The Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES): progress and next steps

Biodiversity and the services ecosystems provide have built the foundation of human civilization and provide for the welfare of people. With the increase of the human population it has become clearer than ever that the human exploitation of our natural resources leads to detrimental interactions between ecological and sociological systems. Only concerted and global actions will be able to reverse ongoing biodiversity loss. In response to these needs, the United Nations agreed the establishment of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) in 2010. Here, we report on the progress IPBES has made since its inception, and suggest how the scientific community can engage with this important science-policy interface.     

生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学–政策平台的概念框架和运作模式

生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学–政策平台(Intergovernmental Science–Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services,IPBES)于2012年4月正式成立,其目标是建立科学与政策之间的联系,加强生物多样性保护与可持续利用,确保长期人类福祉和社会可持续发展。为了促进不同学科、知识体系和利益相关方之间的协作,多学科专家小组组织制定了IPBES概念框架,并在2013年第二届全体会议上正式通过。本文介绍了IPBES概念框架的基本要素及其相互关系以及IPBES科学和政策互动的运作模式,讨论了IPBES对政府间气候变化专门委员会(Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change,IPCC)、生物多样性科学知识国际机制(International Mechanism of Scientific Expertise on Biodiversity,IMo SEB)和千年生态系统评估(Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,MA)的借鉴和发展。概念框架识别了自然与人类复杂关系中的6个基本要素:(1)自然;(2)自然对人类的福祉;(3)好的生活质量;(4)人类财产;(5)直接驱动力;(6)制度、治理和其他间接驱动力,并说明了各要素间的相互作用及其在时间和空间尺度上的对应关系。IPBES运作的概念模型展示了科学和政策通过IPBES实现互动的过程:科学和其他知识体系经过概念框架的过滤持续向平台流动,并通过IPBES职能和工作方案的实现来影响政策。IPBES将成为今后各国在生物多样性领域对话、博弈、争取利益最大化的舞台,其多学科、多尺度评估结果将在政策的支持和导向方面对国际社会产生重大影响。我国应积极主动参与IPBES的工作并发挥建设性作用,确保我国相关科研成果的应用,同时借鉴IPBES的思路,改进我国生物多样性保护。     

Restoration of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services on Agricultural Land

Cultivation and cropping are major causes of destruction and degradation of natural ecosystems throughout the world. We face the challenge of maintaining provisioning services while conserving or enhancing other ecosystem services and biodiversity in agricultural landscapes. There is a range of possibilities within two types of intervention, namely “land sharing” and “land separation”; the former advocates the enhancement of the farmed environment, but the latter a separation between land designated for farming versus conservation. Land sharing may involve biodiversity-based agricultural practices, learning from traditional farming, changing from conventional to organic agriculture and from “simple” crops and pastures to agro-forestry systems, and restoring or creating specific elements to benefit wildlife and particular services without decreasing agricultural production. Land separation in the farmland context involves restoring or creating non-farmland habitat at the expense of field-level agricultural production—for example, woodland on arable land. Restoration by land sharing has the potential to enhance agricultural production, other ecosystem services and biodiversity at both the field and landscape scale; however, restoration by land separation would provide these benefits only at the landscape scale. Although recent debate has contrasted these approaches, we suggest they should be used in combination to maximize benefits. Furthermore, we suggest “woodland islets”, an intermediate approach between land abandonment and farmland afforestation, for ecological restoration in extensive agricultural landscapes. This approach allows reconciliation of farmland production, conservation of values linked to cultural landscapes, enhancement of biodiversity, and provision of a range of ecosystem services. Beyond academic research, restoration projects within agricultural landscapes are essential if we want to halt environmental degradation and biodiversity loss.     

Social Perceptions of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Ecuadorian Amazon

The Amazon basin is widely recognized for its high biological and cultural diversity, enabling the provision of many ecosystem services. This study explores social perceptions of some of the features of biodiversity and ecosystem services in a tropical forest in Sangay Parish, Ecuador. Following a survey of residents, we identified three groups whose perceptions vary in relation to socioeconomic characteristics, cultural backgrounds, lifestyles, and the benefits obtained from the Sangay forest. Mestizo professionals, with a better socioeconomic situation, identify more regulation and cultural services; Shuar farmers have a comprehensive knowledge of biodiversity features and rely on provisioning services; and Shuar gatherers consume more forest products but are the least likely to formally recognize ecosystem services. We emphasize the importance of identifying social groups within a population and understanding their particular characteristics and perspectives before developing conservation and land use planning policies.     

Ecosystem Services and Biodiversity in a Rapidly Transforming Landscape in Northern Borneo

Because industrial agriculture keeps expanding in Southeast Asia at the expense of natural forests and traditional swidden systems, comparing biodiversity and ecosystem services in the traditional forest–swidden agriculture system vs. monocultures is needed to guide decision making on land-use planning. Focusing on tree diversity, soil erosion control, and climate change mitigation through carbon storage, we surveyed vegetation and monitored soil loss in various land-use areas in a northern Bornean agricultural landscape shaped by swidden agriculture, rubber tapping, and logging, where various levels and types of disturbance have created a fine mosaic of vegetation from food crop fields to natural forest. Tree species diversity and ecosystem service production were highest in natural forests. Logged-over forests produced services similar to those of natural forests. Land uses related to the swidden agriculture system largely outperformed oil palm or rubber monocultures in terms of tree species diversity and service production. Natural and logged-over forests should be maintained or managed as integral parts of the swidden system, and landscape multifunctionality should be sustained. Because natural forests host a unique diversity of trees and produce high levels of ecosystem services, targeting carbon stock protection, e.g. through financial mechanisms such as Reducing Emissions from Deforestation and Forest Degradation (REDD+), will synergistically provide benefits for biodiversity and a wide range of other services. However, the way such mechanisms could benefit communities must be carefully evaluated to counter the high opportunity cost of conversion to monocultures that might generate greater income, but would be detrimental to the production of multiple ecosystem services.     

Ecosystem Services and Opportunity Costs Shift Spatial Priorities for Conserving Forest Biodiversity

Inclusion of spatially explicit information on ecosystem services in conservation planning is a fairly new practice. This study analyses how the incorporation of ecosystem services as conservation features can affect conservation of forest biodiversity and how different opportunity cost constraints can change spatial priorities for conservation. We created spatially explicit cost-effective conservation scenarios for 59 forest biodiversity features and five ecosystem services in the county of Telemark (Norway) with the help of the heuristic optimisation planning software, Marxan with Zones. We combined a mix of conservation instruments where forestry is either completely (non-use zone) or partially restricted (partial use zone). Opportunity costs were measured in terms of foregone timber harvest, an important provisioning service in Telemark. Including a number of ecosystem services shifted priority conservation sites compared to a case where only biodiversity was considered, and increased the area of both the partial (+36.2%) and the non-use zone (+3.2%). Furthermore, opportunity costs increased (+6.6%), which suggests that ecosystem services may not be a side-benefit of biodiversity conservation in this area. Opportunity cost levels were systematically changed to analyse their effect on spatial conservation priorities. Conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem services trades off against timber harvest. Currently designated nature reserves and landscape protection areas achieve a very low proportion (9.1%) of the conservation targets we set in our scenario, which illustrates the high importance given to timber production at present. A trade-off curve indicated that large marginal increases in conservation target achievement are possible when the budget for conservation is increased. Forty percent of the maximum hypothetical opportunity costs would yield an average conservation target achievement of 79%.     

生物多样性与生态系统功能关系研究进展

生物多样性和生态系统功能关系的研究,是生态学和环境学的一个中心论题。围绕这一主题,首先介绍了生物多样性及生态系统功能的含义;其次,一方面历史地回顾了生物多样性与生态系统功能关系的研究,另一方面结合近20年间的研究及实验,分别从多样性与生产力、多样性与稳定性、多样性与生态系统可持续性3个方面系统地阐述了二者关系研究的主要论点;最后,对其今后面临的挑战及发展趋势进行了展望。     

Reinforcing the Ecosystem Services Perspective: The Temporal Component

Founded upon sustainability science, the ecosystem services concept is increasingly defined by an economic valuation approach to natural capital. This latter-day addition risks subsuming the central message of the ecosystem services concept: that humanity is reliant upon the natural world. Three arenas of inappropriate application of the economic valuation approach to ecosystem services are detailed, these are defined as ecological, social-natural, and socioeconomic problems. Each problematic arena suggests the primary shortcoming of the economic valuation approach: it lacks an incorporation of the temporal component. More clearly incorporating the natural conditions and processes which compose and maintain human benefits into the ecosystem services concept will more fully reflect contemporary economics and sustainability science. The framework of Social-ecological Systems (SES) theory provides a broad foundation for the economic valuation of ecosystem services. Emphasizing the importance of human and environmental change, SES theory encapsulates a needed awareness of the dynamic interactions which compose ecosystem services.     

The Role of Golf Courses in Biodiversity Conservation and Ecosystem Management

We assessed the ecological value of golf courses based on a quantitative synthesis of studies in the scientific literature that have measured and compared biota on golf courses to that of biota in green-area habitats related to other land uses. We found that golf courses had higher ecological value in 64% of comparative cases. This pattern was consistent also for comparisons based on measures of species richness, as well as for comparisons of overall measures of birds and insects—the fauna groups most widely examined in the studies. Many golf courses also contribute to the preservation of fauna of conservation concern. More broadly, we found that the ecological value of golf courses significantly decreases with land types having low levels of anthropogenic impact, like natural and nature-protected areas. Conversely, the value of golf courses significantly increases with land that has high levels of anthropogenic impact, like agricultural and urban lands. From an ecosystem management perspective, golf courses represent a promising measure for restoring and enhancing biodiversity in ecologically simplified landscapes. Furthermore, the review suggests that golf courses hold a real potential to be designed and managed to promote critical ecosystem services, like pollination and natural pest control, providing an opportunity for joint collaboration among conservation, restoration and recreational interests. Electronic supplementary material  The online version of this article (doi:) contains supplementary material, which is available to authorized users. J.C. have designed the study, performed research, the analysis of data and writing the paper, and C.F. has especially contributed to the latter two.     

The Prospects for Payment for Ecosystem Services (PES) in Vietnam: A Look at Three Payment Schemes

Global conservation discourses and practices increasingly rely on market-based solutions to fulfill the dual objective of forest conservation and economic development. Although varied, these interventions are premised on the assumption that natural resources are most effectively managed and preserved while benefiting livelihoods if the market-incentives of a liberalised economy are correctly in place. By examining three nationally supported payment for ecosystem service (PES) schemes in Vietnam we show how insecure land tenure, high transaction costs and high opportunity costs can undermine the long-term benefits of PES programmes for local households and, hence, potentially threaten their livelihood viability. In many cases, the income from PES programmes does not reach the poor because of political and economic constraints. Local elite capture of PES benefits through the monopolization of access to forestland and existing state forestry management are identified as key problems. We argue that as PES schemes create a market for ecosystem services, such markets must be understood not simply as bald economic exchanges between ‘rational actors’ but rather as exchanges embedded in particular socio-political and historical contexts to support the sustainable use of forest resources and local livelihoods in Vietnam.     

Consistent Effects of Biodiversity on Ecosystem Functioning Under Varying Density and Evenness

Biodiversity experiments typically vary only species richness and composition, yet the generality of their results relies on consistent effects of these factors even under varying starting conditions of density and evenness. We tested this assumption in a factorial species richness x density x evenness experiment using a pool of 60 common grassland species divided into four functional groups (grasses, legumes, tall herbs and short herbs). Richness varied from 1, 2, 4, 8 to 16 species, total planting density was 1,000 or 2,000 seeds/m², and species were sown in even or uneven proportions, where one functional group was made dominant. Aboveground plant biomass increased linearly with the logarithm of species richness in all density and evenness treatments during all three years of the experiment. This was due to a convergence of realized density and evenness within species richness levels, although functional groups which were initially made dominant retained their dominance. Between species richness levels, realized density increased, and realized evenness decreased with species richness. Thus, more individuals could coexist if they belonged to different species. Within species richness levels, higher biomass values were correlated with lower density, suggesting an underlying thinning process. However, communities with low realized evenness also had low biomass values; thus high biomass did not result from species dominance. So-called complementarity and selection effects were similar across density and evenness treatments, indicating that the mechanisms underpinning the biodiversity effects were not altered. Species richness was the dominant driver of aboveground biomass, irrespective of variations in total densities and species abundance distributions at the start of the experiment; rejecting the hypothesis that initial differences in species abundance distributions might lead to different “stable states” in community structure or biomass. Thus, results from previous biodiversity experiments that only manipulated species richness and composition should be quite robust and broadly generalizable.     

The EBM-DPSER Conceptual Model: Integrating Ecosystem Services into the DPSIR Framework

There is a pressing need to integrate biophysical and human dimensions science to better inform holistic ecosystem management supporting the transition from single species or single-sector management to multi-sector ecosystem-based management. Ecosystem-based management should focus upon ecosystem services, since they reflect societal goals, values, desires, and benefits. The inclusion of ecosystem services into holistic management strategies improves management by better capturing the diversity of positive and negative human-natural interactions and making explicit the benefits to society. To facilitate this inclusion, we propose a conceptual model that merges the broadly applied Driver, Pressure, State, Impact, and Response (DPSIR) conceptual model with ecosystem services yielding a Driver, Pressure, State, Ecosystem service, and Response (EBM-DPSER) conceptual model. The impact module in traditional DPSIR models focuses attention upon negative anthropomorphic impacts on the ecosystem; by replacing impacts with ecosystem services the EBM-DPSER model incorporates not only negative, but also positive changes in the ecosystem. Responses occur as a result of changes in ecosystem services and include inter alia management actions directed at proactively altering human population or individual behavior and infrastructure to meet societal goals. The EBM-DPSER conceptual model was applied to the Florida Keys and Dry Tortugas marine ecosystem as a case study to illustrate how it can inform management decisions. This case study captures our system-level understanding and results in a more holistic representation of ecosystem and human society interactions, thus improving our ability to identify trade-offs. The EBM-DPSER model should be a useful operational tool for implementing EBM, in that it fully integrates our knowledge of all ecosystem components while focusing management attention upon those aspects of the ecosystem most important to human society and does so within a framework already familiar to resource managers.     

Biodiversity and Ecosystem Multi-Functionality: Observed Relationships in Smallholder Fallows in Western Kenya

Recent studies indicate that species richness can enhance the ability of plant assemblages to support multiple ecosystem functions. To understand how and when ecosystem services depend on biodiversity, it is valuable to expand beyond experimental grasslands. We examined whether plant diversity improves the capacity of agroecosystems to sustain multiple ecosystem services—production of wood and forage, and two elements of soil formation—in two types of smallholder fallows in western Kenya. In 18 grazed and 21 improved fallows, we estimated biomass and quantified soil organic carbon, soil base cations, sand content, and soil infiltration capacity. For four ecosystem functions (wood biomass, forage biomass, soil base cations, steady infiltration rates) linked to the focal ecosystem services, we quantified ecosystem service multi-functionality as (1) the proportion of functions above half-maximum, and (2) mean percentage excess above mean function values, and assessed whether plant diversity or environmental favorability better predicted multi-functionality. In grazed fallows, positive effects of plant diversity best explained the proportion above half-maximum and mean percentage excess, the former also declining with grazing intensity. In improved fallows, the proportion above half-maximum was not associated with soil carbon or plant diversity, while soil carbon predicted mean percentage excess better than diversity. Grazed fallows yielded stronger evidence for diversity effects on multi-functionality, while environmental conditions appeared more influential in improved fallows. The contrast in diversity-multi-functionality relationships among fallow types appears related to differences in management and associated factors including disturbance and species composition. Complementary effects of species with contrasting functional traits on different functions and multi-functional species may have contributed to diversity effects in grazed fallows. Biodiversity and environmental favorability may enhance the capacity of smallholder fallows to simultaneously provide multiple ecosystem services, yet their effects are likely to vary with fallow management.     

Long-Term Impacts of Forest Ditching on Non-Aquatic Biodiversity: Conservation Perspectives for a Novel Ecosystem

Artificial drainage (ditching) is widely used to increase timber yield in northern forests. When the drainage systems are maintained, their environmental impacts are likely to accumulate over time and along accompanying management, notably after logging when new forest develops on decayed peat. Our study provides the first comprehensive documentation of long-term ditching impacts on terrestrial and arboreal biodiversity by comparing natural alder swamps and second-generation drained forests that have evolved from such swamps in Estonia. We explored species composition of four potentially drainage-sensitive taxonomic groups (vascular plants, bryophytes, lichens, and snails), abundance of species of conservation concern, and their relationships with stand structure in two-ha plots representing four management types (ranging from old growth to clearcut). We found that drainage affected plot-scale species richness only weakly but it profoundly changed assemblage composition. Bryophytes and lichens were the taxonomic groups that were most sensitive both to drainage and timber-harvesting; in closed stands they responded to changed microhabitat structure, notably impoverished tree diversity and dead-wood supply. As a result, natural old-growth plots were the most species-rich and hosted several specific species of conservation concern. Because the most influential structural changes are slow, drainage impacts may be long hidden. The results also indicated that even very old drained stands do not provide quality habitats for old-growth species of drier forest types. However, drained forests hosted many threatened species that were less site type specific, including early-successional vascular plants and snails on clearcuts and retention cuts, and bryophytes and lichens of successional and old forests. We conclude that three types of specific science-based management tools are needed to mitigate ditching effects on forest biodiversity: (i) silvicultural techniques to maintain stand structural complexity; (ii) context-dependent spatial analysis and planning of drained landscapes; and (iii) lists of focal species to monitor and guide ditching practices.     

Biodiversity and systematics of skates (Chondrichthyes: Rajiformes: Rajoidei)

Skates (Rajiformes: Rajoidei) are a highly diverse fish group, comprising more valid species than any other group of cartilaginous fishes. The high degree of endemism exhibited by the skates is somewhat enigmatic given their relatively conserved body morphology and apparent restrictive habitat, e.g. soft bottom substrates. Skates are primarily marine benthic dwellers found from the intertidal down to depths in excess of 3,000 m. They are most diverse at higher latitudes and in deepwater, but are replaced in shallower, warm temperate to tropical waters by stingrays (Myliobatodei). The number of valid skate species has increased exponentially, with more species having been described since 1950 (n = 126) than had been described in the previous 200 years (n = 119). Much of the renaissance in skate systematics has largely been through the efforts of a few individuals who through author–coauthor collaboration have accounted for 78 of the 131 species described since 1948 and for nine of 13 genera named since 1950. Furthermore, detailed regional surveys and accounts of skate biodiversity have also contributed to a better understanding of the diversity of the skates. A checklist of the living valid skate species is presented.     

“国际生物多样性观察年（IBOY）”核心项目——内容介绍及建议

生物多样性观察年（IBOY）的核心项目包括4个大的主题：1）全球生物多样性现状;2）生物多样性的变化方式;3）生物多样性对人类生活的价值;4）人类如何保护生物多样性。本文对这些主题内的不同课题进行了介绍,同时对我国生物多样性科学的发展提出了相应的建议。