Woody plant species diversity as a predictor of ecosystem services in a social\u2013ecological system of southwestern Ethiopia

Girma Shumi,Kristoffer Hylander,Feyera Senbeta,Werner Härdtle,Jan Hanspach,Patrícia Rodrigues,Jannik Schultner,Joern Fischer

doi:10.1007/s10980-020-01170-x

Girma Shumi, Kristoffer Hylander + Show 6 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-020-01170-x

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Abstract

ContextHuman-dominated landscapes in the tropics need to be managed for biodiversity and the maintenance of ecosystem services (ES). Nevertheless, integrating both biodiversity conservation and ES management remains a challenge.ObjectivesThis study aimed to quantify woody plant species diversity and associated ES in farmland and forests, and investigate the relationship between species and ES diversity.MethodsThe study was conducted in southwestern Ethiopia. We surveyed woody plants in 181 20 m by 20 m plots in farmland, forest with, and forest without coffee management. We also interviewed 180 randomly selected households about woody plant benefits. We then (a) quantified species and ES diversity; and (b) investigated the relationship between species and ES diversity.ResultsWe recorded 128 woody plant species in total. Most ES were available in all land uses, although they differed in their mean availability. ES composition was significantly different among land uses. ES diversity was positively related with species diversity in all land uses.ConclusionsOur findings suggest that all examined land-use types were multifunctional in terms of key ES provided by woody plants and that maintaining high species diversity also benefits ES diversity. Given these findings, we suggest to: (1) strengthen landscape multifunctionality by drawing on the positive relationship between biodiversity and ES diversity; (2) devise conservation policies that encompass entire landscape mosaics and enhance co-benefits of conservation and ES provision across land uses; and (3) conduct further social–ecological studies that use mixed data to elicit socially relevant relationships between biodiversity and ES diversity.

Highlights

The ecosystem service (ES) framework has become an important tool to link biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing (Dıaz et al 2015), especially since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005)
Our findings suggest that all examined land-use types were multifunctional in terms of key ecosystem services (ES) provided by woody plants and that maintaining high species diversity benefits ES diversity
We investigated the relationship between woody plant species diversity and ES diversity across different land-use types within a smallholder-dominated farming landscape in southwestern Ethiopia

Summary

Introduction

The ecosystem service (ES) framework has become an important tool to link biodiversity conservation and human wellbeing (Dıaz et al 2015), especially since the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA 2005). A fundamental tenet of this framework is that biodiversity is positively related to the provision of ES and thereby benefits human wellbeing (Peterson et al 1998; Isbell et al 2011; Brockerhoff et al 2017). Empirical studies that examine how biodiversity relates to the provision of multiple ES in different land-use types across real landscapes remain scarce (Mitchell et al 2015; Brockerhoff et al 2017; Manning et al 2018). With the exception of some theoretical and experimental explorations (e.g. Maestre et al 2012; Gamfeldt et al 2013; Allan et al 2015), few studies have systematically examined biodiversity–ES relationships across gradients of land-use intensity within human-modified landscapes Most studies on the relationship between biodiversity and ES have considered the effects of species diversity on individual ES (Schwartz et al 2000; Cardinale et al 2012; Landscape Ecol (2021) 36:373–391

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