Ecosystem Properties Research Articles

Ecosystem responses dominate the trends of annual gross primary productivity over terrestrial ecosystems of China during 2000–2020

The annual gross primary productivity (AGPP) forms the foundation for terrestrial carbon sink. AGPP trends stem from the combined impacts of environmental factors and ecosystem responses to those factors. These responses include model structure modifications altering both the structural properties (represented by leaf area index) and the functional properties (represented by per leaf AGPP). Understanding the contributions of ecosystem responses to AGPP trends is crucial for accurately assessing spatiotemporal variations in AGPP, which aids in effective carbon management. Based on eddy covariance measurements of AGPP in China, we generated AGPP during 2000–2020 by constructing yearly AGPP mapping schemes from site measurements and analyzed AGPP trends. The roles of ecosystem responses and their pathways were further elucidated by employing analysis of variance. Results showed that the total AGPP in China was 7.39 ± 0.62 PgC yr−1, with an increasing trend of 0.095 PgC yr−2. This increase primarily sourced from the total AGPP in Subtropical Evergreen Needleleaf Forest. AGPP trends spatially decreased from east to west, with most regions showing positive values. Structural and functional properties contributed similarly to AGPP trends, with varying regional contributions. The structural properties played a dominant role in north regions while the functional properties were more important in south and west regions. Ecosystem responses similarly determined the trends of ecosystem properties, which decreased from west to east. Ecosystem responses thus dominated AGPP trends through the structural properties in north regions but through the functional properties in south and west regions. Therefore, Chinese AGPP exhibited a spatially varied increasing trend during 2000–2020. Ecosystem responses dominated AGPP trends through divergent properties across regions. Our results highlight the significanc of ecosystem responses in AGPP trends and their divergent pathways across regions. This also provides independent data support for quantifying regional carbon budgets.

Optimizing cropping systems to close the gap between economic profitability and environmental health.

Supporting food security while maintaining ecosystem sustainability is one of the most important global challenges for humanity. Optimization of cropping systems is expected to promote the ecosystem services of agroecosystems. Yet, how and why cropping system influences the trade-offs between economic profitability and multiple ecosystem services remain poorly understood. We investigate the influence of six cropping systems on trade-offs between economic profitability and multiple ecosystem services after considering 36 agricultural ecosystem properties using field experiment data from 2020 to 2022. We show that designing cropping system is a critical tool to closing the gap between ecosystem sustainability and commercial profitability. Cropping system with three harvests within 2 yr had higher performance in overall ecosystem multiple services through enhancement of supporting, regulating, and economic performance without compromising provisioning compared with four other systems. These systems diminished the trade-off among multiple services, resulting in a 'win-win' situation for economics and multiple services. By contrast, the monoculture and double cropping systems lead to a strong trade-off between pairwise services including ecosystem health and profitability. Our work illustrates the substantial potential of rotation systems with three harvests within 2 yr in enforcing ecosystem services and closing the trade-offs among multiple agricultural ecosystem services.

Noise pollution alters the diet composition of invertebrate consumers both in and beyond a noise-exposed grassland ecosystem.

Anthropogenic noise is ubiquitous globally. However, we know little about how the impacts of noise alter fundamental ecosystem properties, such as resource consumption by invertebrate consumers. Using experimental noise manipulation and faecal DNA metabarcoding, we assessed how the direct and cross-trophic indirect effects of noise altered the dietary richness and specializations of omnivorous grasshoppers in a grassland ecosystem. We found that the experimental noise treatment expanded grasshoppers' dietary richness and resulted in dietary generalizations in both noise-exposed and adjacent relatively quieter areas. Unexpectedly, however, these dietary changes were primarily explained by the direct effect of noise not only in the noise-exposed areas but also in the adjacent quieter areas and were relaxed by indirect effects of noise such as reduced birds and predation risk and increased grasshoppers. Our work suggests that noise pollution can be key in explaining the variation of invertebrate consumers' diets across a gradient of noise-exposed environments.

Long-term changes in the riparian vegetation of a large, highly anthropized river: Towards less hygrophilous and more competitive communities

Vegetation resurvey has proven effective in understanding long-term trajectories of plant communities. Combined with information related to ecological preferences and ecological strategies of plants, this framework can provide insight into the dynamics of communities and associated ecological processes over several decades. By comparing old and recent vegetation surveys, we sought to understand how past changes in flow and sediment regimes along a 100-km reach of the Rhône river still influence the structure of riparian plant communities. Specifically, we studied variations in the mean and dispersion values of light, nutrient availability and soil moisture, as well as of competitors, stress tolerators and ruderals, at the community scale over four decades and along connectivity and productivity gradients. Results showed that communities were composed of more hygrophilous and heliophilous species in old surveys and that this decrease in soil moisture and light over time was broadly consistent along environmental gradients. In response to these environmental changes, the ecological strategies of riparian vegetation have evolved into more competitive and less stress-tolerant communities. This was illustrated by the decline of the pioneer species Salix alba, but the increase in several post-pioneer woody species. Given that these changes were observed on almost all the plots studied, irrespective of their position along the connectivity and productivity gradients, our results reflect to some extent an overall evolution of the system towards more mature and closed successional stages. Thus, over a period of 40-years, and probably due to the legacy effects of anthropogenic modifications to flow and sediment regimes that have favored more stable riparian environments, a directional shift of riparian communities towards more advanced successional stages was highlighted. In a context where past and present anthropogenic stressors are accumulating, we infer that these changes in riparian ecosystem properties are probably irreversible and represent a major challenge for restoration.

The response of stream ecosystem properties to two size classes of herbivorous minnow species.

Losses in freshwater fish diversity might produce a loss in important ecological services provided by fishes in particular habitats. An important gap in our understanding of ecosystem services by fishes is the influence of individuals from different size classes, which is predicted based on known ontogenetic shifts in metabolic demand and diet. I used 20 experimental stream mesocosms located at Konza Prairie Biological Station (KPBS), KS, USA, to assess the influence of fish size on ecosystem properties. Mesocosms included two macrohabitats: one riffle upstream from one pool filled with consistent pebble and gravel substrate. There were four experimental and one control treatment, each replicated four times (N = 20). I used two size classes of central stonerollers (Campostoma anomalum) and southern redbelly dace (Chrosomus erythrogaster). Five ecosystem properties were assessed: algal filament length (cm), benthic chlorophyll a (μg/cm2), benthic organic matter (g/m2), macroinvertebrate biomass (g/m2), and stream metabolism (g O2/m2/day-1). Size structure of fish populations affected some, but not all, ecosystem properties, and these effects were dependent upon species identity. Size structure of both species had effects on algal filament lengths where stonerollers of both size classes reduced algal filaments, but only small redbelly dace kept filaments short. A better understanding of the relationship between these prairie stream minnows and their small stream habitats could be useful to both predict changes in stream properties if species are lost (redbelly dace are a Species In Need of Conservation) or size structure shifts.

Implications of the steady-state assumption for the global vegetation carbon turnover

Vegetation carbon turnover time (τ) is a central ecosystem property to quantify the global vegetation carbon dynamics. However, our understanding of vegetation dynamics is hampered by the lack of long-term observations of the changes in vegetation biomass. Here we challenge the steady state assumption of τ by using annual changes in vegetation biomass that derived from remote-sensing observations. We evaluate the changes in magnitude, spatial patterns, and uncertainties in vegetation carbon turnover times from 1992 to 2016. We found the robustness in the steady state assumption for forest ecosystems at large spatial scales, contrasting with local larger differences at the grid cell level between τ under steady state and τ under non-steady state conditions. The observation that terrestrial ecosystems are not in a steady state locally is deemed crucial when studying vegetation dynamics and the potential response of biomass to disturbance and climatic changes.

A Lagrangian model for drifting ecosystems reveals heterogeneity-driven enhancement of marine plankton blooms

Marine plankton play a crucial role in carbon storage, global climate, and ecosystem function. Planktonic ecosystems are embedded in patches of water that are continuously moving, stretching, and diluting. These processes drive inhomegeneities on a range of scales, with implications for the integrated ecosystem properties, but are hard to characterize. We present a theoretical framework that accounts for all these aspects; tracking the water patch hosting a drifting ecosystem along with its physical, environmental, and biochemical features. The theory resolves patch dilution and internal physical mixing as a function of oceanic strain and diffusion. Ecological dynamics are parameterized by an idealized nutrient and phytoplankton population and we specifically capture the time evolution of the biochemical spatial variances to represent within-patch heterogeneity. We find that, depending only on the physical processes to which the water patch is subjected, the plankton biomass response to a resource perturbation can vary in size up to six times. This work indicates that we must account for these processes when interpreting and modeling marine ecosystems and provides a framework with which to do so.

Mangrove ecosystem properties regulate high water levels in a river delta

Abstract. Intertidal wetlands, such as mangroves in the tropics, are increasingly recognized for their role in nature-based mitigation of coastal flood risks. Yet it is still poorly understood how effective they are at attenuating the propagation of extreme sea levels through large (order of 100 km2) estuarine or deltaic systems, with complex geometry formed by networks of branching channels intertwined with mangrove and intertidal flat areas. Here, we present a delta-scale hydrodynamic modelling study, aiming to explicitly account for these complex landforms, for the case of the Guayas delta (Ecuador), the largest estuarine system on the Pacific coast of Latin America. Despite coping with data scarcity, our model accurately reproduces the observed propagation of high water levels during a spring tide. Further, based on a model sensitivity analysis, we show that high water levels are most sensitive to the mangrove platform elevation and degree of channelization but to a much lesser extent to vegetation-induced friction. Mangroves with a lower surface elevation, lower vegetation density, and higher degree of channelization all favour a more efficient flooding of the mangroves and therefore more effectively attenuate the high water levels in the deltaic channels. Our findings indicate that vast areas of channelized mangrove forests, rather than densely vegetated forests, are most effective for nature-based flood risk mitigation in a river delta.

Urban lake water quality responses to elevated road salt concentrations

Road salt runoff from de-icing applications is increasingly impacting water quality around the globe. Excess salt (especially chloride) concentrations can negatively impact the biological, chemical, and physical properties of freshwater ecosystems. Though road salt pollution is a prevalent issue affecting many northern temperate lakes, there are few studies on how freshwater salinization interacts with other ecological stressors such as eutrophication. We investigated how chloride from road deicers influences water quality in an urban lake. We sampled a tributary and lake receiving large amounts of road salt runoff from a nearby highway in Grand Rapids, Michigan over a 20-month period. Chloride concentrations in the deepest part of the lake consistently exceeded the US EPA chloride chronic toxicity threshold of 230 mg/L, at times reaching up to 331 mg/L. These high chloride concentrations appear to be responsible for preventing part of the lake from complete mixing, and causing hypoxia in the deepest regions of the lake. Total phosphorus concentrations near the surface averaged 35 μg/L but exceeded 7500 μg/L in the deepest part of the lake, which occupies 3–5 % of total lake volume. Phosphorus release rates from the sediments were low and unlikely to be a current source of the high phosphorus concentrations. Rather, both phosphorus and chloride likely have been accumulating in the hypolimnion over a relatively long period of time. Lake management actions will require control of both internal and external phosphorus and chloride sources in the future. We recommend that phosphorus be addressed first to avoid the extremely high phosphorus concentrations from reaching the photic zone and stimulating algal blooms, which would occur if salt was removed first and the halocline broke down. Our findings and recommendations are applicable to other lakes facing similar issues.

Understory vegetation removal significantly affected soil biogeochemical properties in forest ecosystems

Understory vegetation plays a crucial role in mediating the natural development of forest ecosystems. The removal of understory vegetation, as a common forest management practice, may have a significant impact on soil properties. However, a global perspective on how understory removal might affect soil biogeochemical properties is still lacking. To fill this knowledge gap, we performed a meta-analysis with 2059 observations collected from 71 peer reviewed publications to evaluate the effects of understory vegetation removal on soil carbon (C), nitrogen (N), phosphorus (P), potassium (K), and microbial biomass. We found that (1) removal of the understory significantly increased soil nitrates (NO3−) concentration by 6.5 %, but decreased the stocks of C and N, the concentrations of N, available K (AK) and microbial biomass C (MBC), and fine root biomass by 19.4, 15.1, 7.9, 19.9, 13.5 and 32.2%, respectively; (2) mycorrhizal association significantly mediated understory removal effects on soil organic C (SOC) and dissolved organic C (DOC) concentrations, and soil pH, while canopy type had a significant impact on the effects of understory removal on soil K, AK, NO3−, MBC concentrations, C:N ratio, and soil pH; (3) soil depth had a negative impact on the effects of understory removal on SOC, AK, ammonium nitrogen (NH4+) concentrations, and soil moisture; and (4) mycorrhizal association, soil depth, slope, forest stand age, elevation, and MAT were the most important moderator variables. Our results suggest that the removal of understory vegetation generally have negative effects on soil biogeochemical properties, and that managing understory vegetation is important for promoting the healthy development of forest ecosystems.

Long-term adoption of bed planted conservation agriculture based maize/cotton-wheat system enhances soil organic carbon stabilization within aggregates in the indo-gangetic plains

Sustainability of contemporary crop establishment and management practices is questioned due to soil degradation, higher carbon emission and declining soil productivity. Hence, this study was conducted to address the impacts of conservation agriculture (CA) practices like permanent broad beds (PBB), permanent narrow beds (PNB) and zero tilled flat beds (ZT) with residue retention on soil organic carbon (SOC) protection within aggregates in the Indo-Gangetic Plains (IGP). Compared to conventionally tilled (CT) plots, the total SOC content was ∼27%–33% higher in the CA plots on equivalent mass basis. The soil physical properties, such as soil aggregation and mean weight diameter were considerably improved under the CA practices. The macroaggregates were ∼41, 37% and 27% higher in the PBB with residue (PBB + R), PNB with residue (PNB + R) and ZT with residue (ZT + R) plots (CA plots), respectively, than the CT plots in the surface soil (0–15 cm). The plots under PBB + R had ∼31% higher microaggregates within macroaggregates than the CT plots (24.4 g 100 g−1) soil. An increase in SOC content by ∼72, 55% and 69% was observed in the PBB + R, PNB + R and ZT + R plots over the CT plots in microaggregates within macroaggregates (3.02 Mg ha−1). However, plots under PBB + R, PNB + R and ZT + R had only ∼11, 3% and 23% more SOC within silt + clay fraction, respectively, than CT plots (5.85 Mg ha−1). Thus, SOC stabilization within microaggregates inside macroaggregates was the major mechanism, and not the chemical stabilization within silt + clay, of C sequestration under CA. As aggregate-associated carbon is an ecosystem property that strongly affects organic carbon stabilization, water holding capacity and resistance to erosion, growing maize/cotton–wheat system under PBB + R practice is a viable option for carbon sequestration in the IGP and similar agro-ecologies.

Adaptive Relationships in Hemi-Boreal Forests: Tree Species Responses to Competition, Stress, and Disturbance.

European Union forest policy calls for closer-to-nature forest management, but natural disturbances and forest succession are ecological phenomena that are difficult to characterize and integrate into sustainable forest management practices. Therefore, the aim of this study is to explore the adaptive properties of Lithuania's hemi-boreal forest ecosystems. To accomplish this, we first reviewed (i) the potential natural forest communities, (ii) the successional dynamics, and (iii) adaptive strategies of forest trees, and second, we synthesised the adaptive relationships using these three reviews. The results firstly identified that Lithuania's potential natural forests are broadly divided into two climatically based zonal formations: (i) mesophytic and hygromesophytic coniferous and broadleaved forests and (ii) mesophytic deciduous broadleaved and coniferous-broadleaved forests. Secondly, the review of successional dynamics showed that each tree species can be categorised into various end communities and plant functional groups. Using the differences in tree establishment and phenological development modes we identified four forest dynamic types of tree adaptive strategies: stress-resistant ruderals, competitive stress-sensitive ruderals, ruderal stress-sensitive competitors, and stress-resistant competitors. Such functional redundancy leads to a variety of tree responses to competition, stress, and disturbance, which reduces the risk of loss of forest ecosystem functioning. Finally, the synthesised review on the adaptive relationships of each forest tree community shows both the niche position of each hemi-boreal forest tree species and how they should be managed in the organization of plant communities. We believe that this research can serve as a guide for future relevant research and the development of appropriate methods for sustainable forest management.

New deep learning-based methods for visualizing ecosystem properties using environmental DNA metabarcoding data.

Environmental DNA (eDNA) metabarcoding provides an efficient approach for documenting biodiversity patterns in marine and terrestrial ecosystems. The complexity of these data prevents current methods from extracting and analyzing all the relevant ecological information they contain, and new methods may provide better dimensionality reduction and clustering. Here we present two new deep learning-based methods that combine different types of neural networks (NNs) to ordinate eDNA samples and visualize ecosystem properties in a two-dimensional space: the first is based on variational autoencoders and the second on deep metric learning. The strength of our new methods lies in the combination of two inputs: the number of sequences found for each molecular operational taxonomic unit (MOTU) detected and their corresponding nucleotide sequence. Using three different datasets, we show that our methods accurately represent several biodiversity indicators in a two-dimensional latent space: MOTU richness per sample, sequence α-diversity per sample, Jaccard's and sequence β-diversity between samples. We show that our nonlinear methods are better at extracting features from eDNA datasets while avoiding the major biases associated with eDNA. Our methods outperform traditional dimension reduction methods such as Principal Component Analysis, t-distributed Stochastic Neighbour Embedding, Nonmetric Multidimensional Scaling and Uniform Manifold Approximation and Projection for dimension reduction. Our results suggest that NNs provide a more efficient way of extracting structure from eDNA metabarcoding data, thereby improving their ecological interpretation and thus biodiversity monitoring.

Response of soil aggregate stability to plant diversity loss along an inundation stress gradient in a reservoir riparian zone

Dam-triggered periodic wetting and drying has increased the disintegration of soil particles in riparian areas. Most studies in this field have primarily explored the effects of vegetational characteristics on soil stability. However, the impact of plant diversity loss on the soil aggregate stability under periodic inundation stress remains unclear. This study investigated the relevant plant characteristics, root traits, and soil physicochemical properties in a typical riparian ecosystem along a hydrological stress gradient. Data-driven models were used to quantify the paths influencing soil aggregate stability through root traits under heterogeneous inundation stress. The findings showed that as inundation stress intensified, there was an overall decline in plant community diversity and soil aggregate stability in this riparian zone. Perennial herbs with fibrous root systems, as the dominant species, played an essential role in the subsurface soil aggregate stability under intense inundation stress, in contrast to the critical role of plant diversity under weak inundation stress. Moreover, the results revealed that root volume density and macroaggregate carbon content mediated the effects of plant diversity on riparian soil stability. Overall, the results suggest that suitable plants with high root volume density benefit essential soil aggregate stability under well-documented inundation effects in riparian zones.

Mid-Term Effects of Fire on Soil Properties of North-East Mediterranean Ecosystems

Fire is a fundamental ecological process with a long history on Earth, determining the distribution of vegetation formations across the globe. Fire, however, does not only affect the vegetation but also the soil on which vegetation grows, creating a post-fire environment that differs significantly in terms of soil chemical and physical properties from the pre-fire environment. The duration of these alterations remains largely unknown and depends both on the vegetation condition and the fire characteristics. In the current study, we investigate the effect of fire on some chemical and physical properties 11 years after the event in four plant communities. Two of them constitute typical Mediterranean fire-prone plant communities, dominated by sclerophyllous Mediterranean shrubs, such as Quercus coccifera and Q. ilex, while the other two are not considered fire prone and are dominated by deciduous broadleaved species such as Q. petraea and Castanea sativa, respectively. The results indicate that fire affects the soil properties of the various communities in a different manner. Burned sites in the Q. coccifera community have a significantly lower concentration of organic matter, total nitrogen, and available magnesium. At the same time, they have a significantly higher concentration of sand particles and a lower concentration of clay particles. The effect of fire on the soil properties of the other three communities is less dramatic, with differences only in total phosphorus, organic matter, and total nitrogen. The results are discussed in relation to the site conditions and the post-fire regeneration of plant communities.

Identifying Key Plant Traits and Ecosystem Properties Affecting Wave Attenuation and the Soil Organic Carbon Content in Tidal Marshes

Identifying Key Plant Traits and Ecosystem Properties Affecting Wave Attenuation and the Soil Organic Carbon Content in Tidal Marshes

Trait‐based approaches as ecological time machines: Developing tools for reconstructing long‐term variation in ecosystems

Abstract Research over the past decade has shown that quantifying spatial variation in ecosystem properties is an effective approach to investigating the effects of environmental change on ecosystems. Yet, current consensus among scientists is that we need a better understanding of short‐ and long‐term (temporal) variation in ecosystem properties to plan effective ecosystem management and predict future ecologies. Trait‐based approaches can be used to reconstruct ecosystem properties from long‐term ecological records and contribute significantly to developing understandings of ecosystem change over decadal to millennial time‐scales. Here, we synthesise current trait‐based approaches and explore how organisms' functional traits (FTs) can be scaled across time and space. We propose a framework for reconstructing long‐term variation in ecosystems by means of analysing FTs derived from palaeoecological datasets. We then summarise challenges that must be overcome to reconcile trait‐based approaches with palaeo‐datasets. Finally, we discuss the benefits and limitations of trait‐based reconstructions of ecosystem temporal dynamics and suggest future directions for research. Reconstructing environmental properties through time vis‐à‐vis FTs can be separated into two parts. The first is to record trait data for organisms present in modern ecosystems, and the second is to reconstruct temporal variability in FTs from palaeoecological datasets, capturing changes in trait composition over time. Translating palaeoecological datasets into FTs is challenging due to taphonomic, taxonomic and chronological uncertainties, as well as uniformitarian assumptions. Explicitly identifying and addressing these challenges is important to effectively calculate changes in FT through time. Palaeo‐trait research offers insights into questions related to short‐ and long‐term ecosystem functioning, environmental change and extinction and community assembly rules across time. As work in this area matures, we expect that trait‐based approaches integrating palaeoecology and neo‐ecology will improve understanding of past ecologies and provide a deeper insight of their implications for present‐day and future ecosystem management and conservation. Read the free Plain Language Summary for this article on the Journal blog.

Predicting ecosystem pattern across landscapes

Predictive modelling is fundamental to ecology and essential for objective biodiversity assessment. However, while predictive biodiversity models are generally well‐developed, models for predicting patterns within (e.g. composition, structure) and among ecosystems (e.g. ecosystem identity, spatial properties) have not been adequately operationalized. We contend the scarcity of such models marks a concerning gap in the scientific community's ability to make ecosystem predictions across landscapes, and more broadly for supporting the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem functions. We propose ecosystem spatial pattern models (ESPM) to fill this gap in modelling capacity. Under our approach to ESPM, spatial patterns of ecosystem properties are the basis for resolving ecosystem organization at local and landscape extents. Our integrative modelling framework differs from others in that it accords biotic and abiotic constituents equally, consistent with their joint mechanistic influence on ecosystem establishment and dynamics. Development of ESPM is especially timely for ecosystem assessment is undergoing a groundswell, as scientists and conservation groups propose ambitious targets for ecosystem conservation and restoration.

Response of total belowground soil biota in Alhagi sparsifolia monoculture at different soil vertical profiles in desert ecosystem

The soil organisms are extremely important for the land-based ecosystem. There is a growing interest in studying the variety and composition of the entire underground soil organism community at a large ecological scale. Soil organisms show different patterns in relation to soil physiochemical properties (SPPs) in various ecosystems. However, there is limited knowledge regarding their response to soil vertical profiles (SVPs) in monoculture of Alhagi sparsifolia, which is the primary shrub in the deserts of China, and is well-known for its contributions to sand dune stabilization, traditional Chinese medicine, and forage. Here, we investigated the population dynamics of soil bacteria, fungi, archaea, protists and metazoa across six different SVPs ranging from 0 to 100 cm in monoculture of A. sparsifolia, in its natural desert ecosystem. Our findings indicate that the soil biota communities displayed a declining pattern in the alpha diversity of bacteria, protists, and metazoa with an increase in soil depth. However, the opposite trend was observed for fungi and archaea. The beta diversity of soil biota was significantly affected by SVPs, particularly for metazoa, fungi and protists as revealed by Non-Metric Dimensional Scaling. The most prevalent soil bacterial, fungal, archaeal, protist, and metazoa classes were Actinobacteria, Sordariomycetes, Nitrososphaeria, Filosa-Sarcomonadea, and Nematoda, respectively. The correlation among vertical distribution of the most abundant biotic communities and variations in SPPs exhibited that the variations in total carbon (TC) and total nitrogen (TN) had the most significant influence on bacterial changes, while available potassium (AK) had an impact on fungi. Archaea were affected by TC and pH, protists by the C/N-Ratio and TP, and metazoa by TN, AK, and soil water capacity (SWC). Collectively, our findings provide a new perspective on the vertical distribution and distinct response patterns of soil biota in A. sparsifolia monoculture under natural desert ecosystem of China.

Shaping Circular Service Ecosystems

The circular economy (CE) presents an alternative perspective to the linear take-make-use-dispose model prevalent in industrial value chains. CE envisions economies operating like natural ecosystems—restorative and waste-free, underpinned by principles such as reuse, repair, share, and pay-for-use. Surprisingly, although these principles align with the fundamentals of service management, there is limited scholarly exploration of CE within service research. Leveraging service-dominant logic, this study introduces the concept of circular service ecosystems as ideal types of service ecosystems, regenerative, and embedded within nature, where (material, intellectual, digital and financial) resources flow seamlessly within and between nested systems without creating any waste or leakage. By analyzing 3,178 blogs penned by CE experts over 7 years and conducting in-depth interviews with industry specialists, this study offers two significant contributions. Firstly, it presents a process framework elucidating the transition towards circular service ecosystems. This framework explains the emergence of novel circular solutions and service ecosystem properties through processes of de- and re-institutionalization. Secondly, the study identifies six shaping strategies that actors can apply to drive circular service ecosystem transitions. The study concludes by emphasizing the importance of circular service ecosystems and CE as promising areas for future service research, providing a comprehensive research agenda to explore these areas in depth.