Ecosystem services and biodiversity in developing countries

The concept of ecosystem services has become important for our understanding of the role of nature for maintaining human livelihoods. But is biodiversity essential to maintain ecosystem services? Many studies suggest that higher biodiversity allows a higher level of ecosystem services, but others argue that there is little hard evidence, especially from tropical environments, to document the necessity of high biodiversity for provision of most ecosystem services. Thus, effective valuation of biodiversity for ecosystem services and long-term studies and monitoring are needed to fully understand the complex biodiversity-ecosystem service interface. This introduction briefly reviews some of the main arguments in this debate and provides an overview of the other five special issue papers. Exploring biodiversity and ecosystem interactions in the context of the provision of ecosystem services, these papers address population and biodiversity coexistence, the importance of dung beetles in agricultural landscapes, the knowledge and use of palms by local communities, bioprospecting for drugs and how biodiversity conservation may have added benefits in terms of improved watershed functions and health.     

Mapping the economic costs and benefits of conservation

Resources for biodiversity conservation are severely limited, requiring strategic investment. Understanding both the economic benefits and costs of conserving ecosystems will help to allocate scarce dollars most efficiently. However, although cost-benefit analyses are common in many areas of policy, they are not typically used in conservation planning. We conducted a spatial evaluation of the costs and benefits of conservation for a landscape in the Atlantic forests of Paraguay. We considered five ecosystem services (i.e., sustainable bushmeat harvest, sustainable timber harvest, bioprospecting for pharmaceutical products, existence value, and carbon storage in aboveground biomass) and compared them to estimates of the opportunity costs of conservation. We found a high degree of spatial variability in both costs and benefits over this relatively small (~3,000 km²) landscape. Benefits exceeded costs in some areas, with carbon storage dominating the ecosystem service values and swamping opportunity costs. Other benefits associated with conservation were more modest and exceeded costs only in protected areas and indigenous reserves. We used this cost-benefit information to show that one potential corridor between two large forest patches had net benefits that were three times greater than two otherwise similar alternatives. Spatial cost-benefit analysis can powerfully inform conservation planning, even though the availability of relevant data may be limited, as was the case in our study area. It can help us understand the synergies between biodiversity conservation and economic development when the two are indeed aligned and to clearly understand the trade-offs when they are not.     

国内外城市生物多样性评价与提升研究综述

城市生物多样性水平是反映人与自然和谐共处水平的重要指标,对促进城市可持续发展有着重要意义。城市及其基础设施的扩张改变了土地原有的生态系统、水文状况和地表结构,不断加快的城市化进程对生物多样性造成了严重影响,城市生物多样性保护已成为当下城市生态建设中重要且紧迫的工作。与传统的生物多样性研究不同,城市生物多样性保护工作以保护生物多样性为前提,争取科学利用生物多样性为城市带来更广泛的经济效益和社会效益。当前城市生物多样性研究成果丰富且涉及层面多元,但仍面临缺乏系统性、整体性评价框架以及跨界、多尺度管理等关键问题。故对国内外城市生物多样性的状况评价、效益评价和提升路径三方面的相关研究进行综述,总结当前城市生物多样性评价的标准与方法,并从城市生物多样性保护面对的主要挑战出发,梳理介绍国际合作、国家政策、城市规划、专项保护以及基于自然的解决方案等角度的城市生物多样性提升路径。讨论了城市生物多样性的关注点与未来研究方向,并对城市生物多样性保护提出政策建议,为各地编制生物多样性保护规划和开展城市生物多样性保护工作提供借鉴,以期促进城市生物多样性保护和人与自然的协调发展。     

Impacts of species-led conservation on ecosystem services of wetlands: understanding co-benefits and tradeoffs

Biodiversity conservation organisations have recently begun to consider a wider ecosystem services context for their activities. While the literature suggests the potential of ‘win–win’ situations where biodiversity conservation and the delivery of ecosystem services overlap, empirical evidence is wanting. Here we explore the role that species-led management for the benefit of biodiversity in cultural landscapes can play in the delivery of wider ecosystem services. We use UK lowland wetlands as a case study and show how successful delivery of species-led conservation through management interventions relies on practices that can affect greenhouse gas fluxes, water quality and regulation, and cultural benefits. In these wetlands, livestock grazing has potentially large effects on water and greenhouse gas related services, but there is little scope to alter management without compromising species objectives. Likewise, there is little potential to alter reedbed management without compromising conservation objectives. There is some potential to alter woodland and scrub management, but this would likely have limited influence due to the relatively small area over which such management is practiced. The management of water levels potentially has large effects on provision of several services and there does appear to be some scope to align this objective with biodiversity objectives. A comprehensive understanding of the net costs and benefits to society of these interventions will require fine-grained research integrating ecological, economic and social science research. However, a less analytic understanding of the potential costs and benefits can highlight ways by which land management principally to achieve biodiversity conservation objectives might be modified to enhance delivery of other ecosystem services.     

Biodiversity banking: a strategic conservation mechanism

Among the conservation initiatives, biodiversity banking is a strategic new concept that calls for advocacy by the researchers, conservationists, policy planners and business corporate houses to enhance the conservational behaviour of the stakeholders. The concept has dual benefits of restoration of livelihood support systems and conservation of biodiversity that provides ecological services and economic benefits to civil society. Currently, lack of defined guidelines with robust valuation and incentive mechanism for biodiversity banking has resulted in ‘business as usual’ situation especially in developing and under developed countries. There is need for re-defining the country level biodiversity banking guidelines for the effective private-government-stakeholder participation. Furthermore, the mechanism must consider using robust scientific database of inter-disciplinary nature and suitably adopt the modalities of successful case studies to overcome the flaws/risks. Biodiversity banking is a realizable concept in developing and resource poor countries as additional livelihood support system through the market of accrued ecosystem services linked to conservation behaviour of stakeholders.     

白洋淀流域生态系统服务评估及其调控

政策制定者在制定土地利用相关政策时需要权衡各方面的利益关系,协调资源保护和经济发展之间的关系.由于缺乏有效的评价与权衡办法,目前对这方面研究还较少.采用InVEST模型,评价了白洋淀流域7种服务功能指标,分析了其空间分布特征.通过情景(政策情景与保护情景)分析,较好的反映了农业直接经济收入与服务功能之间的关系.结果表明:生物多样性、水源涵养、土壤保持和固碳重要区域主要分布在流域西部、北部和流域中部山区;水质保护和授粉重要区域主要分布于流域东部、南部和中部平原区.政策情景下,产水量第二,农业产出有所下降,固碳能力较保护模式差,N/P输出最少.保护情景下产水量最大,农田产出价值不变,氮磷保持与政策情景差不多,但固碳效果最好.通过权衡不同情景下服务功能得失,筛选既不损害流域居民实际经济收入,又能使得水文服务功能得到提高的管理模式.研究表明InVEST模型可以很好的用于对自然资本评估和空间化特征分析,通过建立不同情景,评价结果可以用于权衡不同管理策略下服务功能得失,是一种评价和预测自然资本变化的有效方法,对政策制定和策略筛选具有重要的指导意义.     

Ecology and bioprospecting

Bioprospecting is the exploration of biodiversity for new resources of social and commercial value. It is carried out by a wide range of established industries such as pharmaceuticals, manufacturing and agriculture as well as a wide range of comparatively new ones such as aquaculture, bioremediation, biomining, biomimetic engineering and nanotechnology. The benefits of bioprospecting have emerged from such a wide range of organisms and environments worldwide that it is not possible to predict what species or habitats will be critical to society, or industry, in the future. The benefits include an unexpected variety of products that include chemicals, genes, metabolic pathways, structures, materials and behaviours. These may provide physical blueprints or inspiration for new designs. Criticism aimed at bioprospecting has been addressed, in part, by international treaties and legal agreements aimed at stopping biopiracy and many activities are now funded by agencies that require capacity-building and economic benefits in host countries. Thus, much contemporary bioprospecting has multiple goals, including the conservation of biodiversity, the sustainable management of natural resources and economic development. Ecologists are involved in three vital ways: first, applying ecological principles to the discovery of new resources. In this context, natural history becomes a vast economic database. Second, carrying out field studies, most of them demographic, to help regulate the harvest of wild species. Third, emphasizing the profound importance of millions of mostly microscopic species to the global economy.     

An evolutionary modeling approach for designing a contractual REDD+ payment scheme

Economic development and sustainable ecological and environmental development generally target different goals, and there are trade-offs and game-like behaviors between implementers and donors in reducing emissions from deforestation and degradation (REDD+) program. This paper analyzed the effects of evolutionary behaviors of REDD+ implementers and donors with respect to environmental service payments. Within a theoretical analysis framework, the evolutionary stable strategies of the implementers and donors under different contractual payments for ecosystem services (PES) scenarios are analyzed to explore contractual REDD+ payments through evolutionary game models. On this basis, anon-parametric local regression approach is used to analyze arrange of market-based contractual PES schemes in five REDD+ countries (Congo, Brazil, Ecuador, Nepal and Uganda). The results show the following: First, when the opportunity costs are less than the environmental benefits, some middle and high income developing countries are sufficiently incentivized to conserve forests, even without formal contractual PES scheme. This conservation occurs regardless of whether the industrialized countries will pay for the ecosystem services. Second, when the opportunity costs are greater than the environmental benefits, developing countries will generally not take the initiative to conserve forests when industrialized countries do not pay for the associated ecosystem services. Third, when there are enough contractual PES fines, developing countries will conserve forests, and the industrialized countries will pay for the ecosystem services. Finally, contractual PES fines are related to the costs of reducing emissions. Nepal has the largest marginal effect, and Uganda has the smallest. These results have implications for REDD+ program design and implementation: market-based contractual PES scheme should be given priority to regulate behavior of industrialized countries and developing countries in the PES scheme. Developing a targeted and differentiated contractual PES scheme requires an accounting of emission reduction costs in different countries.     

Role of traditional knowledge in marine bioprospecting

The “marine world” is endowed with diverse life forms. The life under the oceans is bestowed with a unique gene pool and characteristics owing to extreme conditions such as high salt concentration and temperature variations. The marine biodiversity is an extremely rich resource for the development of a wide array of applications in food, pharmaceuticals, cosmetics. Various forms of traditional knowledge, including traditional medicinal knowledge, have been silently developing over the centuries, with the coastal tribes in nations across the globe. Unfortunately, marine traditional knowledge has been underestimated both commercially and legally. It has still not gained its due importance at the international platform for sustainable use and development. An attempt has been made in the present study to collate information on marine traditional knowledge based medicine. Recent trends of marine bioprospecting by various nations including India have been discussed, followed by the study of legal provisions dealing with marine bioprospecting that aim at conservation and sustainable use of marine biodiversity and associated traditional knowledge. Convention of Biological Diversity, United Nations Convention on the Law of the Seas and World Intellectual Property Organization are the major international legal instruments that discuss the concepts of Prior Informed Consent, access and benefit sharing with regard to biopiracy and provide guidelines and limits for conducting marine scientific research.     

Nature’s care: diarrhea, watershed protection, and biodiversity conservation in Flores, Indonesia

Part of the puzzle surrounding biodiversity loss lies in an incomplete understanding of how humans value the functions and services that flow from biodiversity conservation projects. This paper takes a closer look at the links between the conservation of biodiversity and the livelihoods of rural people who live on the fringes of the parks and protected areas. We revisit some of the key aspects of ecosystem valuation—purpose, methodology, and policy design and implementation—because the links between biodiversity conservation, ecosystem services, and human welfare are obscured by considerable smoke and mirrors. Using a biodiversity conservation project (Ruteng Park) on Flores Island in Indonesia as a case study, we build a concrete empirical example of ecosystem valuation. This conservation project has resulted in spatially patchy watershed protection that allows us to identify and estimate the impacts of watershed services on human health (diarrhea prevalence) in the buffer zone of the park. We conclude by offering a plan of research to improve the design of conservation interventions for protecting biodiversity and providing ecosystem services. These recommendations include developing more conceptual knowledge on the linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem services; scaling up valuation efforts of underappreciated services such as health; shifting focus from valuing services individually to valuing multiple benefits from the same area; and conducting conservation policy experiments to identify causal outcomes (including defensible estimates of ecosystem values).

Ecosystem Services in Conservation Planning: Targeted Benefits vs. Co-Benefits or Costs?

There is growing support for characterizing ecosystem services in order to link conservation and human well-being. However, few studies have explicitly included ecosystem services within systematic conservation planning, and those that have follow two fundamentally different approaches: ecosystem services as intrinsically-important targeted benefits vs. substitutable co-benefits. We present a first comparison of these two approaches in a case study in the Central Interior of British Columbia. We calculated and mapped economic values for carbon storage, timber production, and recreational angling using a geographical information system (GIS). These 'marginal' values represent the difference in service-provision between conservation and managed forestry as land uses. We compared two approaches to including ecosystem services in the site-selection software Marxan: as Targeted Benefits, and as Co-Benefits/Costs (in Marxan's cost function); we also compared these approaches with a Hybrid approach (carbon and angling as targeted benefits, timber as an opportunity cost). For this analysis, the Co-Benefit/Cost approach yielded a less costly reserve network than the Hybrid approach (1.6% cheaper). Including timber harvest as an opportunity cost in the cost function resulted in a reserve network that achieved targets equivalently, but at 15% lower total cost. We found counter-intuitive results for conservation: conservation-compatible services (carbon, angling) were positively correlated with each other and biodiversity, whereas the conservation-incompatible service (timber) was negatively correlated with all other networks. Our findings suggest that including ecosystem services within a conservation plan may be most cost-effective when they are represented as substitutable co-benefits/costs, rather than as targeted benefits. By explicitly valuing the costs and benefits associated with services, we may be able to achieve meaningful biodiversity conservation at lower cost and with greater co-benefits.     

Effects of budget constraints on conservation network design for biodiversity and ecosystem services

Limited budgets and budget cuts hamper the development of effective biodiversity conservation networks. Optimizing the spatial configuration of conservation networks given such budget constraints remains challenging. Systematic conservation planning addresses this challenge. Systematic conservation planning can integrate both biodiversity and ecosystem services as conservation targets, and hence address the challenge to operationalize ecosystem services as an anthropocentric argument for conservation. We create two conservation scenarios to expand the current conservation network in the Dutch province of Limburg. One scenario focuses on biodiversity only and the other integrates biodiversity and ecosystem services. We varied conservation budgets in these scenarios and used the software Marxan to assess differences in the resulting network configurations. In addition, we tested the network’s cost-effectiveness by allocating a conservation budget either in one or in multiple steps. We included twenty-nine biodiversity surrogates and five ecosystem services. The inclusion of ecosystem services to expand Limburg’s conservation network only moderately changed prioritized areas, compared to only conserving biodiversity. Network expansion in a single time-step is more efficient in terms of compactness and cost-effectiveness than implementing it in multiple time-steps. Therefore, to cost-effectively plan conservation networks, the full budget should ideally be available before the plans are implemented. We show that including ecosystem services to cost-effectively expand conservation networks can simultaneously encourage biodiversity conservation and stimulate the protection of conservation-compatible ecosystem services.     

集成生态系统服务与生物多样性的系统保护规划

生物多样性和生态系统服务的保护与可持续管理是当今世界面临的重大挑战之一,但如何判识与优化集成生态系统服务与生物多样性保护对象的保护优先区网络,相关研究还很有限。针对“三江并流”区,选取珍稀濒危与特有动植物物种和自然植被类型作为生物多样性保护对象,以调节服务(碳存储、固碳和土壤保持)、文化服务(自然游憩)和供给服务(水源供给)为生态系统服务保护对象。应用系统保护规划方法,首先判识出单一生物多样性和生态系统服务保护优先区;然后,分析这些保护优先区间的相关关系,并选择与生物多样性正相关的生态系统服务类型,判识集成生态系统服务与生物多样性的保护优先区;最后,评估了集成生态系统服务与生物多样性保护优先区在六类已建保护地中的保护状况。结果表明：(1)“三江并流”区多情景规划得到的生物多样性与生态系统服务保护优先区之间均呈正相关关系;(2)与分别针对生态系统服务和生物多样性的规划情景相比,集成生态系统服务与生物多样性保护优先区能够同时对两类保护对象提供最高的保护覆盖率;(3)集成生态系统服务和生物多样性保护优先区占研究区总面积的48.9%,其已建保护地覆盖率为32.5%,说明现有保护地体系仍存在保护...     

石羊河流域生态系统服务权衡与协同关系研究

生态系统服务权衡与协同研究是国际生态学、地理学等学科研究的热点。以石羊河流域为研究区,借助In VEST模型,对流域2005、2010和2015年的水源涵养、土壤保持、水质净化、碳储存和生物多样性五项服务进行精准测度,分析服务的时空格局及演变特征,并利用相关系数法逐像元定量计算5种服务之间的权衡与协同关系,从不同尺度分析权衡与协同关系的空间格局特征。结果表明:(1)各项服务具有空间异质性:水源涵养、土壤保持、碳储存、生物多样性呈"西南高-东北低"的空间格局,且水质净化、碳储存服务的高值区沿河流分布。(2) 10年期间,水源涵养、水质净化、碳储存、生物多样性服务呈现"整体增加-局部减少"的变化趋势,而土壤保持呈"整体减少-局部增加"的变化特征。(3)多种服务之间权衡与协同关系具有区域依赖特征:水源涵养与土壤保持、水源涵养与水质净化、水质净化与碳储存、水质净化与生物多样性、土壤保持与碳储存、土壤保持与生物多样性以权衡关系为主;水源涵养与碳储存、水源涵养与生物多样性、土壤保持与水质净化、碳储存与生物多样性以协同关系为主。定量可视化评估生态系统服务及权衡关系,为制定区域发展与生态保护双赢政策提供依据,同时也为其他流域的相关研究提供可靠参考。     

生态系统修复国内外研究进展与展望

气候变化和人类活动的增加不仅导致生态系统退化、生物多样性丧失、生物圈资源供给能力降低, 而且极大地制约了社会经济的可持续发展。尽管在全世界范围内已实施了大量的保护工作, 但全球生态系统退化仍在继续, 逐渐成为备受关注的全球性问题。文章首先厘清生态系统修复的发展历程、相关概念与理论。其次, 归纳生态系统修复的全球议题, 涉及生态系统服务及其价值评估、生物多样性保护、应对气候变化与碳储存、自然保护地、监测体系与适应性管理、公平性与多主体参与等方面。然后, 总结我国森林、草原、河流与湿地、海洋与海岸带的生态系统退化问题与修复进展, 梳理生态保护红线、自然保护地生态系统修复和国土空间生态保护修复3种措施的进展与不足。最后, 对山水林田湖草沙一体化保护与系统治理、生态系统修复的多元融资政策与渠道、荒野生态保护修复的探索与实践、城镇生态系统修复的研究与应用以及生态系统修复对生物多样性的保护与维持等五个方面进行展望, 以期为我国进一步开展生态系统保护修复的相关研究与实践提供指导。     

Rapid Assessment of Ecosystem Services Provided by Two Mineral Extraction Sites Restored for Nature Conservation in an Agricultural Landscape in Eastern England

Despite growing recognition that mineral sites restored for nature conservation can enhance local biodiversity, the wider societal benefits provided by this type of restoration relative to alternative options are not well understood. This study addresses this research gap by quantifying differences in ecosystem services provision under two common mineral site after-uses: nature conservation and agriculture. Using a combination of site-specific primary field data, benefits transfer and modelling, we show that for our sites restoration for nature conservation provides a more diverse array of ecosystem services than would be delivered under an agricultural restoration scenario. We also explore the effects of addressing different conservation targets, which we find alter the provision of ecosystem services on a service-specific basis. Highly species-focused intervention areas are associated with increased carbon storage and livestock grazing provision, whereas non-intervention areas are important for carbon sequestration, fishing, recreation and flood risk mitigation. The results of this study highlight the wider societal importance of restored mineral sites and may help conservation managers and planners to develop future restoration strategies that provide benefits for both biodiversity and human well-being.     

Perspectives on the link between ecosystem services and biodiversity: The assessment of the nursery function

The relationship between biodiversity and each ecosystem service or bundle of ecosystem services (e.g. win−win, win−lose or win−neutral) is an active field of research that requires structured and consistent information. The application of that research for conservation and decision-making can be hampered by the ambiguity found in the definition of the nursery function under the ecosystem service perspective. In this paper, we review how the role of nursery habitats is included in the ecosystem services literature, covering conceptual, biophysical and economic reflections. The role of ecosystems as nurseries is mostly analyzed in coastal environments. The main observation is that there is no consensus on the consideration of the nursery function as a service (e.g. which species or habitats) or on how to assess it (e.g. which indicators or valuation methods). After that review, we analyze three different interpretations given to the nursery function, namely the ecological, conservationist and economic point of view; and we distinguish between different types of assessment that may consider the nursery function.We conclude that the nursery function can be considered an ecosystem service on its own right when it is linked to a concrete human benefit and not when it is represented with indicators of general biodiversity or ecosystem condition. Thus, the analysis of the delivery of ecosystem services should be differentiated from the analysis of ecological integrity. Only with this distinction science may be able to quantify the link between biodiversity and ecosystem services and policy may be effective in halting biodiversity loss. Similar considerations could apply for other biodiversity constituents that may be treated as ecosystem services.     

Residents’ valuation of ecosystem services in a Mediterranean coastal dune ecosystem: The case of the Ritoque dunes in central Chile

Coastal dunes provide a variety of cultural and ecological ecosystem services to local communities. However, most of these ecosystems are globally threatened by anthropic factors. Chile is home to important dune ecosystems such as the emblematic Ritoque coastal dunes located in the hotspot for biodiversity conservation in central Chile where there is a delicate relationship between conservation and human development interests, among local communities and authorities. Here, we performed a choice experiment study to determined willingness to implement conservation measures in the Ritoque dunes. In particular, we assessed residents’ preferences for improvements of the current state of local ecosystem services such as scenic beauty, biodiversity and archaeological sites. Residents showed preferences for improvements in Ritoque coastal dunes’ ecosystem services, and a high willingness to pay for protecting biodiversity and archeological sites, rather than for recreational infrastructure. Our study highlights the importance of place-based research that specifically addresses residents and stakeholders’ conservation priorities, which could be used to design and implement effective conservation management strategies for coastal ecosystems and coastal cities near them.     

Biodiversity loss and the taxonomic bottleneck: emerging biodiversity science

Human domination of the Earth has resulted in dramatic changes to global and local patterns of biodiversity. Biodiversity is critical to human sustainability because it drives the ecosystem services that provide the core of our life-support system. As we, the human species, are the primary factor leading to the decline in biodiversity, we need detailed information about the biodiversity and species composition of specific locations in order to understand how different species contribute to ecosystem services and how humans can sustainably conserve and manage biodiversity. Taxonomy and ecology, two fundamental sciences that generate the knowledge about biodiversity, are associated with a number of limitations that prevent them from providing the information needed to fully understand the relevance of biodiversity in its entirety for human sustainability: (1) biodiversity conservation strategies that tend to be overly focused on research and policy on a global scale with little impact on local biodiversity; (2) the small knowledge base of extant global biodiversity; (3) a lack of much-needed site-specific data on the species composition of communities in human-dominated landscapes, which hinders ecosystem management and biodiversity conservation; (4) biodiversity studies with a lack of taxonomic precision; (5) a lack of taxonomic expertise and trained taxonomists; (6) a taxonomic bottleneck in biodiversity inventory and assessment; and (7) neglect of taxonomic resources and a lack of taxonomic service infrastructure for biodiversity science. These limitations are directly related to contemporary trends in research, conservation strategies, environmental stewardship, environmental education, sustainable development, and local site-specific conservation. Today’s biological knowledge is built on the known global biodiversity, which represents barely 20% of what is currently extant (commonly accepted estimate of 10 million species) on planet Earth. Much remains unexplored and unknown, particularly in hotspots regions of Africa, South Eastern Asia, and South and Central America, including many developing or underdeveloped countries, where localized biodiversity is scarcely studied or described. "Backyard biodiversity", defined as local biodiversity near human habitation, refers to the natural resources and capital for ecosystem services at the grassroots level, which urgently needs to be explored, documented, and conserved as it is the backbone of sustainable economic development in these countries. Beginning with early identification and documentation of local flora and fauna, taxonomy has documented global biodiversity and natural history based on the collection of "backyard biodiversity" specimens worldwide. However, this branch of science suffered a continuous decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, and has now reached a point of potential demise. At present there are very few professional taxonomists and trained local parataxonomists worldwide, while the need for, and demands on, taxonomic services by conservation and resource management communities are rapidly increasing. Systematic collections, the material basis of biodiversity information, have been neglected and abandoned, particularly at institutions of higher learning. Considering the rapid increase in the human population and urbanization, human sustainability requires new conceptual and practical approaches to refocusing and energizing the study of the biodiversity that is the core of natural resources for sustainable development and biotic capital for sustaining our life-support system. In this paper we aim to document and extrapolate the essence of biodiversity, discuss the state and nature of taxonomic demise, the trends of recent biodiversity studies, and suggest reasonable approaches to a biodiversity science to facilitate the expansion of global biodiversity knowledge and to create useful data on backyard biodiversity worldwide towards human sustainability.     

Ecosystem service benefits of contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated region

The hope among policy-makers and scientists alike is that conservation strategies designed to protect biodiversity also provide direct benefits to people by protecting other vital ecosystem services. The few studies that have examined the delivery of ecosystem services by existing conservation efforts have concentrated on large, ‘wilderness’-style biodiversity reserves. However, such reserves are not realistic options for densely populated regions. Here, we provide the first analyses that compare representation of biodiversity and three other ecosystem services across several contrasting conservation strategies in a human-dominated landscape (England). We show that small protected areas and protected landscapes (restrictive zoning) deliver high carbon storage and biodiversity, while existing incentive payment (agri-environment) schemes target areas that offer little advantage over other parts of England in terms of biodiversity, carbon storage and agricultural production. A fourth ecosystem service—recreation—is under-represented by all three strategies. Our findings are encouraging as they illustrate that restrictive zoning can play a major role in protecting natural capital assets in densely populated regions. However, trade-offs exist even among the four ecosystem services we considered, suggesting that a portfolio of conservation and sustainability investments will be needed to deliver both biodiversity and the other ecosystem services demanded by society.