0000000001330633
AUTHOR
Liis Kasari
The importance current and historical landscape structure and biodiversity on the provision of ecosystem services in cultural landscapes with high conservation values
Calcareous semi-natural alvar grasslands in Estonia have lost up to 80% of their area since the 1930s due to changes in human activities and land use. Recently, under the European Union LIFE+ Nature project "Life to alvars", this situation has improved as 1500ha of these semi-natural grasslands have been recovered. These changes over time in landscape structure have strong effects on biodiversity and ecosystem processes, resulting also on profound impacts on the provision of ecosystem services (ES) and human well-being. However, for many ecosystem characteristics, changes in the landscape do not have immediate effects but are manifested after a considerable time-lag. Not considering this di…
Effects of grassland habitat loss on selection of nature’s contributions to people
Nature's contributions to people (NCP) are nature's characteristics that are vital for human well-being. During recent years, the maintenance and safeguarding of these contributions has become the key issue in nature conservation. Variety of NCP are related to biodiversity of habitats. Biodiversity, in turn, is highly dependent on landscape composition and environmental conditions of habitats. Land use change, habitat degradation and destruction are the primary causes of biodiversity loss and also degradation of NCP's. Our study was carried out on calcareous grasslands in Estonian islands Saaremaa, Hiiumaa, Muhu and on the mainland of Western Estonia. A total of 35 study sites were sampled.…