Actually during my last research work on Banni...........I tried to include detailed aspects of economic services, the tribal n indegenious communities enjoy in their daily life in some alternative forms of livelihood............This helps in makin a more reliable n balancing economy helping in overall development of these communities.More interaction with the markets with the products they produce out of NTFPs as well as charcoal.help them to meet the ends in extreme situations of climatic conditions like erratic rainfall, rising temperatures or drought...............The services rendered by ecosystem should always be looked into detail by any ecologist to understand the very existence of certain communities under extreme environmental situtaions..........I will provide you with some links.dat will help u more to understand such aspects..............

Interesting, I'm working with fauna, especially birds, and they give a lot of services to people. They help with vegetation dynamics (pollination by example), they are visual and acustic -interesting, they indicate ecosystem health with your presence or absence. Herpetofauna is more sensitive as indicator...These are part of ecosystem services...

"Ecosystem Services" as a scientific approch is highly useful in structuring research and applied work at the human-nature interface. Most importantly, it directs attention not so much at only potential benefits that humans may or may not derive from ecologocal systems and/or thier components, states or processes but to the specific nexus, locales and instances that generate human benefits. The ecosystem service approach as become quite fundamental to environmental economics, e.g. One of my central application linked below. Best regards, jan

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/4842699_Confronting_unfamiliarity_with_ecosystem_functions_The_case_for_an_ecosystem_service_approach_to_environmental_valuation_with_stated_preference_methods.

Article Confronting unfamiliarity with ecosystem functions: The case...

Dear Jadgish, try contacting CATIE in Costa Rica. They have been conducting Clean Development-type afforestation projects (i.e. Carbon Sequestration Services). The cost structure of these projects may be of help. Best regards, jan

ECOSYSTEM SERVICES; are these the services that the ecosystem provides to humans like fuel wood, range lands, water and economic aquatic animals etc. OR the services that humans provide to the ecosystem like planting more and more trees, replanishing the cut forests etc. ?

I am working now for 8 years in getting ecosystem services valued in cost benefit analysis of infrastructure projects. We developed for Flanders, Belgium, a free accessible webtool were the state of the art functions are found to calculate a qualitative score, and were possible a quantitative and monetary valuation of the ecosystem services changed within a project. It is now also used by nature organisations to underpin the value of their actions to maintain and restore nature areas.

Waseem: the first definition is the correct one.

Dear Waseem Khan, actually we tried to answer exactly this question! So, maybe you are interested in the following paper. We would appreciate your comments!

https://www.researchgate.net/publication/230898943_What_are_PES_-A_review_of_definitions_and_an_extension.

Conference Paper What are PES? -A review of definitions and an extension

Dear Sandra, the differentiation between the classical definition of ESS and that of "countryside management" appears as a useful approach to me. However, its usefulness is proportional to how much an analyst misunderstands "ecosystem" or "biodiversity" as purely natural phenomena uninfluenced by humans. They clearly are not as you point out rightly. If you do not hold such erraneous views, however, you can stick with the classical definition without any loss of analytic power. Best regards, jan

I am interested in learning more! I studied the response of plant functional traits in two grass species under different plant nutrient availability levels (nutrient gradient). I found that fertilizer additions reduce the range of trait values for important ecological traits, such as plant height and seed number. This convergence in trait values was associated with a loss of functional diversity (the range an value of those species traits that influence ecosystem functioning). So, I am sure that functional diversity is a key concept to associate biodiversity with ecosystem functioning and ecosystem services provision. Reagrds, Pablo.

An interesting discussion so far - here in the Western U.S., we focus on quantifying the effects of ecological restoration on many different ecosystem services. In my opinion, this kind of quantitative data is often missing. Can we estimate the enhancement of ecosystem services, such as forage production, per unit invested (e.g, kilograms of forage per dollar)? We also examine soil, plant diversity, infiltration, etc.

I am working on natural microbial communities and on their role in maintaining several ecosystem serivices, such as nutrient cycling, soil and water recovery from contamination and so on.

Anna, very interesting. Could you and others share a bit more about how you actually quantify ecological effects on ecosystem services?

First at al, I'm happy about this topic discussion as a start point concerning increasing biodiversity loss and ecosystem destruction.

I would like to capture plant diversity values of forested area based on their existences as inputs for the system. As producer, plants play important role as productivity sources for the system not only as carbon sink but also source of bio-geochemical cycle sources. Only plants (and other producers) can convert solar energy into other energy form (First Thermodynamics Law) as start point provoking any further processes and functions, and leave net community productivity at the end in the system. I dont say that other levels are not important because in the system every component have its own roles as inter-correlated or integrated system.

Please check the inVEST (Integrated valuation of Ecosystem services and Tradeoffs) tool developed by the natural capital project for quantification and valuation of ecosystem services

www.naturalcapitalproject.org

What are the possible avenues of studying ecosystem services in dryland agriculture?

Since 15 years I'm working on ecosystem functions from an economic point of view. This means that the focus of the research is to assign monetary value to ecosystem functions and services in order to demonstrate that conserving the ecosystem services is repaid by benefits produced by them.

During the last years we developed an environmental accounting system which takes into account economic, social and environmental benefits and costs produced by ecosystems.

Hi, I am working in Ecosystem services (ES) in Beaches and Mangrove (and others ecosystems in small Caribbean Islands). I have made an Assessment of these ES based on Lozoya et al (2011) metodology (MRBA). I think that ES must be valuated since economical, socialogical and biofisical point of view. Money values must be a accesory data and not the end of work. I demostrate in my evaluation that many beach ES have similar importance values by the users, suggesting no identical economical value per beach ES. Here, each beach ES must be valuated and considerated, more than the popular values of aesthetic and tourism services.

Yes, I am interested in learning more, if planning is done properly, ecosystems services can be incorporated in our research. It is a hot topic now and in one way or other is related to every field and subject.

You can check the TEEB: The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity- 500+ scientists, organizations, businesses and citizens, reporting on the economic value of nature. www.teeb4me.com

Hi, I'm working on spatially analyze ecosystem services provided by coastal wetlands. We have maps that incorporates the wetland typology and the estimated values by the value transfer method. However, I would like to include in the analysis the ecological aspect. Could you give some ideas?

I'm working on the spatio-temporal aspects of ecosystem services of coastal lagoons. specifically on how habitat quality affects fish production in economic terms.

Dear All,

Ecosystem services are thoroughly described and evaluated in the article of Pimentel et al (1997):

Pimentel, D., Wilson, Ch., McCallum, Ch., Huang, R., Dwen, P., Flack, J., Tran, Q., Saltman, T. and Cliff, B. (1997): Economic and environmental benefits of biodiversity. Bioscience, 47 (11): 747-757.

As to me, I deal with the taxonomic backgrounds and the implementation of biological and integrated pest control as well as with the problem of invasive alien species. I am sure it is not enough to investigate ecosystem services but one should call the attention of other people to the dangerous situation of the biosphere. Thus, I teach ecology and biological control.

Dear All,

I am have been involved in recognition, estimation and internalization of ecosystem services from forests for more than 4 years now. After recently accomplishing a study on economic value of forest diversion for Ministry of Environment & Forests in India, we shall soon be starting another study, but this time on the economic value of conservation. As our studies are conceptualized and implemented as direct inputs to policy at National Level, I have found out that valuation does indeed make a positive impact and helps to build a case for conservation. In developing countries, it also enables to looking a trade-offs more objectively.

And yes, I am always interesting in learning MORE.

By definition ecosystem services are all benefit that produced by ecosystem, both goods and services, and very important and needed by human. So its very clear that there are linkages between ecosystem and human need. For this matter, we can assess ecosystem services using social-ecological-economic system approach and valued using total economic value as well as mentioned by Barton (1994).

I have been doing research on economic valuation of ecosystem services particularly tropical forest and mangrove ecosystems. This is one of the very important topics which provides many applications in project planning and benefit cost analysis, resource accounting, shadow pricing, compensation and payment for ecosystem services. There have been many publications on this subject which can be found in well known journals (JEEM, Resource and Environmental Economics, Land Economics, Journal of Ecosystem Services etc....). The issue on economic valuation of ecosystem services have been highlighted in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MEA) and TEEB (The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity). An approach towards undertaking this economic valuation for ES using TEEB has also been developed.