Millenium Ecosystem Assessment Research Articles

A Systematic Review on the Impacts of Climate Change on Coffee Agrosystems.

Coffee production is fragile, and the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) reports indicate that climate change (CC) will reduce worldwide yields on average and decrease coffee-suitable land by 2050. This article adopted the systematic review approach to provide an update of the literature available on the impacts of climate change on coffee production and other ecosystem services following the framework proposed by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment. The review identified 148 records from literature considering the effects of climate change and climate variability on coffee production, covering countries mostly from three continents (America, Africa, and Asia). The current literature evaluates and analyses various climate change impacts on single services using qualitative and quantitative methodologies. Impacts have been classified and described according to different impact groups. However, available research products lacked important analytical functions on the precise relationships between the potential risks of CC on coffee farming systems and associated ecosystem services. Consequently, the manuscript recommends further work on ecosystem services and their interrelation to assess the impacts of climate change on coffee following the ecosystem services framework.

The context dependency of multiple stressor effects on biodiversity: A commentary on Kefford et al. (2022).

Global Change BiologyEarly View COMMENTARYOpen Access The context dependency of multiple stressor effects on biodiversity: A commentary on Kefford et al. (2022) Andrew P. Beckerman, Corresponding Author Andrew P. Beckerman a.beckerman@sheffield.ac.uk orcid.org/0000-0002-4797-9143 School of Biosciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UKSearch for more papers by this author Andrew P. Beckerman, Corresponding Author Andrew P. Beckerman a.beckerman@sheffield.ac.uk orcid.org/0000-0002-4797-9143 School of Biosciences, Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, The University of Sheffield, Sheffield, UKSearch for more papers by this author First published: 27 October 2022 https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16483 This article is a Commentary on Kefford et al., https://doi.org/10.1111/gcb.16435 AboutSectionsPDF ToolsRequest permissionExport citationAdd to favoritesTrack citation ShareShare Give accessShare full text accessShare full-text accessPlease review our Terms and Conditions of Use and check box below to share full-text version of article.I have read and accept the Wiley Online Library Terms and Conditions of UseShareable LinkUse the link below to share a full-text version of this article with your friends and colleagues. Learn more.Copy URL Share a linkShare onFacebookTwitterLinked InRedditWechat Biodiversity on the planet underpins numerous functions and services central to humanity including carbon capture, food production and freshwater (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). Biodiversity is also just beautiful and the myriad of species, colours and forms that surround us make life more pleasurable. But there is no doubt that biodiversity is at risk around the planet. The diversity, mode, magnitude and frequency of perturbations to ecosystems we rely on is increasing. Climate change, environmental change and land-use change continue to put pressure on biodiversity that we rely on, to the point that the planet may be entering a 6th Mass Extinction (Ceballos et al., 2015; IPBES, 2019; IPCC, 2022). As a result, being able to predict the timing, locations and magnitude of impacts on biodiversity of multiple stressors ranks as one of the most important research agendas. This agenda is not simply a set of interesting ecological questions, for the answers are relevant to nearly all sustainable development goals (UN, 2020). Being able to make such predictions about biodiversity loss is central to driving policy to stem future losses of biodiversity and mitigate those that are already going to happen. Over the past several decades, great strides have been made in defining the various ways in which multiple, simultaneously acting threats to biodiversity might manifest (Folt et al., 1999; Halpern & Fujita, 2013; Orr et al., 2020; Piggott et al., 2015; Schäfer & Piggott, 2018; Simmons et al., 2021). At the heart of this are statistical toolboxes that can differentiate between two large classes of effect: additive effects and non-additive effects (also known as interactions or context-dependent effects). When stressor effects combine simply by adding them up—for example, if stressor A causes a 10 unit decline and stressor B a 20 unit decline and their combined effect is a 30 unit decline—the combined effect is additive. In contrast, non-additive (interaction) effects arise when the combined effect of stressors is more—synergistic—or less—antagonistic—than would be expected by simply summing the effects. Additive effects are easier to manage and mitigate because such a relationship implies that one need only know about how each individual stressor drives a change. However, when there is an interaction, it means that the effect of one stressor on, for example biodiversity, depends on the level of the other stressor. There is non-additivity, a potential for synergy or antagonism, and clear context dependence. Developing policy for and managing context dependency is much more challenging because just knowing the independent effects of each stressor is no longer sufficient (Simmons et al., 2021). Substantial advances have been made in statistical tools and mathematical modelling to make inference and draw conclusions about far more nuanced outcomes in the face of multiple stressors (see Simmons et al., 2021 for overview). However, several major challenges remain to making effective predictions and guiding policy. First is the burden of two stressors. Most empirical research and statistical examples still focus on no more than two stressors. Second is the burden of biological diversity. While we truly need to assess the impacts of multiple simultaneous threats on biodiversity, theory and empirical work remains constrained, for many valid reasons (it's hard!) on one or a few species and their responses. The ecological scale for biodiversity—the community—is not the default scale for current research. We are simply not studying the impacts of multiple stressors on biodiversity as effectively as we need to. Third is the burden of space and time. Context dependence—when the effect of one stressor varies by the value/level of another—implies either spatial or temporal variation in exposure to and impact of stressors. It is relatively ‘easy’ to create gradients in the laboratory or in a model. It is much less easy to evaluate the spatial and temporal foundation of this context dependence, despite this being so very necessary to predict the timing, locations and magnitude of impacts on biodiversity of multiple stressors. Finally, there is the burden of ecological and evolutionary time. Typical experiments on multiple stressors rarely extend beyond a single season and a single ‘exposure’ event when, in reality, biodiverse communities are persisting or declining amidst multiple stressors over long periods of time. The research article by Kefford et al. in this issue joins a small but growing number of studies (e.g. Rillig et al., 2019) that aim to address these burdens. Kefford et al. address all four burdens by taking advantage of a large dataset that comprises detail on family richness in three orders of insects that use freshwaters. The data are spatially resolved across a substantive latitudinal gradient spanning 3600 km. There are two major habitat types (edges and riffles) and samples span 2000 m in elevation. Finally, the data on biodiversity across this spatial extent are linked to four stressors that can impact on biodiversity that also vary spatially. The stressors are salinity (defined by conductivity), turbidity, temperature and terrain slope. Salinity and turbidity in their Australian system are linked strongly to land-use modification and particularly agriculture. Temperature varies across the latitudinal and elevation gradients in their study system. Finally, the terrain slope is a proxy for flow characteristics and velocity clearly linked to contrasts between steep rocky streams and floodplains, but also a surrogate for extreme meteorological events that are predicted to increase in frequency (IPCC, 2022) and likely lead to floodplains experiencing conditions more akin to steep mountain forces. Kefford et al. harness these data into a clever application of generalized additive statistical models that ultimately lend themselves to asking a simple question: Does the (potential) interaction (e.g. synergy/antagonism) between salinity and turbidity vary by temperature and does this (potential) variation vary by flow regime and habitat. Yes, this is a potential five-way interaction, and it is complicated. But it is the necessary type of investigation that can lead to understanding whether we can predict the timing, locations and magnitude of impacts on biodiversity of stressors. What Kefford et al. found is, in some respects, not surprising: the interaction between salinity and turbidity does exist, but it takes both synergistic and antagonistic forms depending on habitat, temperature and other landscape variables. Embedded in their data is a strong effect of salinity on biodiversity that varies substantially with temperature, highlighting how predicting and managing the effects of land use change on biodiversity may be increasingly challenging as temperatures change. One might argue that their overarching take home message—that there is no consistency among even the relatively simple two-way interactions—is cause for despair. Current theory and experimental approaches that have led to core definitions of additive and non-additive effects appear insufficient in the face of more than two stressors defined on a landscape and linked to a response variable as complex and important as biodiversity. Unless we have measured everything together, the data here might suggest we will be unable to make predictions without massive investment around the world and unable to move towards generalizing our understanding of how stressors combine. This is a perfect storm for policy and management where the uncertainties and context dependency from robust data analysis might still lead to inaction and failure to address sustainable development goals. Keffert et al., however, make several recommendations that can move us forward from this predicament, specifically focusing on how to evaluate and estimate the scale at which consistency of relationships might emerge. They suggest focusing on the presence and distribution of higher-order interactions, rather than form of the interactions. They also suggest focusing on and synthesizing geographically distributed sets of experiments focused on biodiversity to complement observational data analyses like theirs. And they suggest focusing on variation in the magnitude of impacts and the distribution of interaction types to guide decision-making. Such a strategy posits, for example, that if all interactions are synergistic, it means it is necessary to aim to reduce all stressors, whereas a more nuanced approach is necessary if there is a mix of antagonism, synergy and additivity. Ultimately, just because we see variation, context dependency and higher-order interactions, as we do in Keffert et al.'s spatially resolved data, it does not mean there is not an ecological, spatial or temporal scale where impacts and policy decision-making can be generalized and made effective. This is what we must aim for. FUNDING INFORMATION APB and laboratory are funded by NERC-UKRI Grants NE/S001395/1 and NE/T003502/1. Open Research DATA AVAILABILITY STATEMENT Data sharing is not applicable to this article as no new data were created or analyzed in this study. REFERENCES Ceballos, G., Ehrlich, P. R., Barnosky, A. D., García, A., Pringle, R. M., & Palmer, T. M. (2015). Accelerated modern human–induced species losses: Entering the sixth mass extinction. Science Advances, 1, e1400253. CrossrefPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Folt, C. L., Chen, C. Y., Moore, M. V., & Burnaford, J. (1999). Synergism and antagonism among multiple stressors. Limnology and Oceanography, 44, 864– 877. Wiley Online LibraryWeb of Science®Google Scholar Halpern, B. S., & Fujita, R. (2013). Assumptions, challenges, and future directions in cumulative impact analysis. Ecosphere, 4, art131. Wiley Online LibraryWeb of Science®Google Scholar IPBES. (2019). Global assessment report on biodiversity and ecosystem services of the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services. Google Scholar IPCC. (2022). Summary for policymakers. Cambridge, UK and New York, NY, USA. Google Scholar Millenium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005). Ecosystems and human well-being: A framework for assessment. Island Press. Google Scholar Orr, J. A., Vinebrooke, R. D., Jackson, M. C., Kroeker, K. J., Kordas, R. L., Mantyka-Pringle, C., Van den Brink, P. J., De Laender, F., Stoks, R., Holmstrup, M., Matthaei, C. D., Monk, W. A., Penk, M. R., Leuzinger, S., Schäfer, R. B., & Piggott, J. J. (2020). Towards a unified study of multiple stressors: Divisions and common goals across research disciplines. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 287, 20200421. CrossrefPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Piggott, J. J., Townsend, C. R., & Matthaei, C. D. (2015). Reconceptualizing synergism and antagonism among multiple stressors. Ecology and Evolution, 5, 1538– 1547. Wiley Online LibraryPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Rillig, M. C., Ryo, M., Lehmann, A., Aguilar-Trigueros, C. A., Buchert, S., Wulf, A., Iwasaki, A., Roy, J., & Yang, G. (2019). The role of multiple global change factors in driving soil functions and microbial biodiversity. Science, 366, 886– 890. CrossrefCASPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Schäfer, R. B., & Piggott, J. J. (2018). Advancing understanding and prediction in multiple stressor research through a mechanistic basis for null models. Global Change Biology, 24, 1817– 1826. Wiley Online LibraryPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar Simmons, B. I., Blyth, P. S. A., Blanchard, J. L., Clegg, T., Delmas, E., Garnier, A., Griffiths, C. A., Jacob, U., Pennekamp, F., Petchey, O. L., Poisot, T., Webb, T. J., & Beckerman, A. P. (2021). Refocusing multiple stressor research around the targets and scales of ecological impacts. Nature Ecology & Evolution, 5, 1478– 1489. CrossrefPubMedWeb of Science®Google Scholar UN. (2020). United Nations Sustainable Development Goals. United Nations. Google Scholar Early ViewOnline Version of Record before inclusion in an issue ReferencesRelatedInformation

Product Biodiversity Footprint – A novel approach to compare the impact of products on biodiversity combining Life Cycle Assessment and Ecology

Product impacts on ecosystem quality have long been addressed by the topdown approach known as Life Cycle Assessment (LCA). Impacts are most of the time assessed within the “biodiversity loss” damage category indicator. However, LCA methods do not cover the 5 drivers of biodiversity loss as identified by (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005) (MEA): only land occupation and transformation, pollution, and climate change are covered, while species overexploitation and invasive species are not. Besides, ecologists work on the ground to measure concrete impacts from given practices on biodiversity in specific areas for some parts of the value chain of the product (e.g. production of agricultural biomaterial).The Product Biodiversity Footprint (PBF) approach aims at bridging the gap between LCA and ecology. Its objective is to allow comparison of variants of a given product to support eco-design, addressing the five drivers of MEA. The methodology combines LCA and ecology current knowledge and organizes them towards practical indicators and representations for business decision.PBF has been tested in three business case studies. The one for L’Oréal presented herewith shows that the integration of ecological data enables to refine and complement LCA results. This method at product level is, to our knowledge, the first to address the five MEA drivers on biodiversity along the value chain, with a combination of quantitative and semi-quantitative indicators. Stemming from an LCA global framework and approach, ecology knowledge adds refinements that enable to distinguish between different anthropogenic practices and better informed decision making.

Uno scenario di (multi)valorizzazione del bosco di Montioni

The research is applied to the case study of Montioni forest, located near the city of Follonica (GR). The survey focused on the identification of the main vocations of the forest complex and its surroundings. The method used is multi-criteria analysis applied to the Ecosystem Services (SE) (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, 2005). The aim of the study is to build an enhancement project based on three main axes, naturalistic, touristic and energetic.

La investigación de servicios ecosistémicos en Chile: una revisión sistemática

La relación de los ecosistemas con los ecosistemas-sociedad y el bienestar humano, mediante el uso del concepto de servicios ecosistémicos, ha sido abordada con mayor énfasis en los últimos años, tanto en el ámbito científico, como también en el contexto de la gestión ambiental pública y la toma de decisiones. Un gran impulso para este interés lo constituyó la publicación en el año 2005 del reporte internacional Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (Evaluación de los Ecosistemas del Mileno). No obstante, a nivel de políticas e instrumentos de gestión ambiental el vínculo entre la investigación y la aplicación de los conocimientos es un aspecto aún pendiente, especialmente en países en desarrollo. Este trabajo hace una revisión sistemática de la investigación de servicios ecosistémicos en Chile, con el fin de detectar qué y cómo se estudian los servicios ecosistémicos en el país, de manera de servir para respaldar y orientar las necesidades futuras de investigación que puedan ser aplicadas en el contexto de la conservación de la biodiversidad, la gestión ambiental y la planificación territorial. Nuestros resultados muestran un importante incremento en el desarrollo de la investigación científica a partir de 1994, concentrándose especialmente luego de 2005, reflejando la tendencia internacional de incremento de trabajos sobre servicios ecosistémicos post-publicación del reporte ya mencionado. Tras el análisis se observa que los estudios realizados en Chile han utilizado mayoritariamente herramientas de valoración económica por sobre otro tipo de herramientas y que son escasos los ejercicios de modelación y mapeo de servicios ecosistémicos. Asimismo, hay una necesidad evidente de realizar estudios en ecosistemas desérticos (especialmente en aquellos costeros y altoandinos), en ecosistemas de montaña y glaciares, en ecosistemas antropizados de la zona centro-sur, siendo éstos grandes demandantes de servicios ecosistémicos provistos por los ecosistemas naturales cercanos, y en ecosistemas marino-costeros e insulares.

Forest monitoring and social media – Complementary data sources for ecosystem surveillance?

Forest monitoring captures human impacts and other biotic and abiotic influences on forests and is a pre-requisite for the sustainable use and protection of forest ecosystems. Forest inventories for example are a key tool to plan sustainable harvesting, whereas Forest Observational Studies provide the empirical basis for an improved understanding and long-term evaluation of forest ecosystem dynamics. To that end detailed data is collected at stand level, often integrated in larger forest observational networks, which feeds into forest ecosystem models. Forests exist however in a constantly changing societal context and the direct or indirect impact of human activity has become a crucial driver on all types of ecosystems. The Millenium Ecosystem Assessment underlines the linkage between social and ecological systems, highlighting the centrality of ecosystem services to human well-being and the requirement for ecosystem monitoring in the “anthropocene” to provide a holistic view of ecosystems as social-ecological systems.Framing information about the social context of a forest ecosystem, gaining the expertise and providing resources to collect this type of information is usually outside the scope of data collection for forest inventories and monitoring. Studies in other domains faced a similar challenge and turned to data mining informal online information sources to supplement traditional monitoring and data collection strategies.This paper explores how forest monitoring approaches especially Forest Observational Studies with their long-term and large-scale focus may be complemented by social media mining. We outline (a) how social media mining methods from other domains could be applied to forest monitoring, (b) discuss identification of stakeholders, events and demands on forest ecosystems as examples of social contextual information that could be obtained via this route and (c) explain how this information could be automatically mined from social media, online news and other similar online information sources. The proposed approach is discussed on the basis of examples from a broad set of other domains.

Introduction to the Special Issue on Job Satisfaction in Fisheries in the Global South

The job satisfaction of capture fishers is of more than sectoral interest. On a practical level the relevance is as follows: capture fishing is known to contribute in a major way to the degradation of the world’s oceans (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005), and could possibly be relieved if fishers are induced to move out of fishing (Pauly et al. 1989). Whether fishers are actually inclined to do so or not, however, depends at least partially on their levels of job satisfaction. Comparative studies of job satisfaction—as attempted in this special issue—throw light on the extent to which fishers are attached to their work and are willing to give it up for alternative professions. More specifically, such studies provide evidence of labor conditions in a profession known to be exceptionally tough and even dangerous (ICSF 2003).

A multi-criteria approach for an integrated land-cover-based assessment of ecosystem services provision to support landscape planning

The article presents a multicriteria assessment framework for the qualitative estimation of regional potentials to provide ecosystem services as a prerequisite to support regional development planning. We applied this approach to a model region in Saxony, Eastern Germany. For the estimation of the potentials of the model region to provide ecosystem services, we used a modified approach compared to the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (2005). We then employed a benefit transfer and a purely expert driven approach to assess contribution of the land cover classes in our model region to the provision of ecosystem services. In a subsequent step, the services in our set were combined to ecosystem services groups that were designed together with regional actors, while considering their ideas, concerns and experiences in regional decision making. The latter was analyzed in a weighting experiment, in which different weighting approaches were tested. Based upon this, we analyzed the performance of the model region to provide ecosystem services and generated ecosystem services distribution maps. We could show that the different data gathering methods “benefit transfer” and “expert-based assessment” have a considerable impact on the evaluation outcomes.The results of our study show that the combination of selected services and land cover data can contribute to regional planning by communicating the effect of land cover change on ecosystem services groups, especially when applied as an evaluation basis in the tool Pimp Your Landscape (PYL). The approach supports also the assessment of the performance of a region to provide ecosystem services and the comparison of regions towards this aspect. Finally, we discuss the limitations of our approach that are related to coarse land cover data, lacking knowledge on the provision of ecosystem services at a landscape scale, and the difficulty to make relevant the ecosystem services concept in regional planning processes.

Changes in historical Iowa land cover as context for assessing the environmental benefits of current and future conservation efforts on agricultural lands

C onservationists and agriculturists face unprecedented challenges trying to minimize tradeoffs between increasing demands for food, fiber, feed, and biofuels and the resulting loss or reduced values of other ecosystem services, such as those derived from wetlands and biodiversity (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005a, 2005c; Maresch et al. 2008). The Food, Conservation, and Energy Act of 2008 (Pub. L. 110-234, Stat. 923, HR 2419, also known as the 2008 Farm Bill) reauthorized the USDA to provide financial incentives for agricultural producers to reduce environmental impacts via multiple conservation programs. Two prominent programs, the Wetlands Reserve Program (WRP) and the Conservation Reserve Program (CRP), provide incentives for producers to retire environmentally sensitive croplands, minimize erosion, improve water quality, restore wetlands, and provide wildlife habitat (USDA FSA 2008a, 2008b; USDA NRCS 2002). Other conservation programs (e.g., Environmental Quality Incentives Program, Conservation Stewardship Program) provide incentives to implement structural and cultural conservation practices to improve the environmental performance of working agricultural lands. Through its Conservation Effects Assessment Project, USDA is supporting evaluation of the environmental benefits obtained from the public investment in conservation programs and practices to inform decisions on where further investments are warranted (Duriancik et al. 2008; Zinn 1997). Participation in USDA conservation…

Water and nutrient fluxes from major Mediterranean and Black Sea rivers: Past and future trends and their implications for the basin‐scale budgets

The aim of this study is to produce future scenarios on the river inputs of water and nutrients (nitrate and phosphate) into the Mediterranean and Black Sea. They are based on the four contrasting scenarios that were developed by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) for the years 2030 and 2050 and implemented in a spatially explicit manner into the IMAGE model. We first identified the major drivers of the river fluxes by regression analyses, then tested the retained models against the past evolutions between 1970 and 2000, and finally applied the models to the MEA scenarios. For nutrients, the considered river data mainly refer to the large rivers for which long‐term time series exist (Rhone, Po, Ebro, and Danube). Here, recent trends were principally driven by fertilizer spreads (NO3, PO4), together with urban wastewater releases (PO4). Future trends remain in the envelope of the observed variability during the last 40 years, both for the large rivers and, when extrapolated to the basin scales, also for the entire Mediterranean and Black Sea. At regional scales, however, the budgets considerably change. In the northern parts of the Mediterranean drainage basin, they uniformly tend to decrease, but they may strongly increase in the south and east. Water discharge is examined on a basis of 37 rivers, showing that this parameter is clearly linked to the evolution of climate. Because of the ongoing evolution toward dryer and warmer conditions, we predict a significant trend of decreasing freshwater fluxes for the future, which already started in the past. Regional hot spots for this decrease are the drainage basin of the Alboran Sea and, when also considering the inhabitant specific water fluxes, the basins of the Aegean and north Levantine seas.

Putting applied ecology into practice

In 2005, an editorial was published in the Journal that addressed the changing emphasis and direction of applied ecology (Freckleton et al. 2005). This editorial proposed that the Journal should increasingly target papers that would have direct relevance to ecological management and policy while maintaining a strong link to basic ecological concepts and theories. These core aspects are still true 5 years later, but with expanding areas of research and new management challenges; today more than ever the Journal must reach out and offer real insight and options for management. The aims of this new editorial are to outline to authors and reviewers the key attributes that form the basis of the papers published in the Journal of Applied Ecology and to announce new developments in line with our strategic vision for the journal at the start of a new decade. The Journal’s critical role in influencing policy is emphasized by the looming deadline of the Convention on Biological Diversity which set the target of significantly reducing biodiversity loss by 2010. A number of ecological audits assessing biodiversity loss have taken place, for example, the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment examined the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and concluded that, worldwide, 60% of ecosystem services had been degraded. Other assessments are in progress, for example, the National Ecosystem Assessment will provide the first analysis of the UK’s natural environment in terms of the benefits it provides to society. These targets and audits are not environmental niceties; rather as stated by the United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan in 2005 ‘Failure to conserve and use biological diversity in a sustainable manner would result in degrading environments, new and more rampant illnesses, deepening poverty and a continued pattern of inequitable and untenable growth’. Put practically: biodiversity matters, it matters to the rich and to the poor, to the developed and to the developing world. Applied ecologists are a crucial part of a multi-disciplinary group engaged in managing human use of the environment to prevent Kofi Annan’s vision from materializing. Working proactively with environmental managers, collaborating with colleagues in the social and physical sciences, and holding two-way conversations with policy makers and the public are all in the job description of the modern applied ecologist. The Journal of Applied Ecology is one of the most highly ranked international journals in its field, with a reputation for publishing papers that combine the highest standards of ecological science with direct relevance to environmental management. Our remit is extremely large. Thus, we publish research on animal, microbial and plant taxa across a broad range of habitats and ecosystems, and these papers span observational, experimental and theoretical studies. With the dramatic growth of applied ecological research in the last decade, the Journal needs to refine its scope to ensure we retain our distinct identity among ecology journals. To help potential authors identify whether their paper is suitable for the journal, we have described below the types of papers we accept for publication. Our acceptance rate is challenging (14·5% in 2008) and authors need to be confident that their study fits our remit before submission. As examples of good practice, we use papers that proved particularly influential or that were selected as the Editor’s choice. Editor’s choice is a new initiative begun in 2008 and is used as a means of highlighting papers that are, especially timely, particularly high quality and meet our key criteria of ecological studies with management relevance. All Journal of Applied Ecology papers cover ecology with management relevance, i.e. they present research that has direct relevance to environmental management. However, papers focused solely on the specifics of management in a particular location, without taking into account ecological dynamics and interactions or providing more general lessons, do not fit the Journal’s mandate to advance scientific understanding of applied ecological problems. Conversely, ecological papers that do not have a clear and direct relevance to the management of ecosystems and/or biodiversity are outside our remit. To highlight the applied importance of everything that we publish, we place a great deal of emphasis on the ‘Synthesis and Applications’ point of the abstract, where the management implications of the paper must be laid out clearly and convincingly. An example of where research has truly integrated basic ecological science with an applied problem is Kilpatrick, Gillin & Daszak (2009) whose work on the risk of transmission of Brucellosis from bison to cattle clearly demonstrates how good science can inform practical management. They do this by using a model that integrated epidemiological and ecological data to determine the spatio-temporal relative risk of transmission of Brucella from bison to cattle under different scenarios. They then used their data to outline two strategies for managing this risk of transmission and they discussed the consequences of the current adaptive management plan. A continuing weakness in applied ecology is the lack of papers that have actually tested management recommendations in the field. Thus, analysing a problem, offering a management solution and then implementing that solution and testing its efficacy in an adaptive management approach. The vast majority of papers published in the peer-reviewed literature, including our journal, fall short of this ideal, stopping at the point of offering a management solution. Greater collaboration with applied practitioners will provide the fastest and most effective way to ensure that papers genuinely contribute to management in the real world; a good example of this approach is Carvell et al. (2007). Here, the co-authors form a team of government scientists, a university academic and a practitioner who runs a wildlife farming company, with the latter training farmers to implement the management recommendations made in the paper. This training is delivered via collaboration with the government agencies that manage the agri-environment schemes, as well as major industry partners in the food and farming sectors (e.g. http://www.operationbumblebee.co.uk). The papers coming out of academic : practitioner collaborations will have solid, empirically validated results of direct and broad relevance to both ecological science and ecological practice. Within the remit of an ecologically based paper with management relevance, a typical Journal of Applied Ecology paper falls into one of the three categories below: A data or modelling paper that is the definitive one in its area, or a pioneer in a new area. Specifically, these are high-quality data papers that significantly advance the field using a sophisticated or substantial sampling protocol. These have become the definitive paper in their subject area, for example Hendrickx et al. (2007) ask how landscape, land use and habitat diversity affect arthropod diversity in agricultural systems by sampling bees, beetles, hoverflies, true bugs and spiders at 24 field sites across seven countries. Some data papers that make significant contributions to the field may not necessarily be as robust with regard to sampling protocols (often due to major practical constraints), but nonetheless form the pioneering contributions to a contentious or novel area. The Journal welcomes Review papers. When submitting these, authors need to consider whether they provide a synthesis of ideas that includes new insights not evident in the individual papers under consideration. Thus, a review paper needs to be much more than a thorough compilation of the literature. Forum papers that succinctly challenge received wisdom in environmental management and policy and/or raise issues where new perspectives are required or where conflicts are evident. These articles stimulate dialogue between ecologists and managers or ecologists and policy makers, for example, the recent forum on the management of raptor predation on UK grouse moors (Redpath & Thirgood 2009; Sotherton, Tapper & Smith 2009; Thompson et al. 2009). Some of our most influential papers fall into the Forum category and thereby help to set future research agendas. Other good examples are Palmer et al. (2005) who propose criteria for assessing the success of river restoration schemes, Sutherland et al. (2006) who identify 100 questions of high policy relevance, and Hulme et al. (2008) who propose a framework to assist the comparative analysis and regulation of invasions by a wide range of taxa. While somewhat of a niche market in our submissions, publishing the BES lecture at the BES Annual Meeting enables the journal to publicize the ideas of some of the most influential thinkers in environmental policy. These include the papers by Beringer (2000) and Gray (2004) on genetic modification, King (2005) on climate change, Lawton (2007) tackling the challenges at the policy:science interface, and Dasgupta (2007) addressing environmental economics. With the launch of the new BES journal, Methods in Ecology and Evolution (MEE; see http://www.methodsinecologyandevolution.org), purely methodological papers that do not significantly advance applied or conservation science, will be returned with a recommendation to submit to MEE. Although the Journal requires papers to be relevant to the discipline of ecology, we welcome interdisciplinary contributions, given that the management of natural systems will not succeed without contributions from a range of disciplines. For example, applied management and policy considerations may rely as much on decision-theory or economics as ecological processes. A case in point is the threat of biological invasions where there are clear links between economic development, national income and trade and the numbers of invasive species in a particular region (Hulme 2009). We are a forward thinking journal and areas where we would like to see more papers include: the linked ecological and economic dynamics of ecosystem services, combating emerging infectious diseases, the costs and benefits of intense management activities to combat the effects of global change, and approaches to decision-making about the management of natural systems. Authors need to consider carefully whether their work really does represent a major advance. In particular, papers on agri-environmental schemes, road impacts and population models for rare species in particular locations need to represent a particularly large step forward when compared with previous papers in these fields. Finally, we are no longer looking for papers assessing the value of grasslands for livestock production, forests for timber yield or the role of management on soil nutrient fluxes unless they address ecological processes of relevance to biodiversity and conservation. Given that the solution to many environmental problems will involve numerous parties, applied ecologists need to engage as wide an audience as possible with their research. We do this in a range of ways, including dissemination in the traditional media, as well as workshops, conferences and the papers we publish (particularly Forum articles). We are increasingly using our online resources to engage the wider public, such as RSS, twitter, and online commentaries such as Editor’s choice. While publishing a paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology places the work in the international research arena, the journal also gets excellent coverage from the media, possibly the best of any ecological journal. Considering just the last 2 years, four papers have attracted a significant amount of media attention. These are: Bergstrom et al. (2009) on the trophic cascade which followed the removal of cats from Macquarie Island; Devereux, Denny & Whittingham (2008) on the impact of turbine location on the distribution of four functional groups of wintering farmland birds; Epstein et al. (2009) working on the fruit bat, Pteropus vampyrus, who demonstrated that current hunting rates are unsustainable; and Dawson & Efford (2009) using a new acoustic method to census cryptic species. Engaging the public, policy makers and politicians in any aspect of applied ecology is key to solving many environmental problems. When an article is accepted for publication in the Journal of Applied Ecology we encourage authors to engage with the media and we can provide advice and support on that process. As a journal, we have both long and short-term strategic objectives which we meet using a variety of approaches. A key strategic aim of the Journal is to increase both the authorship and readership of the journal from Asia, and we are working proactively to achieve this. For example, to coincide with two major scientific meetings in China (the annual meeting of the Society for Conservation Biology in Beijing and the International Congress on Biological Invasions in Fuzhou), we published two online virtual issues giving free access to the best of our papers over the last 5 years relevant to each meeting. We also compiled a Special Profile on conservation in China in the June 2009 issue of the journal to coincide with these meetings, and we distributed information and contents lists in Chinese, both via email campaigns and directly to delegates. We are actively seeking to recruit leading applied ecologists in Asia to our team of Associate Editors. Another strategic aim is that we intend to be more than a high-impact journal that acts as a repository for quality ecological papers with management relevance. Rather, we also aim to facilitate the channels of communication between applied ecologists, from academic to practitioner and vice versa. An editorial in Nature in 2007 (Anonymous 2007) discussed the ‘yawning implementation gap’ between academic conservation biologists and conservation practitioners. The editorial described how the practitioners who actually carry out conservation work have no access to the applied ecology journals where conservation academics publish their research. Moreover, these papers are written in such a style as to render them unintelligible to people other than fellow conservation academics. The advice from the editorial was for the two groups to ‘get out of their respective ruts, open up paths of communication, share information and seek ever more efficient means to a common end’. The Journal has started three new ventures to meet this challenge. We held the first of what we hope will be a series of related conference workshops at the Society of Conservation Biology’s 2009 annual meeting in Beijing, where a large number of academics and conservation practitioners gather, entitled ‘Improving the conservation impact of scientific publishing’. Given our strategic focus on Asia, this was a particularly useful venue to hold the workshop, which was extremely well attended and positively received. Acknowledging that the implementation gap is an issue that concerns all the journals in the field of conservation and applied ecology, and their publishers, the panellists included representatives from several leading journals and online resources, as well as from Wiley-Blackwell. The workshop was co-organized by one of our Editors and the Editor of Oryx, and more details about the subjects discussed and the next steps we intend to take as a group to address the problem are in Milner-Gulland et al. (2010). Future areas where we hope to target such efforts include the management of biological invasions where, even in this relatively new discipline, the disparity between science output and practical implementation has long been recognized (Hulme 2003). We have also initiated a series of conferences in the UK that use a ‘Think Global, Act Local’ approach. Rather than using the traditional conference approach of inviting eminent ecological academics from around the world, our underlying rationale is to get local conservation academics talking to local conservation practitioners with the aim of forging collaborative projects. Academics are often on the lookout for field sites and field interventions for use by their research group; also many funding bodies need a practical partner on board. Moreover, academics can find out what individuals in charge of implementing management consider the key threats to the integrity of ecosystems and what they consider to be the most effective management solutions. These may be different to the opinions of academic conservation practitioners. Practitioners gain by having a collaborator who can bring them up to date with the latest scientific developments and translate the scientific jargon into everyday language. While these conferences started in the UK, the plan is to run them internationally. Another new initiative starts this year and consists of a series of papers called ‘Practitioners’ Perspectives’. Here, key practitioners are invited to contribute their viewpoints on species conservation, ecosystem restoration, pest management and the mitigation of environmental threats to biodiversity. These short articles will act as a platform for individuals involved in hands-on management of ecological resources, be they species, ecosystems or landscapes, to present their personal views on the direction of applied ecological research. The articles will usually be commissioned by invitation from the Editorial board, but if authors are interested in submitting this type of manuscript, please contact the editorial office. Finally, one of our key aims and one that mirrors a strategic aim of the British Ecological Society, is to build ecological capacity around the world. With an eye on investing in the future, we offer an annual prize for young authors – The Southwood Prize – with recent recipients from the USA, UK, Mexico, South Africa and Spain. Increasingly, scientific publishing is becoming influenced by citation metrics with authors selecting journals for publishing their best work on the basis of impact factors. While the Journal certainly holds its own in these respects, as scientists we must not forget that our research should have a wider and long-lasting impact. Moreover, research assessment bodies are increasingly becoming cognisant of ‘impact’ and the initiatives posed above are likely to make the Journal a world leader in bridging the gap between academic science and delivery where new knowledge is needed. The editorial team is committed to ensuring the work we publish can contribute to a change for the better in the natural environment. While we manage rising numbers of papers submitted to the journal, our roles extend beyond the management of manuscripts and referees to take the research to a wider audience. We hope we can encourage you to contribute to this mission as authors, referees, editors and/or readers and together we will make a difference.

Sustainable Architecture for Health: A Mindset Shift

The healthcare industry is in a pivotal position to lead the 21st-century reintegration of environment, health, and economic prosperity. By critically reinventing the hospital as a regenerative place of healing, marshalling purchasing power, and modeling health and wellness within a society in critical need of alternatives to fast food and retail culture, the healthcare industry can signal a new relationship to healing and health. (Guenther & Vittori, 2008)Moving to a Regenerative Healthcare ModelThe quote that closes our book, Sustainable Healthcare Architecture (Guenther & Vittori, 2008), was meant to usher in a broader, more relevant role for the healthcare industry in the development of sustainable design thinking, one that stands in sharp contrast to an early and widely held belief that sustainable design is about the negative consequences of production and the consumption of resources-that is about less. The mantra of reduce/reuse/recycle must be re-envisioned through the lens of healthcare as resilient/restorative/ regenerative. This is a critical distinction, because the former view fosters a dialogue based on the fear that reducing resources- whether energy, water, or building materials- produces less effective healthcare environments (Shepley, Baum, Ginsberg, & Rostenberg, 2009). On the other hand, the latter view, regenerative design, offers an opportunity to align the ecological profile of the built environment with the core mission of healthcare-that is, healing.Sustainable architecture as practiced in healthcare has, from its inception, been grounded in protecting health at all levels-building occupant (or site inhabitant), community, and global (American Society for Healthcare Engineering, 2002; Green Guide for Health Care, 2007). Former director general of the World Health Organization Lee Jong-Wook, MD, in the foreword to the Health Synthesis Report of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (Corvalan, Hales, & McMichael, 2005), challenged the healthcare sector to recognize this core value:Nature's goods and services are the ultimate foundations of life and health, even though in modern societies this fundamental dependency may be indirect, displaced in space and time, and therefore poorly recognized. This [is] a call to the health sector, not only to cure the diseases that result from environmental degradation, but also to ensure that the benefits that the natural environment provides to human health and well-being are preserved for future generations. (Corvalan et al., 2005, p. ii)Medicine cannot continue indefinitely oblivious to the large-scale constraints of ecosystems, which lie outside the four walls and beyond the property boundaries (and hence the direct control) of most U.S. healthcare systems. The healthcare sector should not have to argue that delivering highquality services entails excess waste production, toxic chemicals, and the disproportionate usage of energy and potable water-or that saving lives stands apart from the broader concerns of ecosystems and the environment. As healthcare expands and devours greater financial and labor resources in the United States, becomes larger and more ecologically intensive. In the coming years, as climate change alters weather patterns and disease vectors, will become more important to invest in and produce a resilient infrastructure to meet expanded healthcare delivery challenges. Aligning our built environments with regenerative design thinking will help us meet this future and, in the process, reinvent our hospitals. This requires a significant mindset shift.What Is a Shift?Mindset is the most important challenge to designing a successful, sustainable building. describes the mental models that form one's view of the world, green building, and healthcare design-the prevailing paradigm. Mindset can be thought of as the implicit worldview that we carry without even realizing that we're carrying it (Malin, 2005, p. …

Tradeoffs, synergies and traps among ecosystem services in the Lake Victoria basin of East Africa

Abstract Lake Victoria is a crucial ecosystem for over 25 million people in Kenya, Uganda, Tanzania, Rwanda and Burundi who live in the basin, and for the greater Nile river system downstream of the lake. Ecosystem management in the Lake Victoria basin has been highly extractive for most of the last 60 years, with the 1990s a period of marked decline in food production, economic contraction, rising poverty, increased burden of human disease, and more frequent floods. Lake Victoria itself is becoming eutrophic, with related problems of species extinctions and invasive species. There is evidence of poverty–environment traps: some households and areas appear to be caught in vicious cycles of low income, low investment in soil management, declines in soil fertility, and soil loss, while other households and areas are able to achieve higher incomes and investments, maintain soil fertility, and conserve soil on their farms. Concepts and approaches from the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) were applied in a study of ecosystem service tradeoffs, synergies and traps in two of the river basins that flow into Lake Victoria from Kenya (Yala and Nyando). Hydrologic units are the main geographic unit used in the analysis, with predictions of sediment yield serving as the main measure of regulating services. Provisioning services are evaluated through a spatially disaggregated analysis of agricultural production, yield and area that combines spatial data from aerial photographs with division-level price and yield estimates. The results illustrate considerable year-to-year variation in land use, agricultural production and sediment yield in the two basins. While overall production appears to be relatively stable at the basin level, there have been shifts in the geographic locus of production toward the upper parts of both basins. A spatial overlay of production and sediment yield indicates that different parts of the basins exhibit tradeoffs, synergies and traps. Results from this study have multiple uses in rural planning, agricultural investment, and watershed management. The results also suggest that the poverty traps conceptual framework may help to enrich the interpretative content of the MA approach.

Regional assessments of stream ecological condition: scientific challenges associated with the USA’s national Wadeable Stream Assessment

Regional assessments describe the status of an entire ecological resource within a region of interest. Considering the global scope of landscape, atmospheric, and waterway alterations, such assessments are critically needed to guide environmental policies that can ensure sustainable management of the planet’s natural resources (Millenium Ecosystem Assessment 2005, Carpenter et al. 2006). Objective regional assessments depend on the application of sound and credible science including sampling designs that allow accurate extrapolation to the whole resource population and indicators that are quantitative, ecologically interpretable, and regionally comparable. In 2006, in response to increasing requests for data describing the quality of surface waters and other ecosystems in the US (e.g., USGAO 1981, 1988, H. John Heinz Center for Science, Economics and the Environment 2002, 2008), the US Environmental Protection Agency and its state and tribal collaborators published the first nationwide assessment of stream ecosystems in the US (USEPA 2006). Producing that assessment required that research teams tasked with designing and implementing the assessment address several technical challenges. Some of those challenges were overcome, others remain in need of additional attention, and some new challenges emerged after the assessment. In this special issue of J-NABS, we have compiled a series of papers that describe some of the major scientific challenges that were encountered during the national Wadeable Streams Assessment (WSA) and some of the lessons learned subsequent to the assessment. Our goal in producing this series was to use the WSA as a case study to illustrate the variety of scientific challenges that can arise when planning and implementing regional assessments, describe how those challenges were addressed for the WSA, describe some important spin-offs that emerged as a consequence of the WSA, and identify remaining knowledge or data gaps that will require attention in future regional assessments. We hope these papers will stimulate thinking about how to improve future assessments in the US and elsewhere. The series consists of 4 sets of papers: 1) policy and overview, 2) WSA-specific case studies, 3) extensions that build on or augment initial WSA results, and 4) an invitation to other researchers to use the WSA data to test other ideas regarding the structure and function of stream ecosystems. The series opens with a paper by Shapiro et al. (2008) that describes the policy background that led to the WSA. Paulsen et al. (2008) then provide an overview of the major findings that emerged from the WSA. The 2 set of papers includes papers that cover issues of survey design and indicator development and application. Olsen and Peck (2008) describe 1 E-mail addresses: chuck.hawkins@usu.edu 2 paulsen.steve@epa.gov 3 vansickle.john@epa.gov 4 yuan.lester@epa.gov

Corporate Environmental Strategies for Economic Instruments for Biodiversity

Biodiversity loss is a major global issue of increasing significance to the public, politicians and businesses. A key contributory solution, as advocated by the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and Millenium Ecosystem Assessment is to change the way people and businesses behave towards the environment through introducing “economic incentives for biodiversity” (EIBs). These EIBs begin to reflect the true value of the environment, and are now being adopted worldwide with significant implications for businesses. The overall objective of this series of four articles is to explore the literature relevant to the extent to which the development of economic incentives for biodiversity is likely to be an opportunity or risk for extractive and water companies over the next five to 10 years. The first article began the investigation by outlining the links between business and biodiversity. The second article explained what economic incentives for biodiversity are. The third article indicated some of the associated implications of climate change. This last in this series of articles examines what strategies companies can adopt to best deal with environmental and biodiversity issues and the development of EIBs.

Effects of Climate Change on Biodiversity and Economic Instruments for Biodiversity

Biodiversity loss is a major global issue of increasing significance to the public, politicians and businesses. A key contributory solution, as advocated by the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and Millenium Ecosystem Assessment is to change the way people and businesses behave towards the environment through introducing “economic incentives for biodiversity” (EIBs). These EIBs begin to reflect the true value of the environment, and are now being adopted worldwide with significant implications for businesses. The overall objective of this series of four articles is to explore the literature relevant to the extent to which the development of economic incentives for biodiversity is likely to be an opportunity or risk for extractive and water companies over the next five to 10 years. The first article began the investigation by outlining the links between business and biodiversity. The second article explained what economic incentives for biodiversity are.This brief third article indicates some of the associated implications of climate change.

Economic Incentives for Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services

Summary: Biodiversity and ecosystem services loss is a major global issue of increasing significance to the public, politicians and businesses. A key contributory solution, as advocated by the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and Millenium Ecosystem Assessment is to change the way people and businesses behave towards the environment through introducing economic incentives for biodiversity and ecosystem services (EIBs). These EIBs begin to reflect the true value of the environment, and are now being adopted worldwide with significant implications for businesses. This is the second article in a series of four with the overall objective of exploring the literature relevant to the extent to which the development of economic incentives for biodiversity is likely to be an opportunity or risk for extractive and water companies over the next five to10 years. The first article began the investigation by outlining the links between business and biodiversity. This second article explains what economic incentives for biodiversity are and provides examples from the literature that helps demonstrate how important they are becoming. Subsequent articles will indicate some of the associated implications of climate change, and highlight what strategies companies can adopt to best deal with environmental and biodiversity issues and the development of EIBs.

Business and Biodiversity

Biodiversity loss is a major global issue of increasing significance to the public, politicians and businesses. A key contributory solution, as advocated by the UN Convention of Biological Diversity and Millenium Ecosystem Assessment is to change the way people and businesses behave towards the environment through introducing “economic incentives for biodiversity” (EIBs). These EIBs begin to reflect the true value of the environment, and are now being adopted worldwide with significant implications for businesses. The overall objective of a series of four articles to be published over the next four months is to explore the literature relevant to the extent to which the development of economic incentives for biodiversity is likely to be an opportunity or risk for extractive and water companies over the next five to 10 years. This first article begins the investigation by outlining the links between business and biodiversity. Subsequent articles will explain what economic incentives for biodiversity are, indicate some of the associated implications of climate change, and highlight what strategies companies can adopt to best deal with environmental and biodiversity issues and the development of EIBs.

Role of microbial communities in mediating ecosystem response to disturbance

consideration of disturbance. Yet, a synthetic understanding of the factors that govern postdisturbance ecosystem change is lacking. The role of microbial communities in mediating post-disturbance biogeochemistry has been overlooked in favor of a focus on process rates themselves and assuming that microbes act in a ‘‘black box.’’ For example, in the recent, globally comprehensive, Millenium Ecosystem Assessment, recommendations for critical research areas and data collection to forecast changes in ecosystem services generally lack any direct reference to soil biotic communities (Agardy et al. 2005, p. 837). However, understanding alterations of microbially mediated ecosystem function is critical for understanding nutrient limitations, ecosystem productivity, and ultimately, ecosystem services. Instead, observations of altered ecosystem function after disturbance tend to be indirect and descriptive, lacking a mechanistic basis for interpreting the observed changes. This lack of mechanistic understanding of the relationship between soil microbial communities, ecosystem function and their potential responses to disturbance, limits our ability to make predictions across spatial and temporal domains. At the same time, we have gained significant insight into, and ability to detect, how microbial community activity alters ecosystem processes. Given increasing pressures on ecologists to interpret and forecast the effects of global change, ignoring these insights regarding the fundamental role of micro-organisms is not acceptable. The current challenge therefore is to synthesize knowledge about microbial community activity following disturbance to determine when, how, and why microbial community structure and function mediate ecosystem responses to disturbance. This special issue includes studies that explore the relationship between microbial communities and disturbance, and the consequence of microbiological changes on ecosystem function. Past studies demonstrating that disturbance alters microbial communities have generally been casespecific. As a result, little is known about the relative impact of different types of disturbances and their variation in time and space. In this issue, I asked authors to address microbial structure and function in response to the particular disturbance with which they were most familiar, and to synthesize the ecological lessons from these studies. Consequently, the papers cover a wide range of disturbance types including global change, atmospheric CO2 enrichment, wetland disruption, and E. A. H. Smithwick (&) Department of Zoology, Birge Hall, 430 Lincoln Drive, University of Wisconsin, Madison, WI 53706, USA e-mail: easmithwick@wisc.edu Plant Soil (2006) 289:1–3 DOI 10.1007/s11104-006-9084-5

Ecosystem services

Humans have always depended on nature for environmental assets like clean water, nutrient cycling and soil formation. These have been called by different names through human history, but are presently gaining global attention as ‘ecosystem services’. Gretchen Daily defines ecosystem services as “the conditions and processes through which natural ecosystems, and the species that make them up, sustain and fulfill human life”. Until recently, we have tended to take ecosystem services for granted, as they have generally been ‘free’, despite their obvious economic value to humans. In fact, a recent global analysis by the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment concluded that well over half of the world’s ecosystem services are being degraded or used unsustainably. With a global population soon to number nine billion people, ecosystems services are becoming so degraded that many regions in the world risk ecological collapse. It may be time for the era of free ecosystem services to come to an end. The idea of paying for ecosystem services is causing corporations, private land owners, conservation organizations and governments to take note. Even prominent business-oriented magazines such as The Economist have recently featured ecosystem services on their cover (see the 21 April 2005 issue). If we are to start paying for ecosystem services, we have to know how much to pay. Economists and ecologists are just beginning to credibly assign economic value to ecosystem processes, transforming these processes into tradable, marketable services. This approach gives us a common currency to assess the relative importance of ecosystem processes and other forms of capital (physical, social, cultural, intellectual). Economic valuation need not cover all values of ecosystems; progress is made simply by capturing values that are presently egregiously overlooked. As a society, the modern world routinely uses cost–benefit analyses to judge between alternative pathways. The valuation of ecosystem services facilitates difficult decisions about how to proceed with development to keep up with ever-expanding human populations. Without economic valuation, decision-makers and governments implicitly assign ecosystem processes a value of zero and, not surprisingly, then select actions that reap rewards according to values everyone already understands (like a new factory). Hence valuation, even if it is flawed, may get ecosystem processes on the table and lead to more sustainable policies. Several attempts have been made to classify and exhaustively list ecosystem services. There is no present consensus on a useful taxonomy, though de Groot and coworkers and the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment have both established groupings that align ecosystem functions with goods and services. For example, the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment identified functions as provisioning (food, water, fuel, fiber), regulating (prevention of soil erosion, flood control), cultural (recreation, spiritual value, sense of place) or supporting (soil formation, nutrient cycling, oxygen from photosynthesis). Regardless of the ways they can be grouped, ecosystem services have been brought into the limelight largely due to interest from multiple, usually disparate, sectors. Corporations and private land owners have begun to recognize that their resource bases are finite and are, in some cases, factoring ecosystem well-being into the corporate or individual balance-sheet. For instance, British Petroleum gained support from the public, and even some conservation organizations, in their bold move to break from the fossil fuels industry by publicly recognizing the association between fossil fuels and climate change, and then selecting a corporate strategy that reflected the role of carbon sequestration and reduced emissions in climate control. On a less grand, but equally relevant scale, cattle ranchers and foresters may use ecosystem services as another commodity that can be sold beyond beef or timber, as long as they can find someone willing to pay for clean watersheds or erosion control. Mangroves: from $2000 shrimp to tsunami protectionMangroves have long been the poster child of ecosystem services. The list of the services provided by mangroves is long and well appreciated by subsistence communities globally. Many of these services have already been targets of valuation studies, including finfish and nonfinfish commercial and subsistence fisheries, timber and firewood, dyes, tourism, medicinal remedies, education, physical coastal protection, carbon storage, and even existence and option values. The power of such valuations was shown early on, when the Fijian government temporarily stopped mangrove reclamation in the 1960s and 1970s after seeing the results of a partial valuation study.A later case study showed the economic and ecological perils of neglecting the value of mangroves. A large mangrove area on India’s east coast houses a shrimp farming industry that relies on wild brood shrimp. But, mangroves were cleared for new farms subsidized by the government and the remaining mangrove area is half of that required just to provide enough wild brood shrimp for existing farms. Overdevelopment has led to a wildly fluctuating brood shrimp market where a single shrimp can sell for as much as $2000 USD. Analyzing the partial value of mangroves for brood shrimp provision alone would have clearly identified the optimal number of farms, saving subsidy money, providing a sustainable industry and retaining more mangroves.Mangroves have also illustrated the importance of understanding what ecosystem characteristics are necessary for particular services. The recent Indian Ocean tsunami provided a textbook example of the role of mangroves in coastal protection. Most areas in Sri Lanka with relatively good mangrove status before the tsunami were protected and received little wave damage as expected, but some were severely damaged. In other words, the mangroves acted like an insurance policy against storm damage — nature’s insurance policy, with no premiums charged to anyone. Of course, if all of the coastal regions bludgeoned by the tsunami had recognized the value of mangroves, much damage and suffering could have been averted.Interestingly, just as is the case with regular insurance policies, the details matter. A closer look at the patterns of damage and the coastal vegetation showed that the damaged areas had dominant mangrove trees like Rhizophora sp. in good condition, but had understories dominated by less typical mangrove associates (species not always found in mangroves). This detail of forest character, not visible from satellites, made all the difference. If mangrove restoration efforts spurred by the recent disaster focus on expanding the extent of major mangrove species while ignoring understory species, the region could face an equally grave threat from the next tsunami. Mangroves have long been the poster child of ecosystem services. The list of the services provided by mangroves is long and well appreciated by subsistence communities globally. Many of these services have already been targets of valuation studies, including finfish and nonfinfish commercial and subsistence fisheries, timber and firewood, dyes, tourism, medicinal remedies, education, physical coastal protection, carbon storage, and even existence and option values. The power of such valuations was shown early on, when the Fijian government temporarily stopped mangrove reclamation in the 1960s and 1970s after seeing the results of a partial valuation study. A later case study showed the economic and ecological perils of neglecting the value of mangroves. A large mangrove area on India’s east coast houses a shrimp farming industry that relies on wild brood shrimp. But, mangroves were cleared for new farms subsidized by the government and the remaining mangrove area is half of that required just to provide enough wild brood shrimp for existing farms. Overdevelopment has led to a wildly fluctuating brood shrimp market where a single shrimp can sell for as much as $2000 USD. Analyzing the partial value of mangroves for brood shrimp provision alone would have clearly identified the optimal number of farms, saving subsidy money, providing a sustainable industry and retaining more mangroves. Mangroves have also illustrated the importance of understanding what ecosystem characteristics are necessary for particular services. The recent Indian Ocean tsunami provided a textbook example of the role of mangroves in coastal protection. Most areas in Sri Lanka with relatively good mangrove status before the tsunami were protected and received little wave damage as expected, but some were severely damaged. In other words, the mangroves acted like an insurance policy against storm damage — nature’s insurance policy, with no premiums charged to anyone. Of course, if all of the coastal regions bludgeoned by the tsunami had recognized the value of mangroves, much damage and suffering could have been averted. Interestingly, just as is the case with regular insurance policies, the details matter. A closer look at the patterns of damage and the coastal vegetation showed that the damaged areas had dominant mangrove trees like Rhizophora sp. in good condition, but had understories dominated by less typical mangrove associates (species not always found in mangroves). This detail of forest character, not visible from satellites, made all the difference. If mangrove restoration efforts spurred by the recent disaster focus on expanding the extent of major mangrove species while ignoring understory species, the region could face an equally grave threat from the next tsunami. Ecosystem services have also piqued the interest of the public sector and national governments. For example, several agencies within the US government (USEPA, USACE, USDA) recently showed their interest in ecosystem services when they commissioned the National Research Council to produce a report on the topic and the status of aquatic ecosystem services in the US. These government agencies recognize the utility of ecosystem service valuation for its potential to inform policy decisions that include consideration of trade-offs, for providing damage assessments and for incorporating environmental assets and services into national income accounts. Conservation organizations have several reasons to be interested in ecosystem services. Private donor dollars presently pay for most domestic and international conservation activities. Though these funds have set aside vast tracts of pristine systems, they alone will not be enough to protect the majority of the earth’s ecosystems and the species they house. In comparison, realization of the market worth of ecosystem services has the potential to increase conservation funding by orders of magnitude. Ecosystem services also have the possibility of aligning conservation value and poverty alleviation. Functioning ecosystems provide clean, disease-free water, fertile soil and numerous other basic human needs. The paradigm of ecosystem services is not accepted by everyone, and even among those who champion this new way of thinking about nature, differences of opinion can be dramatic. For example, some scientists suggest a virtual one-to-one mapping between ecosystem services and biodiversity. Others point out that there are many cases where low diversity systems can provide tremendous ecosystem services, and that modest losses of biodiversity may not substantially undermine ecosystem services. Many conservationists also fear that placing values on ecosystem services will lead to the loss of appreciation of species for their own sake. History has shown that markets are generally unkind to natural systems. Others see markets as tools that can instill conservation value into lands under human use that would traditionally not be valued if the only measure were biodiversity. Possibly the boldest move to embrace and understand ecosystem services to date is the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment, mentioned above. This assessment of the status of the earth’s ecosystems was requested by the United Nations Secretary General, Kofi Annan. As stated in the report: “the objective of the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment was to assess the consequences of ecosystem change for human well-being and to establish the scientific basis for actions needed to enhance the conservation and sustainable use of ecosystems and their contributions to human well-being”. The assessment cost over $20 million and involved 1300 scientists who volunteered their time synthesizing and analyzing data and models. All of this interest is derived from a healthy base of theory and only a few real-world examples that scratch the surface of possible tools for the sticky business of assigning values to ecosystem functions. The point of economic valuation is to estimate the importance of changes in ecosystem services to human welfare. There is an active movement to formalize ecosystem service values in public and private sectors by creating markets for ecosystem services, and at a minimum changing policies away from perverse subsidies. The most common and most appropriate approach to non-market valuation is called total economic value (TEV). This approach does not necessarily assess the total value of an ecosystem, but rather allows changes to be calculated for all values (use and non-use values) associated with one or several ecosystem functions. Any calculation of TEV will depend heavily on the spatial and temporal scales being assessed, so analysts must be clear about the intended scope of their study. TEV can be assessed as willingness to pay (WTP) or willingness to accept (WTA) payment. WTP is the more common method, as more tools for estimating economic value are relevant to this approach and WTP can usually be considered a conservative estimate in cases where WTA would be preferred. The recent NRC report reviews the many methods for calculating WTP and should be consulted for details and guidelines. Many problems must be solved before the valuation of ecosystem services can become a mainstream activity. Primarily, we need to acquire sufficient information about ecosystem processes to make valuation possible. Beyond that basic biophysical information, we also lack an understanding of how economic value scales with ecosystem processes. For instance, a single wetland grass plant does not cycle enough nutrients to be of value to an upland cattle farmer. But how many plants are considered valuable? 100 plants? One hectare of wetland? And how does this answer change with seasons, climate fluctuations and land use change in the watershed? Another challenge lies in our ability to devise pragmatic programs for the monetization of services. Hardest of all may be finding someone willing to pay, when the tradition has been to receive these services for free. Ecosystem service valuation will only achieve its promise if there are markets and buyers for the service, or some other form of incentive. Some payment systems are already established and functioning for selected ecosystem services. For example, there are at least five active carbon markets in the world, and farmers in parts of the US are subsidized to leave fields fallow for several years to encourage soil formation and retention. The Perrier bottled water company pays fees to landowners in watersheds upstream of their springs to retain forests, guaranteeing a clean, reliable water source. But even these tools will be difficult to apply in non-capitalist countries or developing regions with minimal infrastructure. Economists and multilateral international agencies will need to apply creative thinking in impoverished countries to help the value of ecosystem services be realized in places where no one can afford to pay for much of anything. Valuation of ecosystem services is but one of many tools that will be used in the continual struggle to allow coexistence of humans and the suite of species and ecosystems that make our lives possible. Ecosystem services and their dollar value is one of the few ideas that resonate in corporate and governmental board rooms, on stock exchanges and in farm houses, mud huts, eco-tourist lodges and palm palapas. Investing in ecosystem services is a risky business. Ignoring their potential may be even riskier as species continue to blink out of existence and ecosystems continue to collapse around us.