Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in Multifunctional Landscapes

FunKeyTraits

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Developing indicators of resilience for ecosystem functions provided by species

NERC Tansley working group 2014/15

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There is an urgent need to provide reliable information on the resilience of ecosystem functions provided by species in order to manage our environment effectively. Current indicators of national trends in biodiversity (e.g. 1) miss critical information on which functions different species provide, which is needed to understand the societal consequences of changes to biodiversity. Other indicator approaches that adopt a more functional perspective through the mapping of ecosystem functions (e.g 2-4) do so very crudely and often ignore the species diversity which underpins such services. Importantly, current methods simply map the current stocks or flows of ecosystem services, whilst ignoring the longer term resilience* of these services under environmental perturbations (e.g. extreme climate events, land use change, invasive species). As a consequence, indicators may lead to reactive management that is too late to avert harmful loss of ecosystem services (Figure 1), and the importance of biodiversity in their provision may be undervalued.

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Figure 1. Hypothetical example of indicator values for an ecosystem function flow (e.g. pollen delivery to crops) or resilience of function (e.g. pollination resilience) as an ecosystem is degraded over time. The thresholds to initiate management action (red dotted lines) differ depending on which indicator is used (A for resilience indicator, B for the ecosystem function flow indicator). Given remedial management takes time to put in place and become effective, it is possible that unacceptable losses of ecosystem function will occur if ecosystem function flow indicators are solely relied upon. These losses may be costly and difficult to reverse.

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The FunkeyTraits Working Group is a series of four workshops aiming to develop a methodology for producing robust indicators of the resilience of ecosystem functions. In line with international guidelines5;6 indicators need be transparent, scientifically credible and practicable with regards to data requirements. The four workshops have been designed to address these requirements.

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Workshops 2 and 3

We assessed the relevance and feasibility of these resilience characteristics in specific case studies. For each resilience characteristic we considered how relevant it was for the specific functions of crop pest control (workshop 2) or pollination (workshop 3). We assessed the availability of data to quantify the resilience characteristic with a view to being able to produce indicator values repeated over time (e.g. annually) and space (e.g ideally by regions within a country). For example, suitable data may come from remote sensing of habitat cover, species distribution record collected by volunteers or laboratory and field experiments. Where data were not available currently, we assessed the feasibility of future data collection through targeted campaigns. Finally, for the most relevant and feasible resilience characteristics identified we considered potential ways to validate any resulting indicators that might be developed. Many current indicators of ecosystem services are not rigorously validated, even though they comprise proxies sometime distantly removed from the actual ecosystem services they represent. Without proper validation there is the danger that measures poorly reflect true stocks and flows or resilience of ecosystem services, leading to poor management advice.

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Participants: Bill Kunin, Claire Carvell, David Brooks, David Roy, Deborah Procter, James Bullock, Judith Pell, Koos Beismeijer, Matt Heard, Michael Garratt, Nick Isaac, Rory O'Connor, Ros Shaw, Simon Leather, Simon Potts, Simon Smart, Tom Oliver

 

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In final workshop, we began to develop a road map for the development of resilience indicators. We critically reviewed methodology and results developed in the first three workshops for identifying transparent, scientifically credible and practicable indicators of resilience.

 

Participants: Chris Quine (Forestry Commission), Ruth Waters (Natural England), Karsten Schonrogge (CEH) , Sarah Ivory (UNEP-WCMC), Georgina Mace (UCL), Andrew Stott (Defra), Lauren Fuller (JNCC), Paul Woodock (JNCC), David Raffaelli (NERC BESS Directorate), Humprey Chrick (Natural England), Emma Goldberg (Forest Research), Matt Heard (CEH), David Roy (CEH), Nick Isaac (CEH),  Tom Oliver (CEH)

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The FunKeyTraits working group is funded through the NERC Tansley Initiative. The organising committee comprises: Tom Oliver, Matt Heard, David Roy, James Bullock (NERC Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, and Deborah Proctor (JNCC). Any enquiries to Tom Oliver

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* Resilience is defined as the ability of ecosystem function to resist or recover rapidly from environmental perturbations, thereby maintaining function above acceptable level.