Dataset Information

Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties.

ABSTRACT: High landscape diversity is assumed to increase the number and level of ecosystem services. However, the interactions between ecosystem service provision, disturbance and landscape composition are poorly understood. Here we present a novel approach to include uncertainty in the optimization of land allocation for improving the provision of multiple ecosystem services. We refer to the rehabilitation of abandoned agricultural lands in Ecuador including two types of both afforestation and pasture rehabilitation, together with a succession option. Our results show that high compositional landscape diversity supports multiple ecosystem services (multifunction effect). This implicitly provides a buffer against uncertainty. Our work shows that active integration of uncertainty is only important when optimizing single or highly correlated ecosystem services and that the multifunction effect on landscape diversity is stronger than the uncertainty effect. This is an important insight to support a land-use planning based on ecosystem services.

SUBMITTER: Knoke T

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4910018 | biostudies-literature | 2016 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties.

Knoke Thomas T Paul Carola C Hildebrandt Patrick P Calvas Baltazar B Castro Luz Maria LM Härtl Fabian F Döllerer Martin M Hamer Ute U Windhorst David D Wiersma Yolanda F YF Curatola Fernández Giulia F GF Obermeier Wolfgang A WA Adams Julia J Breuer Lutz L Mosandl Reinhard R Beck Erwin E Weber Michael M Stimm Bernd B Haber Wolfgang W Fürst Christine C Bendix Jörg J

Nature communications 20160613

High landscape diversity is assumed to increase the number and level of ecosystem services. However, the interactions between ecosystem service provision, disturbance and landscape composition are poorly understood. Here we present a novel approach to include uncertainty in the optimization of land allocation for improving the provision of multiple ecosystem services. We refer to the rehabilitation of abandoned agricultural lands in Ecuador including two types of both afforestation and pasture r ...[more]

PMID: 27292766

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Project description:Agricultural expansion and intensification are major threats to global biodiversity, ecological functions, and ecosystem services. The rapid expansion of oil palm in forested tropical landscapes is of particular concern given their high biodiversity. Identifying management approaches that maintain native species and associated ecological processes within oil palm plantations is therefore a priority. Riparian reserves are strips of forest retained alongside rivers in cultivated areas, primarily for their positive hydrological impact. However, they can also support a range of forest-dependent species or ecosystem services. We surveyed communities of dung beetles and measured dung removal activity in an oil palm-dominated landscape in Sabah, Malaysian Borneo. The species richness, diversity, and functional group richness of dung beetles in riparian reserves were significantly higher than in oil palm, but lower than in adjacent logged forests. The community composition of the riparian reserves was more similar to logged forest than oil palm. Despite the pronounced differences in biodiversity, we did not find significant differences in dung removal rates among land uses. We also found no evidence that riparian reserves enhance dung removal rates within surrounding oil palm. These results contrast previous studies showing positive relationships between dung beetle species richness and dung removal in tropical forests. We found weak but significant positive relationships between riparian reserve width and dung beetle diversity, and between reserve vegetation complexity and dung beetle abundance, suggesting that these features may increase the conservation value of riparian reserves. Synthesis and applications: The similarity between riparian reserves and logged forest demonstrates that retaining riparian reserves increases biodiversity within oil palm landscapes. However, the lack of correlation between dung beetle community characteristics and dung removal highlights the need for further research into spatial variation in biodiversity-ecosystem function relationships and how the results of such studies are affected by methodological choices.

Dataset Information

Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties.

Publications

Compositional diversity of rehabilitated tropical lands supports multiple ecosystem services and buffers uncertainties.

Similar Datasets

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