2. CBD Secretariat, 2010. The Strategic Plan for Biodiversity 2011-2020, and the Aichi Biodiversity Targets. Secretariat of the Convention on Biological Diversity, Nagoya. 3. European Commission, 2011. Communication from the Commission to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and the Committee of the Regions - Our life insurance, our natural capital: an EU biodiversity strategy to 2020, Brussels. 4. European Commission, 2013. Green infrastructure (GI) - Enhancing Europe’s Natural Capital, Brussels. 5. Liquete, C., Kleeschulte, S., Dige, G., Maes, J., Grizzetti, B., Olah, B., & Zulian, G., 2015. Mapping green infrastructure based on ecosystem services and ecological networks: A Pan-European case study. Environmental Science & Policy, 54, 268–280.

The aim of the ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project is the development of DNA chips for the identification of marine organisms in European Seas as a cost effective, reliable and efficient technology in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. Many marine organisms, such as (1) eggs and larvae of fishes and invertebrates, (2) zoo- and phytoplankton, and (3) benthic invertebrates, are difficult to identify by morphological characters, and for many groups the skills of specialised taxonomists are needed. The classical microscopy methods are extremely time consuming and require a high degree of taxonomic expertise. Consequently, the basic step of identifying such organisms is a major bottleneck in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. The ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project aims to demonstrate that DNA chips can be a new innovative tool for the identification of marine animals and phytoplankton. The fish chips will comprise capture oligonucleotides for fishes of the North Sea, Baltic Sea, North-Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Sea. This chip will facilitate ecosystem research in terms of ichthyoplankton community studies, as well as dispersal of fish eggs and larvae. The aim of the ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project is the development of DNA chips for the identification of marine organisms in European Seas as a cost effective, reliable and efficient technology in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. Many marine organisms, such as (1) eggs and larvae of fishes and invertebrates, (2) zoo- and phytoplankton, and (3) benthic invertebrates, are difficult to identify by morphological characters, and for many groups the skills of specialised taxonomists are needed. The classical microscopy methods are extremely time consuming and require a high degree of taxonomic expertise. Consequently, the basic step of identifying such organisms is a major bottleneck in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. The ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project aims to demonstrate that DNA chips can be a new innovative tool for the identification of marine animals and phytoplankton. The fish chips will comprise capture oligonucleotides for fishes of the North Sea, Baltic Sea, North-Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Sea. This chip will facilitate ecosystem research in terms of ichthyoplankton community studies, as well as dispersal of fish eggs and larvae.The aim of the ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project is the development of DNA chips for the identification of marine organisms in European Seas as a cost effective, reliable and efficient technology in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. Many marine organisms, such as (1) eggs and larvae of fishes and invertebrates, (2) zoo- and phytoplankton, and (3) benthic invertebrates, are difficult to identify by morphological characters, and for many groups the skills of specialised taxonomists are needed. The classical microscopy methods are extremely time consuming and require a high degree of taxonomic expertise. Consequently, the basic step of identifying such organisms is a major bottleneck in marine biodiversity and ecosystem science. The ‘‘Fish & Chips'' project aims to demonstrate that DNA chips can be a new innovative tool for the identification of marine animals and phytoplankton. The fish chips will comprise capture oligonucleotides for fishes of the North Sea, Baltic Sea, North-Eastern Atlantic, Mediterranean and Black Sea. This chip will facilitate ecosystem research in terms of ichthyoplankton community studies, as well as dispersal of fish eggs and larvae.The phytoplankton chip will focus mainly on unicellular algae from the North Sea. This DNA chip will enable monitoring of biodiversity, especially for pico- and nanoplankton species which lack morphological features for identification. The detection of harmful algae blooms is also an important application. The invertebrate chip will focus on important prey species of demersal fishes in the Mediterranean, as well as bioindicator organisms, such as polychaetes, that are difficult to identify by morphological characters.

Although urbanization is threatening biodiversity worldwide, the increasing green urban spaces could harbor relatively high biodiversity. Therefore, how to maintain the biodiversity in urban ecosystem is crucial for sustainable urban planning and management, especially in arid and semiarid regions with relatively fragile environment and low biodiversity. Here, for the first time we linked species richness, phylogenetic and functional structure of bird assemblages in university campuses in northern China with plant species richness, glacial-interglacial climate change, contemporary climate, and anthropogenic factors to compare their relative roles in shaping urban bird diversity. Bird surveys were conducted in 20 university campuses across Inner Mongolia, China. Ordinary least squares models and simultaneous autoregressive models were used to assess the relationships between bird species richness, phylogenetic and functional structure with environmental factors. Structural equation models were used to capture the direct and indirect effects of these factors on the three components of bird diversity. Single-variable simultaneous autoregressive models showed that mean annual precipitation was consistently a significant driver for bird species richness, phylogenetic and functional structure. Meanwhile, mean annual temperature and plant species richness were also significant predictors for bird species richness. This study suggests that campuses with warmer and wetter climate as well as more woody plant species could harbor more bird species. In addition, wetter campuses tended to sustain over-dispersed phylogenetic and functional structure. Our findings emphasize the dominant effect of precipitation on bird diversity distribution in this arid and semiarid region, even in the urban ecosystem.

Ecosystem and landscape management presents a complex array of problems for decision-makers at all levels of government. Land-use planners and natural-resource managers are faced with the dual complexity of incorporating existing policy and planning constraints with scientific understanding about ecosystem and landscape processes, into the decision-making process. This requires enhanced decision-making frameworks, improved access to scientific knowledge, and an ability to apply this knowledge effectively across multiple spatial scales. This paper outlines an integrated decision-support framework and, as part of this framework, describes a decision-making tool (ECO-DECISION) for ecosystem management at the local scale in Queensland, Australia. ECO-DECISION integrates scientific understanding of ecosystems and sustainable landscape management with existing legislative and policy arrangements for native vegetation management. In Queensland, loss and fragmentation of habitat caused by land clearing poses the greatest threat to biodiversity and resource sustainability. ECO-DECISION provides support for the management of native ecosystems on individual, predominately rural properties (hectares), as well as their distribution in larger landscapes (100s-1000s hectares). It works by assigning vegetation-clearing controls to native ecosystems based on rules derived from both existing policy codes and landscape ecological theory. It links property-scale decisions with outcomes over entire landscapes, and evaluates these decisions according to landscape ecological indicators such as patch size and total area. ECO-DECISION demonstrates that spatial decision support tools are an effective means for incorporating scientific research into landscape management and planning.

We need to move towards more sustainable farming methods that maximise yields whilst protecting the environment. One approach that would achieve this goal is ecological intensification, which seeks to manage the biodiversity and ecological processes underpinning agricultural production so that damaging farming practices can be replaced or reduced. Forb-rich arable field margins have been shown to benefit flower-visiting insects such as wild bees, and recent evidence suggests that they can also enhance the levels of pollination and pest control in adjacent crop fields. They may also promote a suite of additional ecosystem services of societal and agronomic importance, but this has yet to be established. Furthermore, the ability of forb-rich field margins to deliver multiple benefits (i.e. ecosystem multifunctionality), including pest control and pollination, is likely to be contingent on a range of local and landscape factors. Using a range of pre-existing field margin plots (n = 98) distributed across 16 arable farms in central eastern England, this study first sought to examine whether high quality forb-rich field margins promote ecosystem multifunctionality more effectively than low quality forb-poor field margins. This involved measuring a range ecosystem services within and adjacent to field margin plots, including pest control, pollination, soil carbon storage, flood alleviation, the abundance of invertebrate ecosystem service providers and the amount of invertebrate biodiversity. Secondly, it established whether arable field margins provide adequate foraging resources for flower-visiting insects. And thirdly, it determined the local and landscape factors (including margin quality) that best promote ecosystem service provision and invertebrate biodiversity within agro-ecosystems. The findings indicated that quality was the most important determinant of ecosystem multifunctionality within arable field margins, as high quality margins supported significantly greater levels of pest control, pollination, flood alleviation and invertebrate biodiversity. However, a range of additional local and landscape management prescriptions further enhanced the multifunctionality of arable field margins, such as the level of vehicle traffic margins receive, vegetation height, landscape complexity and the amount of floral resources provided by the adjacent hedgerow. Despite the multiple benefits of high quality field margins, they were also found to enhance invertebrate crop pests. This may reduce the willingness of farmers to adopt forb-rich habitats on their land. Finally, the present study highlights that more consideration should be given to the forb species included within field margin seed mixes, as certain species were found to promote agronomically damaging crop pests, whereas other species not currently included in field margin seed mixes were extremely attractive to several important flower-visiting taxa or flowered during spring; a period in which field margins are floristically poor. This thesis clearly demonstrates that forb-rich field margins provide multiple agronomic, societal and biodiversity benefits, and outlines the important drivers of ecosystem multifunctionality. As such, it provides farmers and landowners with a clear set of management guidelines for promoting biodiversity and ecosystem services within arable field margins.

Biodiversity and ecological functioning of mudflat macrofauna in the Anthropocene

Jinggangshan(N26°13′—26°52′,E113°59′—114°18′) is in the middle of the east slope of Luoxiao Mountain and the overall topography is higher in southwest and gradually lower towards north and east.It lies in the middle subtropical zone and has obvious seasons.There are abundant precipitation and heat resource.The annual temperature is 14.2℃ and the annual rainfall is 1889.8 mm.The highest site is in the south face,2120.4 m,while the lowest site is in Qixiling Longtan port with an altitude of 200 m,the greatest difference in altitude is up to 1920 m.The Jinggangshan Mountain is magnificent and steep with lots of cliffs.There are beaded basins(depressions) with dendritic water system among the hills.There are riffles and rapids in some regions,forming water falls in narrow gorge.Jingganshan has complex geography,which is the base of diverse community and ecosystem.In general,the diverse types of ecosystem have the potential to support diverse biological communities.However,it is rare to study the ecosystem types in Jinggangshan area.And it is unclear how complex the ecosystems on different scales.Therefore,ecosystem types in Jinggangshan were studied,and the relationship between ecosystem and species biodiversity was discussed.This will be the basis of ecological protection and environmental management in Jinggangshan area.Based on the First-level IUCN/SSC Habitat classification,there are 9 First-level habitats(almost including all the habitats except marine habitat) in Jingganshan area,suggesting the habitat is plentiful.Forest is the largest area among these first-level habitats,which is the key foundation of the diversity of natural ecosystem and vegetation types.Then the sub-habitats(such as shrubs,grassland and water) enrich the complexity and integrity of ecosystem.The first-level habitats in Jinggangshan,being related to the diversity of ecosystem type,are the basic of ecosystem classification.In addition,here we used an integrative classification of ecosystem based on the origin of ecosystem,the geography of ecosystem,the habitat or attribute of ecosystem,as well as the structure and function of ecosystem.The results showed that there are 53 types of ecosystem in Jinggangshan,twenty-one of which is natural ecosystems(including forest,grassland and still water ecosystem etc.),14 is artificial ecosystem(including artificial wetland,artificial forest,agricultural ecosystems ect.),and 18 is complex ecosystems(including semi-natural ecosystems and semi-artificial ecosystems etc.).This classification only reaches 4 levels.In fact there are still plentiful ecosystem types below the 4th level.For instance,the 4th level ecosystem Broad-leaved forest can be divided into ravine evergreen forest,typical evergreen forest,deciduous broad-leaved forest,mountaintop evergreen broad-leaved copse ecosystem etc.And the 4th level ecosystem lentic ecosystem(lake,reservoir,water pool) can be divided into lake,reservoir and water pool ecosystem.This indicates that there are plentiful ecosystem types in Jinggangshan area.Vegetation covered the largest proportion in Jinggangshan area.Thus the plant community was investigated in order to understand the diversity of ecosystem in Jinggangshan.The results showed that there were 14 vegetations,90 formations and 180 associations.Comparing with adjacent heritages,there are the most vegetation types in Jinggangshan.The vegetation types are nearly 3 times of the adjacent Sanqingshan Heritage and Wuyishan Heritage though the area of Jinggangshan is smaller than those two heritages.Within a certain range,the biodiversity depends on the diversity of habitat and the key construct elements.There are the highest higher plant species and amphibians in Jinggangshan relative to those 7 adjacent heritage sites,while insect species is only second to Wuyi Mountain,and the bird species is only second to Danxia Mountain.The complex and diverse topography and landform in Jinggangshan form various habitats and ecosystems,provides plentiful niches,which is undoubtedly the foundation of the coexisting animals and plants.Although there are limited space(distribution area) in Jinggangshan,the plentiful differentiated niches makes it possible to breed and grow much more species in Jinggangshan.We concluded that the plentiful habitats and various types of ecosystems are the main basic of high diversity of biological community,which is the foundation of high diversity of biological species in Jinggangshan area.

Tree-grass savanna ecosystems are a widespread terrestrial biome and are highly valued for their ecosystem services. They support one fifth of the global human population through food and timber production and are a key biome for biodiversity, the water cycle and carbon sequestration. At the global scale, savannas account for 25 % of terrestrial carbon uptake, which is a product of the interplay between trees and grasses and is maintained through interactions with climate and disturbance (fire, herbivory, land use change). As the climate changes into the 21st century, the future of savannas in their current form is uncertain. Modifications to the timing and amount of rainfall delivered to savanna ecosystems will have implications for species phenology and current structural (i.e. tree-grass) dynamics. Therefore, it is important to separate the savanna tree and grass components to understand what governs these dynamics over time to determine if there is a differential response of trees and grasses to climate change. This thesis explores tree and grass dynamics in detail for an Australian tropical savanna. The eddy covariance technique was employed to monitor fluxes of carbon, water and energy between the savanna ecosystem and the atmosphere at the Howard Springs OzFlux site. An understory tower was utilised to separate the overstory (i.e. tree) and understory (i.e. grass) contributions into ecosystem fluxes, with particular attention paid to the gross primary productivity (GPP) component. The partitioned fluxes showed that the understory was more seasonally dynamic than the overstory, contributing 40 % to ecosystem GPP in the wet season and only 18 % in the dry season. Understory GPP did not completely cease in the dry season due to contributions from woody species that occupy 20 % of the understory biomass. To capture the different phenological signals displayed by the overstory and understory, a suite of time-lapse cameras (i.e. phenocams) were also installed, where colour indices were calculated from each camera image to provide a time series of in situ variability in vegetation greenness. The greenness data closely tracked GPP over time, and when used in a light use efficiency (LUE) model, tree and grass GPP estimates from the model were improved. This result reinforces the importance of vegetation phenology for determining variability in savanna productivity. The Howard Springs flux site has been in continuous operation since 2001 and this 15-year flux record was partitioned into overstory and understory contributions. The partitioned dataset was used to explore whether the tree-grass ratio had changed over the 15-year period and what the main meteorological drivers were over time. For the wet season, productivity at Howard Springs was light limited due to increased cloud cover during the summer monsoon. In contrast, productivity in the dry season was water limited due to depletion of soil water stores. Inter-annually, productivity was determined by soil moisture availability linked with annual rainfall and rainy season length, and the tree-grass ratio varied in line with changes in the Southern Oscillation Index (SOI). This research has provided a missing link in our understanding of tree-grass dynamics in Australian savannas, which is vital if savanna ecosystems are to be successfully managed in the coming century.

In the emerging Web of Data, publishing stable and unique identifiers promises great potential in using the web as common platform to discover and enrich data in the ecologic sciences. With our collaborative e-Science platform “BEFdata”, we generated and published unique identifiers for the data repository of the Biodiversity – Ecosystem Functioning Research Unit of the German Research Foundation (BEFChina; DFG: FOR 891). We linked part of the identifiers to two external data providers, thus creating a virtual common platform including several ecological repositories. We used the Global Biodiversity Facility (GBIF) as well the International Plant Name Index (IPNI) to enrich the data from our own field observations. We conclude in discussing other potential providers for identifiers for the ecological research domain. We demonstrate the ease of making use of existing decentralized and unsupervised identifiers for a data repository, which opens new avenues to collaborative data discovery for learning, teaching, and research in ecology

The development of environment measures in the reformed CAP can be informed by the evaluation of existing policies. We undertook a cost-effectiveness analysis of biodiversity measures in Scotland to determine whether current biodiversity objectives have been achieved. We assessed measures targeting 13 species and 5 habitats under the Scottish Rural Development Programme (SRDP) and similar schemes. Expert interviews were used to determine the extent to which published conservation objectives for species and habitats have been achieved. Effectiveness scores for multiple objectives were then weighted and combined to produce overall effectiveness for each species or habitat. Cost data for relevant SRDP and other scheme measures were apportioned to our study species and habitats. There was a wide variation in cost per unit of effectiveness both across and within species and habitats, e.g. Hazel gloves fungus cost-effectiveness was £3,286 per unit whilst Black grouse ranged between £112k and £4m. These results reflected both levels of funding and effectiveness; also the often wide variation in assessment of effectiveness can be linked to vague objectives and lack of monitoring. We also considered impacts on wider ecosystem services which found that there are often broader benefits from biodiversity measures that should be considered.