Understanding relationships among ecosystem services across spatial scales and over time

In this study, we explore the long-term trends of floodplain population dynamics at different spatial scales in the contiguous United States (U.S.). We exploit different types of datasets from 1790–2010—i.e., decadal spatial distribution for the population density in the US, global floodplains dataset, large-scale data of flood occurrence and damage, and structural and nonstructural flood protection measures for the US. At the national level, we found that the population initially settled down within the floodplains and then spread across its territory over time. At the state level, we observed that flood damages and national protection measures might have contributed to a learning effect, which in turn, shaped the floodplain population dynamics over time. Finally, at the county level, other socio-economic factors such as local flood insurances, economic activities, and socio-political context may predominantly influence the dynamics. Our study shows that different influencing factors affect floodplain population dynamics at different spatial scales. These facts are crucial for a reliable development and implementation of flood risk management planning.

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Multi-level social-ecological networks in a payments for ecosystem services programme in central Veracruz, Mexico

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s0376892920000478 ◽

2020 ◽

pp. 1-7

Author(s):

Alfonso Langle-Flores ◽

Adriana Aguilar Rodríguez ◽

Humberto Romero-Uribe ◽

Julia Ros-Cuéllar ◽

Juan José Von Thaden

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Payments For Ecosystem Services ◽

Collaboration Network ◽

Governmental Organizations ◽

Social Ecological ◽

Non Governmental Organizations ◽

Conservation Activity ◽

Ecological Importance ◽

Hydrological Services

Summary Payments for ecosystem services (PES) programmes have been considered an important conservation mechanism to avoid deforestation. These environmental policies act in social and ecological contexts at different spatial scales. We evaluated the social-ecological fit between stakeholders and ecosystem processes in a local PES programme across three levels: social, ecological and social-ecological. We explored collaboration among stakeholders, assessed connectivity between forest units and evaluated conservation activity links between stakeholders and forest units. In addition, to increase programme effectiveness, we classified forest units based on their social and ecological importance. Our main findings suggest that non-governmental organizations occupy brokerage positions between landowners and government in a dense collaboration network. We also found a partial spatial misfit between conservation activity links and the forest units that provide the most hydrological services to Xalapa. We conclude that conservation efforts should be directed towards the middle and high part of the Pixquiac sub-watershed and that the role of non-governmental organizations as mediators should be strengthened to increase the efficiency and effectiveness of the local PES programme.

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Protected Areas: offering security to whom, when and where?

Environmental Conservation ◽

10.1017/s0376892915000375 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 43 (2) ◽

pp. 172-180 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

ALICE B. KELLY ◽

A. CLARE GUPTA

Keyword(s):

Protected Areas ◽

Environmental Conditions ◽

Protected Area ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Local Population ◽

Well Being ◽

Economic Context ◽

Term Management ◽

Over Time

SUMMARYThis study considers the issue of security in the context of protected areas in Cameroon and Botswana. Though the literature on issues of security and well-being in relation to protected areas is extensive, there has been less discussion of how and in what ways these impacts and relationships can change over time, vary with space and differ across spatial scales. Looking at two very different historical trajectories, this study considers the heterogeneity of the security landscapes created by Waza and Chobe protected areas over time and space. This study finds that conservation measures that various subsets of the local population once considered to be ‘bad’ (e.g. violent, exclusionary protected area creation) may be construed as ‘good’ at different historical moments and geographical areas. Similarly, complacency or resignation to the presence of a park can be reversed by changing environmental conditions. Changes in the ways security (material and otherwise) has fluctuated within these two protected areas has implications for the long-term management and funding strategies of newly created and already existing protected areas today. This study suggests that parks must be adaptively managed not only for changing ecological conditions, but also for shifts in a protected area's social, political and economic context.

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Climate and plant community diversity in space and time

Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences ◽

10.1073/pnas.1921724117 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 117 (9) ◽

pp. 4464-4470 ◽

Cited By ~ 8

Author(s):

Susan Harrison ◽

Marko J. Spasojevic ◽

Daijiang Li

Keyword(s):

Plant Community ◽

Plant Diversity ◽

Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Community Diversity ◽

Niche Conservatism ◽

Space And Time ◽

Drying Trend ◽

Functional And Phylogenetic Diversity ◽

Over Time

Climate strongly shapes plant diversity over large spatial scales, with relatively warm and wet (benign, productive) regions supporting greater numbers of species. Unresolved aspects of this relationship include what causes it, whether it permeates to community diversity at smaller spatial scales, whether it is accompanied by patterns in functional and phylogenetic diversity as some hypotheses predict, and whether it is paralleled by climate-driven changes in diversity over time. Here, studies of Californian plants are reviewed and new analyses are conducted to synthesize climate–diversity relationships in space and time. Across spatial scales and organizational levels, plant diversity is maximized in more productive (wetter) climates, and these consistent spatial relationships are mirrored in losses of taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity over time during a recent climatic drying trend. These results support the tolerance and climatic niche conservatism hypotheses for climate–diversity relationships, and suggest there is some predictability to future changes in diversity in water-limited climates.

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More is more? Forest management allocation at different spatial scales to mitigate conflicts between ecosystem services

Landscape Ecology ◽

10.1007/s10980-017-0572-1 ◽

2017 ◽

Vol 32 (12) ◽

pp. 2337-2349 ◽

Cited By ~ 7

Author(s):

Tähti Pohjanmies ◽

Kyle Eyvindson ◽

María Triviño ◽

Mikko Mönkkönen

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Forest Management ◽

Spatial Scales

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Landscape Heterogeneity and Dynamics

Essentials of Landscape Ecology ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198838388.003.0003 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 42-126

Author(s):

Kimberly A. With

Keyword(s):

Landscape Ecology ◽

Spatial Heterogeneity ◽

Landscape Structure ◽

Landscape Heterogeneity ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Anthropogenic Disturbances ◽

Ecological Processes ◽

Disturbance Dynamics ◽

Wide Range ◽

Over Time

Heterogeneity is a defining characteristic of landscapes and therefore central to the study of landscape ecology. Landscape ecology investigates what factors give rise to heterogeneity, how that heterogeneity is maintained or altered by natural and anthropogenic disturbances, and how heterogeneity ultimately influences ecological processes and flows across the landscape. Because heterogeneity is expressed across a wide range of spatial scales, the landscape perspective can be applied to address these sorts of questions at any level of ecological organization, and in aquatic and marine systems as well as terrestrial ones. Disturbances—both natural and anthropogenic—are a ubiquitous feature of any landscape, contributing to its structure and dynamics. Although the focus in landscape ecology is typically on spatial heterogeneity, disturbance dynamics produce changes in landscape structure over time as well as in space. Heterogeneity and disturbance dynamics are thus inextricably linked and are therefore covered together in this chapter.

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Scaling Issues in Landscape Ecology

Essentials of Landscape Ecology ◽

10.1093/oso/9780198838388.003.0002 ◽

2019 ◽

pp. 14-41

Author(s):

Kimberly A. With

Keyword(s):

Landscape Ecology ◽

Spatial Patterns ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Ecological Data ◽

Ecological Forecasting ◽

Spatial And Temporal Scales ◽

Time Periods ◽

Patterns And Processes ◽

Short Time ◽

Over Time

Spatial patterns are ubiquitous in nature, and ecological systems exhibit patchiness (heterogeneity) across a range of spatial and temporal scales. Landscape ecology is explicitly concerned with understanding how scale affects the measurement of heterogeneity and the scale(s) at which spatial pattern is important for ecological phenomena. Patterns and processes measured at fine spatial scales and over short time periods are unlikely to behave similarly at broader scales and extended time periods. An understanding of pattern-process linkages, a major research focus in landscape ecology, thus requires an understanding of how patterns change with scale, spatially and temporally. The development of methods for extrapolating information across scales is necessary for predicting how landscapes will change over time as well as for ecological forecasting. This chapter explores how scaling issues affect ecological investigations, discusses problems in identifying the correct scale for research, and outlines when and how ecological data can be extrapolated.

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Shifting habitat mosaics and fish production across river basins

Science ◽

10.1126/science.aav4313 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 364 (6442) ◽

pp. 783-786 ◽

Cited By ~ 21

Author(s):

Sean R. Brennan ◽

Daniel E. Schindler ◽

Timothy J. Cline ◽

Timothy E. Walsworth ◽

Greg Buck ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Pacific Salmon ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

River Basins ◽

River Network ◽

Strontium Isotope ◽

Climate Forcing ◽

Fish Production ◽

Habitat Mosaics ◽

Relative Productivity

Watersheds are complex mosaics of habitats whose conditions vary across space and time as landscape features filter overriding climate forcing, yet the extent to which the reliability of ecosystem services depends on these dynamics remains unknown. We quantified how shifting habitat mosaics are expressed across a range of spatial scales within a large, free-flowing river, and how they stabilize the production of Pacific salmon that support valuable fisheries. The strontium isotope records of ear stones (otoliths) show that the relative productivity of locations across the river network, as both natal- and juvenile-rearing habitat, varies widely among years and that this variability is expressed across a broad range of spatial scales, ultimately stabilizing the interannual production of fish at the scale of the entire basin.

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Shedding light on relationships between plant diversity and tropical forest ecosystem services across spatial scales and plot sizes

Ecosystem Services ◽

10.1016/j.ecoser.2020.101107 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 43 ◽

pp. 101107 ◽

Cited By ~ 3

Author(s):

Gijs Steur ◽

René W. Verburg ◽

Martin J. Wassen ◽

Pita A. Verweij

Keyword(s):

Ecosystem Services ◽

Tropical Forest ◽

Plant Diversity ◽

Forest Ecosystem ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Forest Ecosystem Services ◽

Tropical Forest Ecosystem

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Maximising the Edges of Natural and Human Systems: The Case for Sociotones

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su11247203 ◽

2019 ◽

Vol 11 (24) ◽

pp. 7203

Author(s):

May East

Keyword(s):

Spatial Scales ◽

Social Systems ◽

Ecological Systems ◽

Ecological Niches ◽

Early 20Th Century ◽

Biological Communities ◽

Applied Ecology ◽

Multiple Spatial Scales ◽

Economic Transformations ◽

Over Time

In many fields of fundamental and applied ecology, the transition or edge between two distinct biological communities is known as ‘ecotone’. The ecotone concept was first introduced in the early 20th century, describing the edge between two ecological systems which disappear in a transition zone but in opposite directions. This paper examines the evolution of the concept and its different applications over time. It explores the characteristics of ecotones as biodiverse enriched ecological niches occurring at multiple spatial scales. The paper goes further by proposing the concept of sociotone or social systems in tension, first by postulating a series of principles through which many possible interpretations may arise and secondly, by describing the societal interface where diverse worldviews, intentions and experiences meet. The concept is tested against a territory of social tensions between newcomers and stakeholders in Sicily providing evidence of a field of dynamic socio-economic transformations and prospects. The paper concludes by positioning sociotone as a possible framework to realise the systemic potential of multicultural globalised societies.

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