Search results for "ecosystem service"
showing 10 items of 209 documents
Reviewing the role of ecosystems services in the sustainability of the urban environment: A multi-country analysis
2020
The urban environment is characterised by many pressures caused by population growth, transport (and its related emissions), and the damage to green areas. Yet, there is a variety of ecosystem services available in urban areas, which may be deployed to ameliorate the current problems and foster their sustainability. This paper reviews the role of ecosystem services as tools for sustainability, based on an urban setting. It also describes a series of multi-country case studies, where an assessment of their functions using a set of benefits valuation approaches such as health benefits, economic benefits, social benefits and benefits to climate resilience, are provided, along with an appraisal…
Soil genetic erosion: New conceptual developments in soil security
2019
In the last decades, in some Mediterranean areas, pedodiversity decreased mainly due to pedotechnique application in large-scale farming that transformed original soils into Anthrosols. Supporting the consideration that soils can be considered as living systems, the original concept of 'soil genetic erosion' is re-proposed. Data, extrapolated and modeled from a Soil Information System in a study case representative of a Mediterranean landscape, predicted that most of the soil types would disappear in few years leading to a decrease of the soil diversity and originating soil genetic erosion. This circumstance is intentionally here told in form of a story where the fairy tale characters are s…
High microbial diversity promotes soil ecosystem functioning
2018
ABSTRACT In soil, the link between microbial diversity and carbon transformations is challenged by the concept of functional redundancy. Here, we hypothesized that functional redundancy may decrease with increasing carbon source recalcitrance and that coupling of diversity with C cycling may change accordingly. We manipulated microbial diversity to examine how diversity decrease affects the decomposition of easily degradable (i.e., allochthonous plant residues) versus recalcitrant (i.e., autochthonous organic matter) C sources. We found that a decrease in microbial diversity (i) affected the decomposition of both autochthonous and allochthonous carbon sources, thereby reducing global CO 2 e…
Large Blooms of Bacillales (Firmicutes) Underlie the Response to Wetting of Cyanobacterial Biocrusts at Various Stages of Maturity.
2018
ABSTRACT Biological soil crusts (biocrusts) account for a substantial portion of primary production in dryland ecosystems. They successionally mature to deliver a suite of ecosystem services, such as carbon sequestration, water retention and nutrient cycling, and climate regulation. Biocrust assemblages are extremely well adapted to survive desiccation and to rapidly take advantage of the periodic precipitation events typical of arid ecosystems. Here we focus on the wetting response of incipient cyanobacterial crusts as they mature from “light” to “dark.” We sampled a cyanobacterial biocrust chronosequence before (dry) and temporally following a controlled wetting event and used high-throug…
Impacts and adaptation options of climate change on ecosystem services in Finland: a model based study
2013
At a global level, it is estimated that nearly two-thirds of ecosystem services have been degraded in just fifty years. The additional stresses imposed by climate change will require extraordinary adaptation. This paper synthesises main result of a large Finnish project studying the vulnerability of key ecosystem services to climate change and the possibilities for the individual sectors to adapt to these changes. The project based its work on data and infrastructures of nine intensively studied areas belonging to the Finnish LTER (Long-Term Ecological Research) network. The methods developed and used included remote sensing, derivation of impact scenarios, dynamic modelling, laboratory exp…
Nutrient Additions Affecting Matter Turnover in Forest and Pasture Ecosystems
2013
Nutrient inputs into ecosystems of the tropical mountain rainforest region are projected to further increase in the next decades. To investigate whether important ecosystem services such as nutrient cycling and matter turnover in native forests and pasture ecosystems show different patterns of response, two nutrient addition experiments have been established: NUMEX in the forest and FERPAST at the pasture. Both ecosystems already responded 1.5 years after the start of nutrient application (N, P, NP, Ca). Interestingly, most nutrients remained in the respective systems. While the pasture grass was co-limited by N and P, most tree species responded to P addition. Soil microbial biomass in the…
Combined effect of crop rotation and carabid beetles on weed dynamics in arable fields
2020
AbstractWeed management is a resource-intensive practice in arable agriculture, with direct and long-term impacts on both productivity and biodiversity (e.g. plant, pollinators and farmland wildlife). In conventional systems, weed control relies on crop management and herbicide inputs, but for more sustainable production systems, use of herbicides needs to be reduced. This requires a good understanding of the processes that regulate arable weed dynamics in arable fields.We adopted a systems framework to understand and model interacting components that drive the weed dynamics in 168 arable fields. Within this framework, we built a structural equation model (SEM) to quantify the direct and in…
Pedotechnique applications in large-scale farming: Economic value, soil ecosystems services and soil security
2019
Abstract Since ancient times Humans and Soil have experienced interwoven links. Nowadays soil scientists continue to stress such links highlighting the importance of soil in: i) satisfying the ever growing Human demand for food, water and energy, and ii) providing ecosystem services that mitigate climate changes, influence human health and improve biodiversity. Pedotechniques are recently used to generate soils suitable for table grape cultivation in order to increase productivity and grape quality, thus to get substantial financial returns. We show one emblematic study case of pedotechniques applied in Sicily (Italy). Aims of the investigation were: i) stressing threats to soil security de…
Stepping on invisible land: on the importance of communicating the value of soils.
2022
Soils play fundamental roles in the functioning of the Earth's ecosystems. Despite numerous initiatives to protect soils, it continues to be generally perceived as dirt or, at best, the surface we walk on. To better understand soil perception by the public, we conducted a survey with 99 participants from Poland and Brazil. We applied opportunity sampling and conducted semi-structured interviews with 40 respondents from Poland and 30 from Brazil, and 29 unstructured interviews in Brazil. Most of the respondents (53%) of the semi-structured interviews associated soil with the surface where plants grow, while 27% said that it is the ground we step on. When asked about pro-environmental campaig…
Environmentally-conditioned human rights: a good idea?
2021
The emergence of the rights of nature is a clear response to the current environmental crisis. But such trend is not to walk alone: it is to be espoused to the many still remaining human rights issues, otherwise the power and credibility of both are at danger. This chapter focuses on one of the many possible points of encounter between the rights of nature and human rights. It explores how they may be combined within biocultural rights—the basket of rights of indigenous peoples and local communities necessary to maintain their role as ecosystem stewards—and tries to understand what the consequences of combining nature and human interests as their foundations may be. In particula…