Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are the benefits humans receive from ecosystems.

Ecology

• the study of how organisms interact with their environment

• helps us understand how ecosystem services result from these interactions

Multiple Choice

What is ecology?

• the study of the environment

• the study of environmental conservation

• the study of resources and species in nature

• the study of how organisms interact with their environment

Sources

• The National Wildlife Federation https://www.nwf.org/Educational-Resources/Wildlife-Guide/Understanding-Conservation/Ecosystem-Services

• USDA Forest Service https://www.fs.fed.us/ecosystemservices/About_ES/

Ecosystem Services

• living in a world with strong and healthy ecosystems. We have a stronger economy, diverse food products, and advancements in medical research as a result of wildlife and natural ecosystems.

• An ecosystem service is any positive benefit that wildlife or ecosystems provide to people.

Multiple Choice

When we talk about ecosystem services, we are talking about how nature benefits humans.

• True

• False

Multiple Choice

Which country provided a model for effective national park administration that the United States followed?

• Switzerland

• Canada

• South Africa

• Icelan

Multiple Choice

Which group of people first lived and worked in the Yosemite Valley?

• Miners and white settlers

• Native American tribes

• Ferdinand Hayden and his fellow geologists

• Park Rangers and California state authorities

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is not a part of the National Park Service’s activities today?

• Conserving the parks for future use

• Locating and extracting gold, oil, and other minerals on parklands

• Making the parks accessible to visitors

• Working with Native American groups to preserve the land and its history

Types of Ecosystem Services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) is a major UN-sponsored effort to analyze the impact of human actions on ecosystems and human well-being, identified four major categories of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulating, cultural and supporting services.

Provisioning Services: 

• A provisioning service is any type of service obtained from the natural resources in an ecosystem.

• Provisional means 'useful'

• Anything that occurs naturally that humans use is a natural resource

• Examples: food, drinking water, timber, wood fuel, natural gas, oils, plants that can be made into clothes and other materials, and plant-based medicines.

Regulating Services

• Regulating services allow nature to resist or fix problems that may harm the ecosystem.

  • natural processes that go on behind the scenes

• Examples:

  • Plants clean air and filter water, bacteria decompose wastes, bees pollinate flowers, and tree roots hold soil in place to prevent erosion.

Cultural Services

• A cultural service is a non-material benefit that contributes to the development and cultural advancement of people

  • Recreational services

    • canoeing at a lake or going on a hike

  • Eco-tourism

  • Educational services

    • exploring Earth's history in rock layers

Supporting Services

• Services that support all life in an ecosystem

• Do not directly impact humans

• Ecosystems provide living spaces for plants and animals

  • habitats provide food, water and shelter for plants and animals

• Ecosystems maintain diversity of different breeds of plants and animals

  • high genetic diversity = healthy ecoystem

The Problem?

• As population, income, and consumption levels increase, humans put more and more pressure on the natural environment to deliver these benefits.

• The 2005 Millennium Ecosystem Assessment found that 60 percent of ecosystem services assessed globally are either degraded or being used unsustainably.

• Seventy percent of the regulating and cultural services evaluated in the assessment are in decline.

• Millennium Ecosystem Assessment scientists predicted that ecosystem degradation could grow significantly worse in the first half of the 21st century (2000-2100), with important consequences to human well-being.

The Solution?

• Conservation: the practice of using less of a resource so it can last longer

• Restoration: helping a degraded/destroyed ecosystem recover from damage

  • ex. planting native plants

• Protecting ecosystems from loss of resources

  • Sustainability: the ability of an ecosystem to maintain biodiversity and production indefinitely

    • Regulating amount of resources humans can take from an ecosystem

    • Protected Areas

      • national parks, wilderness areas, community conserved areas, nature reserves

Multiple Choice

Which of the following is a strategy for ecosystem conservation?

• Deforestation

• Establishing protected areas and reserves

• Overfishing

• Pollution

Multiple Choice

Which type of service describes the way nature affects our minds and society?

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

Which is not an ecosystem service?

• Provisional

• Associating

• Regulating

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

A ____________ service is any type of benefit to people that can be extracted from nature.

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

Which services allow the Earth to sustain basic life forms, ecosystems, and people.

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

This service provides recycling of materials, clean air and water, carbon storage and climate regulation.

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

Which service includes bees pollinating plants?

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

You go for a hike down the Rim Trail to get exercise and relax after a long week of school. Which service is nature providing to you?

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

You go for an elk hunt and take a large bull. Your family is going to eat well for awhile! Which service are you primarily utilizing from nature?

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting

Multiple Choice

Ecosystems regulate the global climate by storing greenhouse gases. As trees and plants grow, they remove carbon dioxide from the atmosphere and lock it away in their tissues.

• Provisioning

• Regulating

• Cultural

• Supporting