Coastal Resources Economics and Ecosystem Valuation

The papers in this special issue provide new insights into ongoing research to value coastal and marine ecosystem services, and offer meaningful information for policymakers and resource managers about the economic significance of coastal resources for planning, restoration, and damage assessment. Study areas encompass a broad geographic scope from the Gulf of Mexico in the United States, to the Caribbean, the European Union, Australia, and Southeast Asia. The focus of these papers ranges from theoretical perspectives on linkages between ecosystem services and resource management, to the actual integration of valuation information in coastal and marine resource policy decisions, and to the application of economic valuation methods to specific coastal and marine resource management problems. We hope readers will appreciate these new contributions to the growing literature on coastal and marine resource ecosystem services valuation.

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Dominance determines fish community biomass in a temperate seagrass ecosystem

10.32942/osf.io/cqjvu ◽

2019 ◽

Author(s):

Aaron Matthius Eger ◽

Rebecca J. Best ◽

Julia Kathleen Baum

Keyword(s):

Species Richness ◽

Ecosystem Function ◽

Fish Community ◽

Prey Capture ◽

Fish Communities ◽

Functional Trait ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Community Biomass ◽

Ecosystem Valuation ◽

Species Abundances

Biodiversity and ecosystem function are often correlated, but there are multiple hypotheses about the mechanisms underlying this relationship. Ecosystem functions such as primary or secondary production may be maximized by species richness, evenness in species abundances, or the presence or dominance of species with certain traits. Here, we combined surveys of natural fish communities (conducted in July and August, 2016) with morphological trait data to examine relationships between diversity and ecosystem function (quantified as fish community biomass) across 14 subtidal eelgrass meadows in the Northeast Pacific (54° N 130° W). We employed both taxonomic and functional trait measures of diversity to investigate if ecosystem function is driven by species diversity (complementarity hypothesis) or by the presence or dominance of species with particular trait values (selection or dominance hypotheses). After controlling for environmental variation, we found that fish community biomass is maximized when taxonomic richness and functional evenness is low, and in communities dominated by species with particular trait values – those associated with benthic habitats and prey capture. While previous work on fish communities has found that species richness is positively correlated with ecosystem function, our results instead highlight the capacity for regionally prevalent and locally dominant species to drive ecosystem function in moderately diverse communities. We discuss these alternate links between community composition and ecosystem function and consider their divergent implications for ecosystem valuation and conservation prioritization.

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