Forest Isbell,* David Tilman, Stephen Polasky and Michel Loreau Abstract Habitat destruction is driving biodiversity loss in remaining ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning and services often directly depend on biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity loss is likely creating an ecosystem service debt: a gradual loss of biodiversity-dependent benefits that people obtain from remaining fragments of natur...

The values of ecosystem services provided by lakes and reservoirs are examined through a meta-analysis on an expanded worldwide database. The study assesses the socio-economic values attributable to the hydrological, biogeochemical and ecological functions provided by lakes and reservoirs (either natural or artificial). Based on the most extensive global database of non-market and market valuat...

Biodiversity loss has become a global concern as evidence accumulates that it will negatively affect ecosystem services on which society depends. So far, most studies have focused on the ecological consequences of above-ground biodiversity loss; yet a large part of Earth's biodiversity is literally hidden below ground. Whether reductions of biodiversity in soil communities below ground have con...

Maintaining a healthy ecosystem is essential for maximizing sustainable ecological services of the best quality to human beings. Ecological and conservation research has provided a strong scientific background on identifying ecological health indicators and correspondingly making effective conservation plans. At the same time, ecologists have asserted a strong need for spatially explicit and te...

Seagrass meadows support key ecosystem services, via provision of food directly for herbivores, and indirectly to their predators. The importance of herbivores in seagrass meadows has been well-documented, but the links between food webs and ecosystem services in seagrass meadows have not previously been made explicit. Herbivores interact with ecosystem services - including carbon sequestration...

This document outlines a strategy for integrated mercury investigations linked to restoration and adaptive management of the San Francisco Bay and Sacramento-San Joaquin Delta ecosystem (termed the Bay-Delta ecosystem and defined as the combined watershed, Delta, and Bay). Ecosystem restoration and management of the Bay-Delta ecosystem are complicated by mercury contamination from historic mini...

BACKGROUND Food web composition and resource levels can influence ecosystem properties such as productivity and elemental cycles. In particular, herbivores occupy a central place in food webs as the species richness and composition of this trophic level may simultaneously influence the transmission of resource and predator effects to higher and lower trophic levels, respectively. Yet, these int...

© The Ecological Society of America www.frontiersinecology.org B invasions complicate the conservation of biodiversity and ecosystem integrity worldwide. Invasive species can threaten biological diversity in various ways, from reducing genetic variation and eroding gene pools, through the extinction of endemic species, and by altering habitat and ecosystem functioning (Hulme 2007; Table 1). Bio...

Conservationists commonly have framed ecological concerns in economic terms to garner political support for conservation and to increase public interest in preserving global biodiversity. Beginning in the early 1980s, conservation biologists adapted neoliberal economics to reframe ecosystem functions and related biodiversity as ecosystem services to humanity. Despite the economic success of pro...

Experiments with realistic scenarios of species loss from multitrophic ecosystems may improve insight into how biodiversity affects ecosystem functioning. Using 1000 L mesocoms, we examined effects of nonrandom species loss on community structure and ecosystem functioning of experimental food webs based on multitrophic tropical floodplain lagoon ecosystems. Realistic biodiversity scenarios were...