Ecosystem Services Framework Research Articles

Bhutan’s Forests through the Framework of Ecosystem Services: Rapid Assessment in Three Forest Types

Forests in mountain ecosystems provide a diversity of services and goods in mountain landscapes, and the immediate utility of the forest to upstream residents must be balanced with the insurance forests provide for downstream residents in the form of, especially, the services of water regulation and soil stabilization. Little empirical data exist for Bhutan that confirm a causal link between upstream forest use and downstream security. To help to fill this gap, we summarize the results of two literature reviews related to forest ecosystem services and human well-being, using the framework of Bhutan’s Gross National Happiness (GNH). We report preliminary findings of three field-based assessments of forest ecosystem services on hillsides. We conducted an assessment of the perceptions of local residents about the forest ecosystem services in three distinct forest areas of Bhutan. The studies were carried out in high-altitude oak forests, forest management units (FMUs) in government reserve forests, and community plantations. We engaged villagers in focus group discussions and conducted key informant interviews. The strongest evidence in the literature for linkages between forests and GNH was found for the role forests play in socio-economic development and good governance, particularly through the community forestry program. Regulating services of forests were cited as crucial to several aspects of human well-being, but little empirical evidence was provided. To local residents in the three study locations, the provisioning services of forests were highly ranked, as were water regulating services. At the plantation sites, residents felt that the new forests did improve soil stability and water provisioning services. Cultural services were identified but not highly prioritized. Awareness of forest ecosystem services was high among participants in the study, but understanding of the causal links between forest use and human well-being was mixed. Lack of direct evidence about causal pathways between upstream forest condition and downstream security leaves gaps in our knowledge and even perpetuates myths and misconceptions about the role that forests play. We encourage further research at multiple scales and using mixed methods to test hypotheses on the linkages between forests and human well-being in mountain landscapes.

A critical review of ecosystem accounting and services frameworks

Ecological economists currently face an important opportunity to influence national policies and global awareness regarding ecosystems. Ecosystem services (ES) frameworks, including the Intergovernmental Panel on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) and the System of Environmental Economic Accounting Experimental Ecosystem Accounting (SEEA EEA) will influence how national measurement systems integrate the value of ecosystems and their services into national planning and monitoring progress towards the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). Decision-makers are, however, faced with an embarrassment of riches. There is a multitude of ES frameworks, but no formal and integrative evaluation of the entire set exists. We review the IPBES, the SEEA EEA and 14 other ES frameworks using criteria designed to address operational and convergence considerations for national ecosystem accounting. While the frameworks reviewed incorporate many strengths, none fulfils all the criteria of a comprehensive national ecosystem accounting framework. We conclude with suggestions for conceptual, measurement and process developments to broaden the appeal, utility and acceptance of future frameworks. Considering these suggestions could substantially contribute to the development of ecosystem accounting frameworks that foster a constructive dialogue amongst the many disciplines, national contexts and viewpoints involved in understanding, measuring and making decisions about ecosystems.

Going Upstream — How the Purpose of a Conceptual Framework for Ecosystem Services Determines Its Structure

Conceptual frameworks for ecosystem services of (ESCF), such as the cascade framework, have been used for various purposes. In this paper we demonstrate that the structure and content of ESCF are tailored to the user's specific concerns. We discuss which requirements an ESCF needs to fulfil in relation to two cases: when it acts as an organizing structure and when it serves as a model for the valuation of ecosystems in terms of their contribution to human well-being. Although such a framework will need to fulfil different requirements for each of these purposes, we provide some general recommendations for development, the most important ones being to include human well-being in the framework, to value ES functions, services and benefits, and to define the ESCF components first and foremost in terms of their relation to human well-being.

Staging stewards of agro-ecosystems in the ecosystem services framework

Ecosystems provide services which are central to human well-being. However, they are undergoing rapid change due to human interferences. In times of globalization and cosmopolitan citizenship, boundaries (fringe) between rural and urban landscapes are blurring which make agro-ecosystems vulnerable. Critical understanding of societal transformation driving ecological change across different scales, especially fringe landscapes is necessary for operationalizing a holistic growth model in developing nations. Ecosystem services provided by agro-ecosystems and their value to stakeholders are often overlooked in the conservation and resource management actions in India. An evaluation framework was designed, considering stakeholders with direct and indirect access to services for agro-ecosystem management. Users’ demand for ecosystem services and their environmental behavior was assessed, using a combination of ES valuation tools and methods. Results highlight that direct users are the potential landscape stewards of agro-ecosystems. Being custodians of the ecosystem, there is a need for engagement of direct users in the present management interventions to ensure sustainable social-ecological systems in future. The study puts forward that the application of landscape stewardship concept can contribute to sustainable management of ecosystems, while considering the nested multi-scale dynamics of social-ecological systems in developing nations.

The Role of Tourism in the Ecosystem Services Framework

The Ecosystem Services Framework (ESF) is a powerful tool for understanding the relationship between nature and society, and tourism is an important expression of this. However, the scientific literature focusing on the relationship between tourism and the ESF is limited. Hence, there is a need to bring the tourism research community and the ESF together, not only as a cultural service but as an economic sector that consumes natural resources. This paper aims to do this by analyzing discourse on tourism in institutional reports produced by the ESF. Additionally, how the tourism research community has approached the ESF is analyzed by reviewing the literature that has used it and literature addressing nature-based tourism. The results suggest a “schizophrenic” approach to tourism, which is defined as either a cultural ES (nonmaterial) or as a nature-based industry (consumptive). Moreover, a disconnect has been found between tourism research and the ESF. The tourism research community may not feel comfortable with the inaccurate definition of tourism in the ESF and may prefer to use freer terms. However, the aforementioned community should integrate the ESF within their studies on natural resources. At the same time, the ESF should be more accurate in using tourism-related concepts.

The interplay between economics, legislative power and social influence examined through a social-ecological framework for marine ecosystems services

In the last 15 years, conservation has shifted increasingly towards perspectives based on the instrumental value of nature, where what counts is what provides benefits to humans. The ecosystem services framework embraces this vision of nature through monetary valuation of the environment to correct market failures and government distortions that hinder efficient allocation of public goods, including goods and services provided by biodiversity and ecosystems. The popularity of this approach is reflected in different countries legislation; for instance, US, EU and UK have introduced economic criteria for comparing costs and benefits of environmental policies in protecting ecosystem services.From an operational perspective, the ecosystem services framework requires ecologists to estimate how the supply of services is affected by changes in the functionality and/or the extent of ecosystems; and economists to identify how changes in the supply affect the flow of direct and indirect benefits to people. However, this approach may be simplistic when faced with the complexity of social-ecological systems. We investigated this for three different marine services: assimilative capacity of waste, coastal defense and renewable energy. We find that economic valuation could provide efficient and fair allocations in the case of assimilative capacity, but leads to social clashes between outputs generated by cost benefit analysis and citizens' expectation in the case of coastal defense. In the case of renewable energy, controversies can be generated by regulatory mechanisms that are not necessarily aligned with the interests of industry or important social groups. We conclude that there is a need to integrate perspectives arising from utilitarian allocation of resources with those involving legislation and communal values in order to reconcile conflicting interests and better sustain marine social-ecological systems.

Assessing the influences of ecological restoration on perceptions of cultural ecosystem services by residents of agricultural landscapes of western China

Landscape change caused by ecological restoration projects has both positive and negative influences on human livelihoods, yet surprisingly little research on the cultural consequences of ecological restoration in agricultural landscapes has taken place. Cultural consequences can be captured in the ecosystem services framework as cultural ecosystem services (CES). However, assessment and valuation of these services to support decision-making for this essential ecosystem is lacking. To help fill this gap, we assessed the opinions of Chinese rural communities about CES and the changes in their perception under the Grain for Green program (GFG), a nationwide program to relieve the pressure on ecosystems (soil erosion and land degradation) by converting cultivated land or barren land on steep slopes into grassland and forests. We used Guyuan City in China's Ningxia Hui Autonomous Region as a case study, using a workshop to identify the CES provided by the agricultural landscape, followed by semi-structured household interviews to quantify perceptions of these CES. We found that all eight CES types identified by the workshop were perceived by the rural communities. Reforestation changed their perceptions of CES directly due to land cover change and indirectly due to the resulting economic changes and migration of mostly young workers in search of better jobs. Cultivated land was perceived as more important than forest for CES provision. In addition, residential areas were perceived as providing significant CES because of local traditions that produce close and highly social neighborhood bonds in agricultural landscapes.

Salt Marsh Restoration and the Shellfishing Industry: Co-evaluation of Success Components

This study uses an ecosystem services framework to document the current relationship between salt marsh restoration and the shellfishing industry in five towns on Cape Cod, Massachusetts, USA. Salt marshes in their natural form provide many ecologic, economic, and aesthetic benefits to coastal communities. Human alterations to salt marshes (including ditching, diking, and filling), however, restrict water flow, substantially reducing the ecosystem services available to these communities. Salt marsh restoration projects have been implemented along coastal landscapes in an attempt to reclaim their original ecosystem services. The ecologic and social components of restoration, like its connection to the shellfish industry, are well understood, but the inherent linkages between the components are not. Through the co-evaluation of these components, social and ecologic linkages are identified and assessed. This study determined the robust social link between salt marsh restoration and the shellfishing industry. Despite the lack of a clear link between restoration and enhanced ecosystem services that augment shellfish harvest, restoration projects are valued for far more than their direct provisioning ecosystem services, with many shellfishermen emphasizing the cultural value of the salt marsh above all else. The sense of community and culture that rallies around both salt marsh restoration and shellfishing demonstrates that valuation of ecosystem services is robust and imperative to the future of both salt marshes and the shellfishing industry on the outer Cape.

Ecosystem services and U.S. stormwater planning: An approach for improving urban stormwater decisions

Green stormwater infrastructure (GI) is gaining traction as a viable complement to traditional “gray” infrastructure in cities across the United States. As cities struggle with decisions to replace deteriorating stormwater infrastructure in the face of looming issues such as population growth and climate change, GI may offer a cost-effective, efficient, and sustainable approach. However, decision makers confront challenges when integrating GI within city plans, including uncertainties around GI capacity and maintenance, resistance to collaboration across city governance, increasingly inflexible financing, accounting practices that do not incorporate the multiple values of GI, and difficulties in incorporating ecological infrastructure into stormwater management. This paper presents an ecosystem services framework for assessing the context-specific needs of decision makers, while considering the strengths and limitations of GI use in urban stormwater management. We describe multiple dimensions of the planning system, identify points of intervention, and illustrate two applications of our framework – Durham, North Carolina and Portland, Oregon (USA). In these case studies, we apply our ecosystem services framework to explicitly consider tradeoffs to assist planning professionals who are considering implementation of GI. We conclude by offering a research agenda that explores opportunities for further evaluations of GI design, implementation, and maintenance in cities.

Harmful algal blooms: the impacts on cultural ecosystem services and human well-being in a case study setting, Cornwall, UK

Whilst harmful algal blooms (HABs) are a natural phenomenon, the impacts of these events can have devastating impacts on human societies. To date, these have largely been studied with reference to economic and health impacts, which can be significant and have impact at both individual and community levels. This paper builds on previous work and addresses recent calls to more fully understand the nuanced human impacts of HABs. Using a framework of cultural ecosystem services, the paper explores how HABs can impact human well-being through disruptions to therapeutic and inspirational opportunities in the natural environment, opportunities for recreation, aesthetic enjoyment, and losses to traditional ways of life, sense of place and collective identity. A snapshot is gleaned into the lived realities of six local residents of St Austell bay, Cornwall, UK, an area frequently affected by HABs via interviews which illustrate how the impacts of HABs can be felt at a much deeper level than are revealed through economic and health analysis. Whilst it is acknowledged the sample size here is limited, the findings nonetheless point to some of the key impacts of HABs in this specific setting and indicate a need for continued research to incorporate local experiences into decisions about how to respond to environmental shocks and what safeguards could help to buffer against the worst of these. It is argued that locally-directed management policies can be developed at scales more appropriate to coastal communities to better respond to their specific needs when considering HAB impacts.

A method to quantify and value floodplain sediment and nutrient retention ecosystem services

Floodplains provide critical ecosystem services to local and downstream communities by retaining floodwaters, sediments, and nutrients. The dynamic nature of floodplains is such that these areas can both accumulate sediment and nutrients through deposition, and export material downstream through erosion. Therefore, estimating floodplain sediment and nutrient retention should consider the net flux of both depositional and erosive processes. An ecosystem services framework was used to quantify and value the sediment and nutrient ecosystem service provided by floodplains in the Difficult Run watershed, a small (151 km2) suburban watershed located in the Piedmont of Virginia (USA). A sediment balance was developed for Difficult Run and two nested watersheds. The balance included upland sediment delivery to streams, stream bank flux, floodplain flux, and stream load. Upland sediment delivery was estimated using geospatial datasets and a modified Revised Universal Soil Loss Equation. Predictive models were developed to extrapolate field measurements of the flux of sediment, sediment-bound nitrogen (N), and sediment-bound phosphorus (P) from stream banks and floodplains to 3232 delineated stream segments in the study area. A replacement cost approach was used to estimate the economic value of the sediment and nutrient retention ecosystem service based on estimated net stream bank and floodplain flux of sediment-bound N for all streams in the study area. Results indicated the net fluvial fluxes of sediment, sediment-bound N, and sediment-bound P were −10,439 Mg yr−1 (net export), 57,300 kg-N yr−1 (net trapping), and 98 kg-P yr−1(net trapping), respectively. For sediment, floodplain retention was offset by substantial losses from stream bank erosion, particularly in headwater catchments, resulting in a net export of sediment. Nutrient retention in the floodplain exceeded that lost through stream bank erosion resulting in net retention of nutrients (TN and TP). Using a conservative cost estimate of $12.69 (USD) per kilogram of nitrogen, derived from wastewater treatment costs, the estimated annual value for sediment and nutrient retention on Difficult Run floodplains was $727,226 ± 194,220 USD/yr. Values and differences in floodplain nitrogen retention among stream reaches can be used to target areas for floodplain conservation and stream restoration. The methods presented are scalable and transferable to other areas if appropriate datasets are available for validation.

Characterising the rural-urban gradient through the participatory mapping of ecosystem services: insights for landscape planning

The application of the ecosystem services (ES) framework in landscape planning has become particularly relevant in rural-urban gradients since it allows for the integration of the complex interactions between ES supply and demand. This framework might be a powerful tool to inform landscape planning and decision-making intended to maintain the current and future flow of ES. In this study, we developed a process of participatory mapping of ES in a rural-urban gradient in southern Spain, which comprises the Sierra Nevada mountain range, the Granada valley and the city of Granada. First, we interviewed 21 key stakeholders from different professional sectors and gradient zones. These stakeholders prioritised nine ES in terms of their importance for local human well-being and their vulnerability to current drivers of change. Then, a workshop was organised in which 23 local actors shared their experience and knowledge regarding ES in the studied landscape. Sorted into five groups (composed of stakeholders with different profiles), the participants spatially mapped the most important supply and demand areas for the nine ES previously prioritised. The results show that the city of Granada has a very high demand for ES and a very low supply, while the Sierra Nevada mountain range and the valley of Granada appear to be very important ES supply areas. According to 95% of the stakeholders that attended the workshop, participatory mapping of ES is a very important (69%) or an important (26%) methodology to elicit the views and perceptions of the population, to identify the main conflicts and potential solutions for the territory and to visualise the high dependence of urban areas on the ES provided by adjacent rural areas. Our results also highlight the importance of incorporating the analysis of ES flows to inform landscape planning at the regional scale. Participatory mapping of ES can enhance decision-making regarding the maintenance of human well-being and the sustainability of social-ecological systems.

Ecosystem services as an integrative framework: What is the potential?

Ecosystems approaches, and among them the ecosystem services (ES) framework, are held as promising vehicles for holistic thinking which is usually taken to mean integration of society and nature. The notion of ES is also seen to aid us in saying something about how and what people value in nature. It is hence surprising that among a huge number of scientific works couched in terms in ES, still relatively few explore the explicit engagement of such concepts with stakeholders with respect to empirical issues, including integration. Motivated by a need to empirically test rather than assume the integrative work of ES, we ask: what ways of using the framework as a stakeholder tool are invited, and does integration unfold in practice? Our evidence comes from a study of a group of stakeholders’ perspectives on sustainable management of sheep grazing in low alpine landscapes in the south of Norway. According to the stakeholders, grazing intensity, type and spatiality cannot be understood and arrived at without accounting for how grazing pressure is the result of the co-production of nature and society. By way of four empirical examples, we demonstrate 1) the integrative agency ES can have, 2) how ES can work to integrate despite the framework, 3) how ES can work against integration, and 4) the implicit agency of ES for the co-production of sustainability and grazing pressures. The study demonstrates that there are particular weaknesses in the concept as an integrative device regarding the invisibility of human co-agency. Furthermore, the precise methodological framing of the research is found to be crucial for whether and how human co-agency is made visible through the framework, and thus how ES works as an integrative framework.

Geoheritage, Geotourism and the Cultural Landscape: Enhancing the Visitor Experience and Promoting Geoconservation

Geotourism spans a range of visitor interests, from the specialist geotourist to the more general visitor. As well as supporting geoconservation outcomes, it provides economic, cultural, relational and social benefits for both visitors and host communities. The interconnections between geoheritage and the cultural components of the landscape have antecedents in concepts of landscape aesthetics in different cultures. These interconnections provide a range of opportunities for enhancing the geotourist experience and promoting geoconservation and geoeducation by means of activities that involve aesthetic and emotional experiences and interpretation through different cultural filters that encourage the rediscovery of a sense of wonder both about the geological stories in the landscape and the human interactions. A cultural ecosystem services framework provides a holistic approach for informing conservation policy, management and planning for geotourism, enabling assessment of multiple benefits and trade-offs for visitors and communities based on the values of the geoheritage assets. Geotourism studies could also benefit from integration of existing theory, conceptual analysis and practice from broader heritage and nature-based tourism and closer collaboration with relevant social sciences. Adhering to sound geoethical practice is an essential part of geotourism, which can also play a role in the promotion of geoethics among the public and professionals.

Investigating sense of place as a cultural ecosystem service in different landscapes through the lens of language

The concept of ecosystem services is increasingly important for measuring both tangible and intangible benefits that humans obtain from ecosystems. Much research on ecosystem services focused on more tangible services. Intangible cultural ecosystem services, such as sense of place, are often neglected, but in the context of highly populated, increasingly urbanized countries, maintenance of cultural ecosystem services is an important policy objective. One of the challenges of integrating sense of place into the framework of ecosystem services is that it is not linked to abstract notions of ecosystems, but tied to perceived landscape features such as mountains, or rivers. In this study, we used free listings and interviews with visitors to investigate perceived landscape features and sense of place through the lens of language in five different landscape types in Switzerland. Within each landscape type, we selected two study sites to quantitatively and qualitatively compare landscape descriptions. Using text processing, we show that terms for landscape features were more similar within the same landscape type, suggesting that people perceive differences between these landscapes that they express in language. However, in general, elicited concepts related to sense of place were similar across landscape types. Thus, our results show that we can use free-listing descriptions to distinguish landscape types, but we found limited differences in the language used to describe sense of place. Our findings offer insights into exploring sense of place in different landscapes and contribute to ongoing efforts for refining the definitions and standardizing assessments of cultural ecosystem services.

An ecosystem services framework to evaluate indigenous and local peoples’ connections with nature

Indigenous and local peoples’ connections with nature are not only limited to the benefits or services people derive from ecosystems, as considered by international frameworks, but also entail peoples’ capabilities (knowledges and skills) that enable people to derive those benefits. Applying Sen’s (1993) Capability Approach, this paper proposes an ecosystem services framework that underscores peoples’ capabilities along with well-being benefits, to inform policy decision-making about the value of natural resources towards Indigenous and local peoples’ well-being. We offer an economic perspective of considering Indigenous and local estates as a source of opportunities, and construct an integrated framework based on six case studies across the globe. We argue that supporting Indigenous and local peoples to utilize and build capabilities to manage natural systems will deliver manifold benefits to them as well as to the wider public. Moreover, learning Indigenous and local ethics to care for nature will help many of us to better manage and value our fast depleting natural resources.

Diverging perceptions by social groups on cultural ecosystem services provided by urban green

Global environmental and social changes will have great impact on the development of cities in the coming decades. Impacts of climate change, demographic shifts and conservation of biodiversity should be incorporated into urban green space planning to balance for the increasing development pressure of cities. Urban green spaces provide multiple ecosystem service benefits to diverse social groups. In this paper, we analyzed inhabitant perceptions of cultural ecosystem services provided by urban green spaces in the city of Berlin based on a face-to-face questionnaire (n = 558). As analysis tool, we used proportionate cluster sampling and focused on non-monetary statements on the perceived importance of a broad spectrum of cultural ecosystem services. Results show that cultural ecosystem services can be perceived through bundles and that those bundles may have negative influence on each other. The perceived importance of cultural ecosystem services was influenced by spatial and social factors: Older inhabitants living in periurban areas preferred cultural ecosystem services related to nature experiences. Younger inner city dwellers tended to prefer cultural ecosystem services facilitating social interactions. Those diverging perceptions should to be taken into account through urban development strategies to create a socially just and sustainable city planning in the face of global environmental changes. The ecosystem service framework can be one tool to facilitate a more participatory planning process to find solutions for urban sustainability challenges.

Accounting for soil inorganic carbon in the ecosystem services framework for United Nations sustainable development goals

Soil inorganic carbon (SIC) is currently not included in the list of key soil properties related to ecosystem services (e.g., provisioning, regulating, cultural, and supporting services). Soil inorganic carbon is a dynamic key soil property used in soil classification, taxonomy and fertility, therefore its inclusion in the framework of ecosystem services is important. With soils rapidly changing due to human use and climate change, the ecosystem services framework should include not only soil organic carbon (SOC), but SIC as well since it is of global importance to soil fertility and the long-term carbon (C) cycle, especially in semiarid and arid climates where SIC comprises the largest C pool. The objective of this study is to assess the value of SIC in the 12 soil orders of Soil Taxonomy at the country scale (continental United States (U.S.)) and at the farm scale (the Cornell University Research Farm) within the context of ecosystem services, specifically provisioning and supporting services. At the country scale, the total estimated midpoint value of SIC storage within the upper two meters of soil is $5.17 T (i.e., 5.17 trillion U.S. dollars). The soil orders having the highest total value of SIC storage (based on an average 2014 price of $10.42 per U.S. ton of CaCO3 lime in the U.S.) are: 1) Mollisols ($2.22 T), 2) Aridisols ($1.23 T), 3) Alfisols ($523B, i.e., 523 billion U.S. dollars), and 4) Entisols ($489B). In terms of SIC content (i.e., value per square meter), the soil orders are ranked: 1) Vertisols ($2.22 m−2), 2) Aridisols ($1.52 m−2), 3) Mollisols ($1.10 m−2), and 4) Inceptisols ($0.49 m−2). At the farm scale, based on variable measured and reported soil sample depths, the soil orders having the highest total value of SIC (based on an average 2014 price of $10.88 price per U.S. ton of CaCO3 for the State of New York (NY)) were: 1) Alfisols, 2) Inceptisols, and 3) Entisols. However, the farm-scale estimates varied greatly depending on whether the values were based on field-derived vs. SSURGO-derived data. The results of this study begin to provide an estimated value of the importance of SIC when assessing ecosystem services. The potential impacts on society from this research include adding SIC into the ecosystem services framework for the United Nations (UN) Sustainable Development Goals. Future research should identify and quantify other important ecosystem services that SIC may provide on a variety of spatial and temporal scales, as well as the potential need of including total C (TC) and interactions between SIC and SOC pools.

Using the Ecosystem Services Framework for Policy Impact Analysis: An Application to the Assessment of the Common Agricultural Policy 2014–2020 in the Province of Ferrara (Italy)

The objective of this study is to test a methodology for the classification of areas according to the provision of ecosystem services and for the evaluation of the effects of different agricultural policy scenarios. The evaluation focuses on the different categories of Ecosystem Services (ES) and applies a set of indicators available from secondary data sources. Two scenarios were compared, represented by the pre-2014 CAP and the CAP 2014–2020, based on the measures of the RDP 2014–2020 focused on enhancing ecosystems. The approach was implemented under two weighting solutions. First, we assumed that all indicators have equal weight. As a further step, the framework was integrated with a weighting procedure in order to account for the different importance of the various ES indicators. All municipalities offer a significant number of provisioning and cultural services, mainly connected to recreational opportunities. The indicators with higher importance in the area represent provisioning, supporting and regulating services, while cultural services have received less attention. Comparing the results of the simulation of different policy scenarios, there are no significant differences since the CAP 2014–2020 does not provide for measures likely to affect substantially the overall production of ecosystem services. While this result is plausible, the study confirms the limitations of available secondary data in providing a full account of ecosystem services provision and of their variations as a result of policy.

The ecosystem services of animal microbiomes.

Microbiologists often evaluate microbial community dynamics by formulating functional hypotheses based on ecological processes. Indeed, many of the methods and terms currently used to describe animal microbiomes derive from ecology and evolutionary biology. As our understanding of the composition and functional dynamics of "the microbiome" grows, we increasingly refer to the host as an ecosystem within which microbial processes play out. Even so, an ecosystem service framework that extends to the context of the host has thus far been lacking. Here, we argue that ecosystem services are a useful framework with which to consider the value of microbes to their hosts. We discuss those "microbiome services" in the specific context of the mammalian gut, providing a context from which to develop new hypotheses and to evaluate microbial functions in future studies and novel systems.