Ecosystem services and value evaluation have become research focus of ecology, ecological economics, environmental economics and other frontier fields; moreover, it is a national economic accounting and an important basis for market operations. At present, studies of ecosystem services falls far from what the nation needs. This paper summarizes progress of Chinese ecosystem services and valuati...

Assessments of adaptation options generally focus on incremental, homogeneous ecosystem responses to climate even though climate change impacts can be big, fast, and patchy across a region. Regional drought-induced tree die-off in semiarid woodlands highlights how an ecosystem crash fundamentally alters most ecosystem services and poses management challenges. Building on previous research showi...

Ecosystem-based management is logistically and politically challenging because ecosystems are inherently complex and management decisions affect a multitude of groups. Coastal ecosystems, which lie at the interface between marine and terrestrial ecosystems and provide an array of ecosystem services to different groups, aptly illustrate these challenges. Successful ecosystem-based management of ...

Environmentalists have argued that ecological degradation will lead to declines in the well-being of people dependent on ecosystem services. The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment paradoxically found that human well-being has increased despite large global declines in most ecosystem services. We assess four explanations of these divergent trends: (1) We have measured well-being incorrectly; (2) we...

The concept of nature as capital is gaining visibility in policies and practices in both the public and private sectors. This change is due to an improved ability to assess and value ecosystem services, as well as to a growing recognition of the potential of an ecosystem services approach to make tradeoffs in decision making more transparent, inform efficient use of resources, enhance resilienc...

Ecosystem services are the benefits that mankind obtains from natural ecosystems. Here we identify the key services provided by the Southern Ocean. These include provisioning of fishery products, nutrient cycling, climate regulation and the maintenance of biodiversity, with associated cultural and aesthetic benefits. Potential catch limits for Antarctic krill (Euphausia superba Dana) alone are ...

This Distributed Graduate Seminar (DGS) aims to synthesize current ecological information on the role that biodiversity in agricultural landscapes (agrobiodiversity) plays in providing ecosystem services. In recent years numerous studies aimed at examining the importance of agroecosystems to the conservation of biodiversity have been published. These studies focus on identifying the types of ag...

Agricultural ecosystems provide humans with food, forage, bioenergy and pharmaceuticals and are essential to human wellbeing. These systems rely on ecosystem services provided by natural ecosystems, including pollination, biological pest control, maintenance of soil structure and fertility, nutrient cycling and hydrological services. Preliminary assessments indicate that the value of these ecos...

There is an increasing emphasis on the restoration of ecosystem services as well as of biodiversity, especially where restoration projects are planned at a landscape scale. This increase in the diversity of restoration aims has a number of conceptual and practical implications for the way that restoration projects are monitored and evaluated. Landscape-scale projects require monitoring of not o...

Ecosystem services are defined as the outputs of ecological processes that contribute to human welfare or have the potential to do so in the future. Those outputs include food and drinking water, clean air and water, and pollinated crops. The need to protect the services provided by natural systems has been recognized previously, but ecosystem services have not been formally incorporated into e...