Ecosystem services and biodiversity in Europe - SAZU

Ecosystem services and biodiversity in EuropeEASAC policy report 09February 2009ISBN: 978-0-85403-738-4This report can be found atwww.easac.eubuilding science into policyat EU level

EASACEASAC – the European Academies Science Advisory Council – is formed by the national science academies of the EUMember States to enable them to collaborate with each other in providing advice to European policy-makers. It thusprovides a means for the collective voice of European science to be heard.Its mission reflects the view of academies that science is central to many aspects of modern life and that an appreciationof the scientific dimension is a pre-requisite to wise policy-making. This view already underpins the work of manyacademies at national level. With the growing importance of the European Union as an arena for policy, academiesrecognise that the scope of their advisory functions needs to extend beyond the national to cover also the Europeanlevel. Here it is often the case that a trans-European grouping can be more effective than a body from a single country.The academies of Europe have therefore formed EASAC so that they can speak with a common voice with the goal ofbuilding science into policy at EU level.Through EASAC, the academies work together to provide independent, expert, evidence-based advice about thescientific aspects of public policy to those who make or influence policy within the European institutions. Drawing on thememberships and networks of the academies, EASAC accesses the best of European science in carrying out its work. Itsviews are vigorously independent of commercial or political bias, and it is open and transparent in its processes. EASACaims to deliver advice that is comprehensible, relevant and timely.EASAC covers all scientific and technical disciplines, and its experts are drawn from all the countries of the EuropeanUnion. It is funded by the member academies and by contracts with interested bodies. The expert members of projectgroups give their time free of charge. EASAC has no commercial or business sponsors.EASAC’s activities include substantive studies of the scientific aspects of policy issues, reviews and advice about policydocuments, workshops aimed at identifying current scientific thinking about major policy issues or at briefing policymakers,and short, timely statements on topical subjects.The EASAC Council has 26 individual members – highly experienced scientists nominated one each by the nationalscience academies of every EU Member State that has one, the Academia Europaea and ALLEA. It is supported by aprofessional secretariat based at the Royal Society in London. The Council agrees the initiation of projects, appointsmembers of project groups, reviews drafts and approves reports for publication.To find out more about EASAC, visit the website – www.easac.eu – or contact EASAC Secretariat[e-mail: easac@royalsociety.org; tel +44 (0)20 7451 2697].

Ecosystem services and biodiversity in Europe

ISBN 978 0 85403 738 4© The Royal Society 2009Apart from any fair dealing for the purposes of research or private study, or criticism or review, as permitted under theUK Copyright, Designs and Patents Act (1998), no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmittedin any form or by any means, without the prior permission in writing of the publisher, or, in the case of reprographicreproduction, in accordance with the terms of licences issued by the Copyright Licensing Agency in the UK, or inaccordance with the terms of licenses issued by the appropriate reproduction rights organisation outside the UK.Enquiries concerning reproduction outside the terms stated here should be sent to:EASAC SecretariatThe Royal Society6 –9 Carlton House TerraceLondon SW1Y 5AGtel: +44 (0)20 7451 2697fax: +44 (0)20 7925 2620email: easac@royalsociety.orgTypeset in Frutiger by The Clyvedon Press Ltd, Cardiff, UKii | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

ContentspageForewordvSummary 11 Introduction 31.1 Biodiversity and ecosystem services: why this topic matters now 31.2 The current study 41.3 Methods 52 Ecosystem services and biodiversity 72.1 What are ecosystem services? 72.2 What is the relationship between biodiversity and ecosystem services? 82.3 Land use and multiple services 93 European biodiversity and ecosystem services 113.1 Patterns of European biodiversity 113.2 An assessment of ecosystem services and biodiversity in Europe 113.3 The significance of ecosystem services in a European context 163.4 The role of European biodiversity in maintaining ecosystem services 164 Managing ecosystem services in Europe 194.1 How ecosystems respond to change 194.2 Threats to biodiversity, and consequences for ecosystem services in the European Union 204.3 Methods of valuing biodiversity and ecosystem services 204.4 Prioritising ecosystem services in land management: weighing up alternative land uses 235 Policy options and recommendations 255.1 Introduction: the current policy and management framework 255.2 Is what is known about this topic sufficient for progress in making policyon European biodiversity? 265.3 Recommendations: what is it sensible to do now? 27References 29Annex 1 Assessment of the current state of knowledge about European biodiversityand ecosystem services 33Annex 2 Previous EASAC work on biodiversity 67Annex 3 Working Group members and expert consultation 69EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | iii

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ForewordHumankind depends absolutely on what can be deliveredby nature in the form of provisions: food, fuel andmaterials. These are immediately obvious but there areother, less obvious, benefits from nature: the formationof soil and the purification and management of water,for example. Although human intervention plays a role,notably through farming, the provision of most of thesebenefits from nature is the result of interactions betweenmany species and depends on the working of wholeecosystems. These processes work continuously andunnoticed but are highly effective and have providedsufficient stability for the development of human society.Sadly, we become most aware of them as they fail, aswhen soil loses its fertility or the failure of pollinatorsaffects agricultural production.These benefits are known collectively as ecosystemservices and we depend for our survival on a wide rangeof them. As we have become more aware of ourdependence and more conscious of the severe pressuresthat industrial society is placing on their delivery, the healthof the ecosystems that provide services to us has becomea matter of intense scrutiny, most recently through theUN-sponsored Millennium Ecosystem Assessment.As the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment makes clear,over the past 50 years the pressure on natural systemshas been intense and unprecedented in the history of theworld. The human use of natural resources has growndramatically, land has come under intensive farming orhas been taken for towns and cities, and industrialisationhas produced pollution that now threatens the world’sclimate. At the same time, there is a crisis affecting manyof the organisms that make up ecosystems. Species arebeing lost at a rate far higher than natural extinctionrates. In addition to direct human impacts on species,invasive species are wreaking havoc on native fauna andflora worldwide and the effects of climate change arebeginning to make themselves felt.The consequence of these human impacts is that weare living through a period in which ecosystems arebeing degraded and biodiversity is being lost at ratesnot seen in human history. There are fears that thiswill have significant consequences for the flow of theservices nature provides. We believe that this placesEurope’s society on an unsustainable trajectory. Failureof ecosystem services will mean, at the least, increasingdependence on imported foods and higher risk fromdiseases and flooding.The European Commission has set an aim of halting theloss of biodiversity by 2010. This is an ambitious aim andwe applaud it. However, without the recognition of thestrong link between biodiversity and the sustainability ofEurope’s economy and society, we believe that this will bedifficult to achieve, particularly in the current economicclimate. The link between biodiversity and the deliveryof a balance of ecosystem services, which we believewe have substantiated in this report, creates a powerfulpurpose for measures to prevent further deterioration inEurope’s biodiversity.The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment gives an overviewof the state of these ecosystem services at a globallevel and sets the framework for this study. This reportprovides a review of the state of ecosystem servicesin Europe and, crucially, what is known about thecontribution biodiversity makes to maintaining them.Our aim is that the report will add to the case for urgentaction at a European level to institute a regime of activemanagement for ecosystem services as a whole and tohalt the loss of biodiversity.One of the key messages of this report is that, althoughEuropean ecosystems can give a wide range of services,managing land primarily to deliver one service will reduceits capacity to deliver other and equally valuable services.This trade-off is particularly important for farming systems,where the intensive use of fertilisers and pesticides maywell deliver high levels of food provision but the damageto wildlife may place at risk other important services, suchas pollination and nutrient cycling.We regard the continued delivery of ecosystem servicesto be one of the most important challenges facingEurope’s institutions. We have therefore suggestedthat there should be a specific duty placed on Europe’sgovernments to manage ecosystem services actively andthat there should be a new Directive to ensure this is donesystematically and to uniform European standards. Webelieve that this approach can be combined effectivelywith existing measures, but we highlight the specific needto ensure the continued delivery of services from Europe’secosystems.This report was prepared by an EASAC Working Groupled by Alastair Fitter of the Royal Society, London. Manymembers of the scientific community, within and outsideEurope, have contributed to the work, and it has beenindependently reviewed and approved for publication byEASAC Council. On behalf of EASAC, it is my pleasure tothank Professor Fitter, members of the Working Groupand the many experts whose contributions were sovaluable in preparing this report.EASAC will continue to work on the evidence basefor action on ecosystem services and biodiversity. Wewelcome comments on this report.Professor Volker ter MeulenChairman, EASACEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | v

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SummaryWhat are ecosystem services?Ecosystem services are the benefits humankind derivesfrom the workings of the natural world. These includemost obviously the supply of food, fuels and materials,but also such hidden benefits as the formation of soils andthe control and purification of water. Ecosystem servicesare usually divided into categories:• Supporting services, which provide the basicinfrastructure for life on Earth, including theformation of soils, the cycling of water and of basicnutrients, and primary production of materials for allthe other services.• Regulating services, which maintain the environmentin a fit condition for human habitation, most notablymaintaining a healthy climate and mitigating theeffects of pollution.• Provisioning services, providing food, water, energy,materials for building and clothing, and plants formedicines.• Cultural services, recognising that people,communities and societies place value (includingeconomic value) on nature and the environment fortheir own sake or simply find pleasure in them.Taken together, these services are crucial to survival andsocial and economic development of human societieson Earth. Though many are hidden, their workings arenow a matter of clear scientific record. Their continuedgood health cannot be taken for granted, and theprocess of monitoring them and of ensuring that humanactivity does not place them at risk is an essential part ofenvironmental governance, not solely at a global level butalso for the different institutions of the European Union.One of the key insights from this work is that allecosystems deliver a broad range of services, and thatmanaging an ecosystem primarily to deliver one servicewill almost certainly reduce its ability to provide others.One prominent current example of this is the use of landto produce biofuels.Why do they matter for Europe?Some of these ecosystem services are crucial for Europe’seconomy and society.• Europe is likely to become more dependent on itsown ability to produce food as the global priceof food increases and imports from outside theEuropean Union (EU) become less affordable.• Europe will increasingly rely on the cycling ofnutrients in soils for maintaining high levels ofproductivity in both agricultural and non-agriculturalecosystems as the cost and availability of fertilisers inagriculture increases.• The environment plays the key role in managingwater for Europe, in particular in securing thecontinued availability and regulated supply of cleanwater against the backdrop of rapid urbanisation andclimate change.• Although the global climate depends on manyfactors, the services provided by Europe’s northernforests and peatlands play a critical role in ensuringlong-term storage of carbon.• Many crops and most wild plant species require theservice of pollination by insects; current declines inpollinating insects place at risk a service that wouldbe hugely expensive, and in many cases impossible,to replace.• Europe’s communities place a high value on natureand on the possibility of enjoying natural places forleisure activities.Other services, though less crucial in a European context,also play an important part in Europe’s current prosperityand in ensuring sustainable development in the future.They are considered in this report because the citizensof Europe also have a global responsibility to act in waysthat safeguard human well-being and the integrity of thenatural environment.What is their current status in Europe?In Europe, the trend over the past century has beentowards urbanisation and more intensive agriculture.Large areas have been devoted to monocultures, withincreasing use of fertilisers, fungicides and pesticidesto maintain productivity. This process has prioritisedproduction services, to the extent that other key services,in particular those associated with complex ecosystemsor high biodiversity, have suffered. Soil carbon storeshave declined, with implications for climate regulation,and loss of species-rich lowland grasslands and wetlandshas reduced biodiversity in many parts of Europe. Thelong-term consequences of this are likely to be severe.Sustaining production levels without recourse to naturalprocesses for nutrient cycling and disease and pestregulation will be increasingly difficult and costly. Similarly,urban and other environments heavily influenced byhumans deliver a very restricted range of ecosystemservices. Europe’s governing institutions have to addressEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 1

the balance between ecosystem services as a matter ofhigh priority.What is the link between ecosystem servicesand biodiversity?The delivery of ecosystem services depends in manycases on the maintenance of biodiversity, for examplefor nutrient cycling, production under low-inputmanagement and pollination. However, in many instanceswe do not well understand the mechanism by whichbiodiversity enhances the delivery of ecosystem services.Small-scale experiments can often explain why thenumber of species in an ecosystem can determine therate of the processes that underlie ecosystem services,such as decomposition which is central to nutrientcycling. However, our knowledge of how these processeswork together on the scale of a landscape to produceecosystem services on that scale is limited. It is likely thatkey species or groups of species that perform particularecological functions play the major role in deliveringservices, and maintaining biodiversity is a sure way toensure their presence and activity in an ecosystem.How can we place value on these services?These services cannot be valued unless they are effectivelydescribed and properly recognised in decision-making, toensure that there is at the very least a narrative of whatis at stake in decisions affecting them. More powerfulmeans of ensuring that the value of ecosystem servicesis recognised in decision-making include economicvaluation methods. These have developed rapidly inrecent years in response to policy-makers’ requirementsfor analysis of costs and benefits of a wide range ofdevelopment projects. There are now many differentand widely accepted ways of placing an actual monetaryvalue on features of the natural environment, using theframework of ecosystem services as a basis. For example,a value for a wetland or a forested catchment can becalculated from the health or water treatment costsavoided through the service it provides in purifying water.In many cases the value of a threatened ecosystem greatlyoutweighs the development value of the project thatthreatens it. In addition to these quantitative approaches,there are formal qualitative methods for setting prioritiesfor the use of ecosystems. For example, multi-criteriaanalysis is a structured approach for assessing alternativeoptions that allow the attainment of defined objectivesor the implementation of policy goals in which scoring,ranking and weighting are used. Both quantitative andqualitative methods have been widely applied and areincreasingly recognised in policy development and indecisions on individual projects.What steps are needed to manage ecosystemservices now and in the future?To manage ecosystem services, decisions on the use andmanagement of natural resources, including land andwater bodies, have to take account of the full suite ofecosystem services. This will mean balancing productiveuses with use associated, for example, with nutrientcycling, which may require reduced cultivation, watercycling (which may require permanent vegetation cover)and management regimes that conserve and enhancebiodiversity.In order to regulate the optimisation of ecosystem servicesand to protect the role of biodiversity in forming andmaintaining them, we propose a new European Directive,building on current legislation, to protect ecosystemsand wildlife, with a broad scope and a specific focus onecosystem services. A new directive of this kind could beexpected to establish the strategy of conservation andmanagement of important ecosystem functions andservices in Europe. It could also set priorities by definingthe ‘key ecosystem services of Community interest’ and‘key service providing units (species and ecosystems) ofCommunity interest’.2 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

1 Introduction1.1 Biodiversity and ecosystem services:why this topic matters nowThe past 50 years have seen an unprecedented humanimpact on natural systems (Vitousek et al. 1997). Thoughevidence is incomplete, current rates of species extinctionare believed to be much larger than background ornatural extinction rates, and ecologists are concernedthat we are witnessing the sixth great extinction waveon the planet. For example, 12% of bird species, 23% ofmammals, 32% of amphibians and 25% of conifers arenow threatened with extinction (IUCN 2004), and dataare simply not available for many other less well-studiedgroups which may be equally (or more) vulnerable.Human use of natural resources has grown substantiallyin this period. Roughly half of useable terrestrial land isnow devoted to grazing livestock or growing crops, theexpansion of which has been at the expense of naturalhabitat, and between a quarter and a half of all primaryproduction is now diverted to human consumption(Rojstaczer et al. 2001). Since agriculture began inearnest, some 8000 years ago, the area of forest hasbeen halved.In addition to habitat conversion, other major threatsto biodiversity include the introduction ofnon-indigenous species, pollution, climate changeand over-harvesting. On many islands, such as Hawai’iand New Zealand, introduced species are the majorcause of extinction, and islands often host largenumbers of endemic species, the result of long periodsof isolation and evolution. Europe has very largenumbers of introduced species; some are known tothreaten indigenous biodiversity, but many ancientintroductions are now accepted members of the faunaand flora of Europe. Pollution can be a major causeof the local extinction of species, for example by thedeposition of nitrogen from the atmosphere causingeutrophication and allowing species capable of avigorous growth response to nitrogen to outcompeteslower-growing species. However, pollution will rarelycause the complete elimination of species unlessimposed over very large areas or affected species arerare and have local distributions. The principal exampleof global-scale pollution is the rapidly increasingconcentration of carbon dioxide and other greenhousegases in the atmosphere, which is driving climatechange. So far, there is little evidence of extinctionshaving already been brought about by climate change,but that situation is unlikely to persist: models that takeinto account the tolerance of species to climatic factorsand the likely rates of environmental change predict thatlarge numbers of species, probably in the hundreds ofthousands, will be threatened with extinction by 2050(Thomas et al. 2004; Pounds et al. 2006).These large-scale changes in the biological componentsof the planet will be viewed as inherently undesirableby many and will certainly alter the appearance of manyareas. The broader consequences of large-scale lossesof species remain uncertain, because the underlyingscience that links biodiversity – the biological richness ofan ecosystem – to the way in which it functions has onlyrecently become a major focus of research. However,there is a growing appreciation of the importance of thenatural world to human society. Quite apart from theimportance of landscape and biodiversity in a culturalsense and for recreation, direct economic benefits aredrawn from natural systems. Some of these are both ofmajor economic significance and essential to the survivalof human societies.The benefits to humankind that can be delivered bynatural systems are known as ecosystem services. Theyinclude the provision of food, clean water, a stableclimate, biological resources for energy and industrialprocesses, and the control of disease, all of fundamentalvalue to human societies and irreplaceable by artificialalternatives. A large-scale assessment of ecosystemservices, made by an international group of scientistsand published as the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,grouped the services into four categories: supporting,provisioning, regulatory and cultural services (seewww.millenniumassessment.org and Chapter 2). Thiscategorisation encompasses ecosystem goods likefood, medicines and fibre, but also services like waterpurification, nutrient retention, climate regulation andcultural services like recreation.The services are provided by living organisms interactingwith their environment: this complex of relationshipsbetween organisms and environment is known as theecosystem. An example of an ecosystem service is therole played by insects, especially bees, in the pollinationof plants, including staple food crops. There is an industryin many intensively farmed parts of the world in movinghives and their resident honey-bees to orchards and otherareas where pollination is needed. Recent declines of beepopulations have had considerable economic impact: forexample, in Maoxian County of Sichuan, China, the freeservice of pollination by insects has had to be replaced bythe labour-intensive service of human hand pollination.On a much smaller scale, though equally importantly,there are micro-organisms that provide the services ofremoving waste produced by human society and recyclingit or rendering it harmless. Both the bees and the wastehandlingorganisms, however, are part of a larger systemof interdependencies and they themselves rely on theirecosystems for their survival.These natural services are of enormous value to humansociety. Costanza et al. (1997) estimated the annualEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 3

value of these services at $33 trillion, compared with aglobal gross national product total at that time around$18 trillion per year. Although this figure has provedcontroversial, there is no doubt that ecosystem servicesrepresent a massive contribution to the economic wellbeingof all societies. Many of the services are simplyirreplaceable: for example, we have no way of providingfood for the human population except through the useof natural systems involving soil, soil organisms and cropplants, nor of providing drinking water, except throughthe operation of the water cycle which depends criticallyon the activities of organisms. The maintenance ofecosystems, therefore, must be an essential part of thesurvival strategy for human societies. However, there islittle evidence that this message has been understood.In a recent survey, Pearce (2006) attempted to relateactual conservation efforts to economic values (measuredthrough stated preferences or otherwise), and concludedthat ‘actual expenditures on international ecosystemconservation appear to be remarkably small andbear no relationship to the willingness to pay figuresobtained in the various stated preference studies.’Actual expenditures through bilateral assistance, theGlobal Environmental Facility, debt-for-nature swapsand support for protected areas is probably less than$10 billion per annum, much less than is requiredefficiently and effectively to protect ecosystems andsafeguard the future flow of ecosystem services (see, forexample, James et al. 2001; Balmford et al. 2002). Uponcomparing various estimates of the costs and benefits ofconserving ecosystems, Pearce concluded the data wereinadequate to determine the economic value of globalconservation efforts, but that the lack of financial backingto conservation agreements suggests that ‘despite allthe rhetoric, the world does not care too much aboutbiodiversity conservation.’Great uncertainty is associated with the valuation andmanagement of biodiversity. Nevertheless, the sheer scaleof the services provided by ecosystems suggests that theeffort put into maintaining their ability to deliver essentialservices is unlikely to be sufficient. Taken together,these findings suggest that despite conservation efforts,ecosystems are still under threat, so that future flows ofecosystem services will be compromised; this situation isunlikely to be economically efficient, as recognised in theparallel case of societal response to climate change by theStern report (Stern 2007).What are the consequences? Because ecosystem servicesare economically valuable and loss of biodiversity couldtranslate into welfare losses for humans, economists areincreasingly interested in the topic. Important thoughformal economic analyses of ecosystem services mayprove to be, it has been argued that ecosystems (orbiodiversity) have a value that cannot be expressed inthese terms, or that biodiversity has alternative valuesthat should be taken into account when designingpolicy. Although an economic approach incorporatesmany relevant values – use and non-use values – somevalues (for example intrinsic values) lie outside theeconomic domain. In matters with strong moralrepercussions, such as biodiversity conservation,economics does not provide a one-stop shoppingframework for decision-making.However, the power of economic analysis withinthe policy-making processes in Europe is such thatargument is constructed in a major part through thelanguage of costs and benefits. To address the chronicunderinvestment in conservation of biodiversity andto ensure that future decisions do not lead to anunacceptable further loss of biodiversity, it is essentialthat the value of biodiversity in promoting the deliveryof essential and valuable services is expressed strongly(in both economic and other terms) in those areasof decision-making where economic analysis is itselfstrongest.1.2 The current studyThe current study has been commissioned by the Councilof the European Academies Science Advisory Council(EASAC) as a contribution to the scientific debate on thefuture of European biodiversity. EASAC is an independentassociation of the science academies of the EuropeanMember States.Part of EASAC’s role is to highlight issues of Europeanimportance and to offer advice on them to the Europeaninstitutions of governance. Annex 2 contains furtherbackground on this study.Ecosystems represent the intersection of the living andnon-living worlds: they are the stage on which organismsinteract with the physical world. As such, they provide arange of provisioning, regulating, cultural and supportingservices that underpin human well-being. These servicesimply a real monetary value for the benefits receivedby society from the ecosystem and real losses from itsimpoverishment. A focus on the concept of ecosystemservices and the benefits they provide to societytherefore provides a framework for the identification andassignment of value. We need to understand how theseservices are delivered: does it matter if an ecosystem onwhich we depend for the provision of clean water orclimate regulation has few or many species? What willbe the consequences of losses of species, or of particularspecies from the ecosystem, particularly in relation tothe system’s capacity to absorb disturbances? How canmanagement of ecosystems improve so that otherwiseinevitable trade-offs among services can be reduced?We need to understand what features of ecosystemsenhance the delivery of services and, conversely, whatdamaging actions can reduce that delivery, not only sothat we can manage them appropriately but also to assign4 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

more accurate economic values to them in the economicmodels that typically determine policy.This report has the following purposes:1. To assess the scientific consensus around the conceptof ecosystem value by bringing together a selectionof leading scientists and economists working in thisfield across Europe to provide an up-to-date scientificreview of the concept and how it may be used ineconomic models.2. To contribute to the evidence base by providing ascientific overview of knowledge about ecosystemfunction and services and their interactions withbiodiversity with the aim of identifying the main gapsand target areas.3. To help in the identification of the role of Europeanecosystems in delivering services and to assist policymakersin maintaining ecosystem services in Europe.In discussions of ecosystem services, an assumptionis often made that ecosystems with many species areinherently better able to deliver specific services, eitherimmediately or in a sustainable manner. This assumptionis likely to be more true for some service elements thanothers; for example, in the case of carbon storage in theenvironment, which is a crucial issue in understandinghow ecosystem change will affect climate change, deeppeat maximises carbon storage and is typically associatedwith very low biodiversity. In contrast, primary production,which determines the rate at which excess carbondioxide is removed from the atmosphere, is promotedby increasing biodiversity, in the absence of large andunsustainable inputs of resources by human activity.Loss of biodiversity may therefore have a greater impacton the initial process of sequestration than onlong-term stores, leading to marked regional variationsin sequestration capacity. Similar contrasts can beidentified for other services. In this study, a range ofecosystem services within a European context hasbeen examined in order to draw conclusions about thesignificance of biodiversity in supporting these.The report was prepared by an expert Working Groupappointed by EASAC Council and Chaired by ProfessorAlastair Fitter FRS. The Working Group members, from sixEASAC member academies, are listed in Annex 3.1.3 MethodsThis EASAC Study has been made in four stages:1. Prioritisation of ecosystem services within a Europeancontext: the group used the systematisation ofservices developed by Millennium EcosystemAssessment. The importance of services to theEuropean environment, economy and societies is notequal, and their significance will vary regionally.2. Assessment of the relative significance of biodiversityfor each of these services.3. Identification of the parts of the ecosystem (forexample soil, water) where biodiversity is importantin each case and an evaluation of the knowledgebase for each.4. Statement of the consequent threat level to theprovision of these services: that is, the extent towhich threats to the maintenance of biodiversity inEurope can be identified as a threat to the provisionof specific services, both regionally and locally.Working Group members prepared an initial assessmentof these factors, which was extensively reviewed by awide range of experts, also listed in Annex 3. Commentsand contributions from reviewers were taken into accountin this report, which was then subject to a review withinthe member academies before publication.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 5

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2 Ecosystem services and biodiversity2.1 What are ecosystem services?The ecosystem concept was introduced by the pioneerecologist Arthur Tansley in 1935, who stated ‘we cannotseparate [organisms] from their special environment,with which they form one physical system’. Anecosystem then is the interacting system of living andnon-living elements in a defined area, which can be ofany size, although in most uses ecosystems arelarge-scale entities. Thus a lake or a forest may bedefined as an ecosystem. The importance of theecosystem is that it is the level in the ecological hierarchy(see Box 1) at which key processes such as carbon, waterand nutrient cycling and productivity are determinedand can be measured: these are the processes thatdetermine how the world functions and that underlie allthe services identified by the United Nations MillenniumEcosystem Assessment.Ecosystem services are defined by the MillenniumEcosystem Assessment as the benefits people obtainfrom ecosystems. The four broad categories recognisedby the Assessment and which form the framework forthis report are:1. Supporting services, which provide the basicinfrastructure of life, including the capture of energyfrom the sun, the formation and maintenance ofsoils for plant growth, and the cycling of waterand nutrients. These services underlie all othercategories.2. Regulating services, which maintain anenvironment conducive to human society, managingthe climate, pollution and such natural hazards asdisease, flood and fire.3. Provisioning services, the provision of the productson which life depends, food, water, energy, and thematerials that human society uses for fashioning itsown products.4. Cultural services, the provision of landscapes andorganisms that have significance for humankindbecause of religious or spiritual meanings theycontain or simply because people find themattractive.A detailed analysis of these services is provided inAnnex 1.Box 1 The ecological hierarchyECOSYSTEMImpactsPollutionClimate changedisturbanceProcessesNutrient cyclingEnergy flowWater cyclingVariablesProductivityBiomassComplexityABIOTIC ENVIRONMENTHabitat structure:physical complexityResources: light,water, nutrientsConditions: acidity,temperature, windCommunitiesBiodiversity, functionaldiversityPopulationsDynamics, invasionsIndividualsBehaviour, life historyPredationParasitismCompetitionMutualismCompetitionPredationBIOTICENVIRONMENTThe diagram represents the components of the ecosystem, which comprises the abiotic factors of the environment and the biological communities thatlive there. Communities are made up of populations of organisms whose individuals interact with each other and with those in other populations bycompeting for resources and preying on or parasitising others. It is the individuals that respond to the abiotic factors of the habitat. Processes inecosystems, which underlie ecosystem services, are the result of the interaction of the organisms and the abiotic environment.The ecosystem is one stage in a hierarchy of systems recognised by the science of ecology, from the population (the individuals of a single species in adefined area), through the community (the set of populations in that area), to the ecosystem, which brings in the abiotic elements. Although ecologistsrecognise landscape units such as forests and lakes as ecosystems, they also accept that ecosystems are not self-contained: they have porous boundariesand both organisms and materials move between systems, often with important ecological consequences. Above the ecosystem in this hierarchy,ecologists recognise biomes and the biosphere; both of these are at much larger scale, continental or global.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 7

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment classification isbased on an anthropocentric view of the functioningof ecosystems: it explicitly addresses the benefits thathuman societies gain. The delivery of these services,however, represents the normal operation of theecosystem, and reflects the natural processes that occurwithin every ecosystem. The services, therefore, whichare a human construct, depend on these underlyingprocesses, such as:• fixation of nitrogen gas from the air by bacteria intoforms that are useable by plants, which underlies thenitrogen cycle;• decomposition of organic matter by microbes, whichis the basis of all nutrient cycles, including importantlythe carbon cycle;• interactions between organisms, such as competition,predation and parasitism, which control the size oftheir populations.Because the processes depend on organisms and theorganisms are linked by their interactions, the servicesthemselves are also linked. For example, productivitycan only be maintained if the cycling of nutrientscontinues, and all provisioning services depend intimatelyon the supporting services of production and water andnutrient cycling. It is essential to understand, therefore,that all ecosystems deliver multiple services, althoughthe relative scale of the various services will vary greatlyamong ecosystems. This variation in scale is greatlyexacerbated when ecosystems are managed by people:typically this management focuses on a single service, beit food production or water cycling, and the consequenceof this is nearly always a reduction in delivery of otherservices.The most extreme cases of human alteration ofecosystems are found in some forms of intensiveagriculture, where the focus of management is to divertall production through a single crop species, and in urbanenvironments, where the soil may be extensively coveredwith impermeable surfaces such as concrete and tarmac.In both of these cases, the delivery of a wide range ofalternative ecosystem services will be minimal.2.2 What is the relationship betweenbiodiversity and ecosystem services?All ecosystems contain living organisms, although insome cases there will be few different species or typeswhereas in others there will be many. This richness ofbiological types is known as biodiversity, and is seenat its most intense in iconic ecosystems such as coralreefs and tropical rainforests, where the conditions forlife are generally favourable. In contrast, ecosystemscharacterised by extreme environmental factors, eitherextreme cold, as in the Arctic, or toxins, as on very acid orpolluted soils, may have little biodiversity.The reasons why ecosystems vary so greatly in biodiversityare complex but well studied. Generally, productivenatural ecosystems have the highest biodiversity: on aglobal scale this is apparent in the remarkable gradientof increasing species richness that occurs as one travelsfrom the poles towards the equator. Nevertheless, manyhighly productive ecosystems, and especially those underhuman management, have low biodiversity, showingthat many other factors are at work. Among thosefactors are rates of evolution, which are the underlyingdriver of biodiversity; rates of dispersal, both natural andassisted by humans, which are especially important whenecosystems are isolated from others by natural barriers;and the complex set of interactions between species, suchas predation, competition and parasitism, which controlthe sizes of their populations and often their persistencein a community. Many factors therefore determinehow many species occur in an ecosystem and hence itsbiodiversity; importantly, the biodiversity of an ecosystemis never fixed and will change, often markedly, as theenvironment changes.One striking feature of ecosystems with many speciesis that these species can be grouped into sets that havesimilar ecological roles, called functional groups. Forexample, among the plants in a grassland ecosystem,there will be some species, such as legumes, that forma symbiosis with nitrogen-fixing bacteria in their rootsand gain access to the pool of atmospheric nitrogenfor their nutrition; they form a distinct functional groupfrom the other species. Similarly, some spiders catchprey in webs, others by hunting: these represent distinctfunctional groups of predators and they play distinctroles in an ecosystem. In a diverse ecosystem there willbe many legumes or many wolf spiders; in a speciespoorsystem, there may be only one of each. Evenwhere there are many species within a functional group,some will always be rare and others common. Theremay be some that play especially important roles in theecosystem; these are known as keystone species (note,however, that a keystone species may not necessarilybe a common species). It is obvious that losing an entirefunctional group from an ecosystem or the keystonespecies from within that group is likely to have moresevere consequences for its functioning than losing onespecies from a large group. Nevertheless, experimentalevidence shows that both number of species and numberof functional groups can play an important role incontrolling ecosystem processes (Reich et al. 2004)).Ecosystems can certainly change drastically whensets of key species are lost (Estes and Duggins 1995;Terborgh et al. 2001) or when new species invade(Vitousek and Walker 1989). One of the great unsolvedproblems in ecology is to determine how importantthat biological richness is for the operation of processes8 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

such as production and nutrient cycling. Experimentshave shown that when there are more species in anecosystem, and especially more types of species withdistinct functional attributes, ecosystem processes suchas biomass production, pollination and seed dispersal arepromoted. It is less certain what happens to an ecosystemas it progressively loses species, but because processes inecosystems with very low biodiversity are in many casesslower or less active, it follows that loss of species willeventually cause degradation of processes. Althoughthe shape of the relationship is not entirely clear (doservices decline progressively or suddenly as biodiversityis lost?) there is evidence that it is highly non-linear. Aslight decreasing trend in ecosystem functions as speciesdiversity declines is often followed beyond a certainthreshold with a collapse of function.Despite the uncertainties surrounding the mechanismsthat link biodiversity to ecosystem processes andservices, there are numerous well-documented examplesthat demonstrate that biodiversity plays a large rolein many cases. Within the context of the MillenniumEcosystem Assessment framework, such exampleswould include:Supporting services: in a meta-analysis of 446studies of the impact of biodiversity on primaryproduction, 319 of which involved primary producermanipulations or measurements, there was ‘clearevidence that biodiversity has positive effects on mostecosystem services’, and specifically that there was aclear effect of biodiversity on productivity (Balvaneraet al. 2006).Regulating services: in an experimental study ofpollination in pumpkins, it was the diversity ofpollinator species and not their abundance thatdetermined seed set (Hoehn et al. 2008).Provisioning services: where grassland is used forbiofuel or other energy crop production, the lowerfinancial return makes intensive production systemsinvolving heavy use of pesticides and fertilisersuneconomic; mixed swards of grasses are moreproductive under less intensive production systemsthan pure swards (Bullock et al. 2007).Cultural services: evidence from the 2001 foot andmouth disease epidemic in the UK demonstrated thatthe economic value of biodiversity-related tourismgreatly exceeds that of agriculture in the uplands ofthe UK.2.3 Land use and multiple servicesThe interaction of organisms and their environmentunderlies the ecosystem concept. The services that thisreport addresses arise from the normal functioning ofecosystems, and their delivery is affected as ecosystemsare altered by natural events or human exploitation. Inmany ecosystems, the primary production is increasinglydiverted to human use and is not therefore availableto other species that may play an important role inregulating the ecosystem, for example by controlling thepopulations of potential pest species. In more extremecases, human activity leads to severe degradation of theecosystem, by gross interference (for example canalisationof rivers) or pollution (for example by heavy metals).Nevertheless, ecosystems that have been altered byhuman activity still deliver important services; indeed,the management of the ecosystem may be directed atmaximising some particular service, most obviously inagro-ecosystems where food production is the majoroutput. However, all ecosystems deliver more than oneservice, and therefore manipulation of an ecosystem tomaximise one particular service risks reducing others.For example, forests regulate water flow and qualityand store nutrients in soil, among many other functions;clear-felling a forest to obtain the ecosystem service oftimber products results in the temporary failure of thesystem to retain life-supporting nutrients in the soil, asshown by the classic Hubbard Brook experiments in NewEngland, USA (Likens et al. 1970) . Similarly, arable landis typically managed to maximise yield of food crops, butone consequence is often a reduction in the amount ofcarbon stored in soil, with negative effects on the serviceof climate regulation (Smith 2004).The most extreme examples of human alteration ofecosystems are found in urban areas where ecosystemstypically contribute minimal levels of provisioning services.Urban landscapes are characteristically heterogeneous:parts of an urban landscape may have very few species,whereas elsewhere there may be substantial biodiversity,often due directly to human presence (Elmqvist et al.2008). Green areas, street trees and urban vegetationmay generate services related to environmental qualitysuch as air cleaning, noise reduction and recreation. Suchservices may be of high value for human well-being inurban regions (Bolund and Hunhammar 1999). Servicesrelated more directly to human health could also besubstantial: Lovasi et al. (2008) showed that asthma ratesamong children aged four and five in New York City fellby 25% for every extra 343 trees per square kilometre.Characteristic of many of the urban ecosystem servicesis that they are often generated on a very small scale:patches of vegetation and even individual trees maygenerate services of high value.Urban areas constitute large-scale experiments onthe effects of global change on ecosystems wheresignificant warming, increased nitrogen deposition andhuman domination of ecosystem processes are alreadyprevalent (Carreiro and Tripler 2005). The impact of urbanareas extends far beyond their boundaries: althoughurbanisation consumes only about 4% of the total landEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 9

area worldwide, its footprint includes the vast areas ofland used for intensive food production and all the otherprovisioning services required to maintain the urbanpopulation, as well as the impacts on regulating servicesbrought about, for example, by massive greenhouse gasproduction and distortion of the hydrological cycle.Even where human impact is more benign or has lessimpact, decisions will be needed on prioritisation amongservices. All ecosystems deliver multiple services: someof these will be complementary and some conflicting.For example, maintenance of soil integrity will promotenutrient cycling and primary production, enhance carbonstorage and hence climate regulation, help regulate waterflows and water quality, and improve most provisioningservices, notably for food, fibre and other chemicals. Incontrast, wherever services are delivered by maintainingmonocultures of a single species, as is often the case forproduction of food, fibre and energy, this will reduce thedelivery of services more dependent on the maintenanceof biodiversity, including pollination and diseaseregulation.In managing land (and where appropriate water), peoplealways, even if only implicitly, do so to achieve benefitsof ecosystem services, but because these services are notindependent of one another, a major challenge is how tomanage trade-offs between the services. Different typesof trade-off can be identified:• Temporal trade-offs: there may be benefits now withcosts incurred later (or more rarely vice versa). Landused for food production may store progressivelydeclining stocks of organic matter, with long-termconsequences both for nutrient cycling, and hencefuture fertility, and carbon sequestration.• Spatial trade-offs: the benefit may be experiencedat the site of management, but the cost incurredelsewhere. Moorland, burned to maximise growth ofyoung heather shoots and the number of grouse, andhence the income from grouse shooting, increasesthe loss of dissolved organic matter to water, whichappears as colour in drinking water and has to beremoved at great expense by water companies.• Beneficiary trade-offs: the manager may gain benefit,but others lose, leading to actual or potential conflict.Most management systems that maximise productionby high inputs of fertilisers lead to reducedbiodiversity, so that those who appreciate land for itsconservation value lose. Equally, land managed forbiodiversity conservation, such as nature reserves, haslittle production value.• Service trade-offs: these occur almost invariably whenmanagement is principally for one service and are inpractice similar to beneficiary trade-offs.These trade-offs are real and well documented. Thechallenge is to move towards ‘win–win’ or at least ‘winmore and lose less’ management strategies. This goal canbe achieved in several ways:• by improving access to information on ecosystemservices and their valuation;• by integrating ecosystem services into global, nationaland local planning;• by ensuring equity and consistency of rules and theirapplication;• by framing and using appropriate incentives and/ormarkets;• by clarifying and strengthening rights of local peopleover their resources.To control the impact of these trade-offs, it will beessential to take into account the spatial and temporalscale at which ecosystem services are delivered. Examplesof services that operate at different scales are:• pollination, which operates at a local scale and canbe managed by ensuring that there are areas of landmanaged that maintain populations of pollinators ina mosaic of land-use types;• hydrological services which function at a landscapescale, such as a watershed, and which requireco-operation among land managers at that scale; and• carbon sequestration in organic matter in soil,which operates at a regional and global scale andnecessitates policy decisions by governments andinternational bodies to ensure that appropriateincentives are in place to ensure necessary behaviourby local land managers10 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

3 European biodiversity and ecosystem services3.1 Patterns of EuropeanbiodiversityEurope’s cultural landscapes have been shaped bytraditional land uses. These landscapes provide numerousecological services. No European ecosystems areunaffected by human activity, either directly (farming,forestry, urbanisation) or indirectly (pollutants, nitrogendeposition, climate change); most European ecosystemsare more or less intensively managed.Within Europe, the distribution of species andecosystems is widely variable, with the centres ofbiodiversity occurring in the Mediterranean basin, onthe margins of Europe in the Caucasus Mountains(Ukraine, Georgia, Armenia) and in the eastern Alps.Diversity also trends downwards with latitude and islower in areas severely affected by glaciation withinthe past 15,000 years, notably in northwest Europe.Islands often have low biodiversity overall both becausethey are small in area and because of the failure ofotherwise widespread species to colonise them afterdisturbance such as glaciation. Conversely, theyfrequently have endemic species or races, as a resultof evolutionary processes in isolated populations:Ireland, for example, has only 25 species of nativemammal and fewer than 1000 native plant species.Within a given climatic zone, biodiversity tends to begreatest in habitats characterised by intermediate levelsof disturbance, nutrients and water supply: at bothextremes, diversity declines.The European landscape is dominated by agriculture(44%), forests (33%) and by spreading urban andrecreation areas. Many of the forests are managed fortimber and are plantations, often of a single or very fewexotic tree species. Habitats that were formerly the mainreservoirs of biodiversity, such as semi-natural and naturalgrasslands, heathlands, wetlands and old forests, havebeen decreasing, with deleterious consequences forEuropean biodiversity as a whole. In contrast, arid landsare increasing, especially in southern Europe.One of the most detailed studies of recent changes inbiodiversity was the New Atlas project for floweringplants in Britain and Ireland (Preston et al. 2002). Thiscompared systematic records made in the periods1930 –1969 with those in 1987–1999 and showedthat there had been marked increases in distributionof recently introduced species and those found innutrient-rich habitats, whereas arable weeds, speciesof nutrient-poor habitats, and species of open groundhad all declined. These changes reflect the changesin agricultural practice, increasing loss of undisturbedhabitats and the widespread deposition of atmosphericnitrogen in the region.3.2 An assessment of ecosystem services andbiodiversity in EuropeThe Millennium Ecosystem Assessment offers a globalview of the importance of ecosystem services. Toachieve an understanding of the relative significanceof different ecosystem services in Europe and the roleplayed by biodiversity in delivering them, as needed bypolicy-makers in the EU, we have undertaken a poll ofexpert opinions. Working Group members and otherexperts were asked to assess each of the MillenniumEcosystem Assessment ecosystem services in this context,to comment on the threats to the services and to suggesturgent research needs. The full assessment of ecosystemservices made in the course of this study is given inAnnex 1. This section highlights the role that ecosystemservices play in Europe the part played by biodiversity informing and sustaining these services and European levelconcerns about them.A Supporting servicesThese are the basic services that make the production ofall the other services possible.A1 Primary productionPrimary production in the Earth’s ecosystems is recognisedas fundamental to all other ecosystem services andappears to be strongly dependent on biodiversity. Itis the best studied of the supporting services. Primaryproduction is generally high in Europe because soils areyoung and hence fertile, and climate is generally benign.Low productivity is associated with very cold regions(Arctic and alpine), very dry regions (some parts of theMediterranean region) and seriously polluted or degradedenvironments.Although there is a close association between primaryproduction and biodiversity, the mechanisms involved arean important area for further research.In ecosystems without external nutrient input,biodiversity often enhances production. Environmentalpressures, such as changes in land use, climate changeand pollution, all reduce both quantity and quality ofbiodiversity and hence have an impact on productivity(see, for example, Ciais et al. 2005).Maintaining primary production of agricultural, naturaland semi-natural ecosystems is essential for achievingseveral policy goals, including carbon sequestration insoils and vegetation, agricultural production and useof land for other productive purposes. Achieving goodlevels of agricultural productivity in biodiverse systemsEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 11

will be important in economic development of rural areasto encourage tourism alongside traditional agriculturallivelihoods (see, for example, Bullock et al. 2007).There are concerns that the increasingly dry conditionsin southern Europe will lead to a decline in primaryproductivity. This may be offset to an extent by increasedproductivity in the northern parts of Europe as theyrespond to warming. That local increase of primaryproductivity from fertilisers used in agriculture and frompollution may come at the cost of ecosystem damage andconsequent loss of other services through eutrophication.A2 Nutrient cyclingNutrient cycling is also considered a highly importantecosystem service for Europe. It is a key process inboth terrestrial and aquatic systems and is essentialfor maintenance of soil fertility. Nutrients are cycled asorganisms grow, taking them up, and then decompose,releasing them back into the environment. Biodiversity iscritical to these cycles.The capacity of ecosystems to sequester nutrientsdepends, besides natural factors, on managementinterventions. In intensively farmed landscapes, nitrateand phosphate may be lost to watercourses, causingboth damage to water quality and economic losses onfarms. Disruption to nutrient cycles can be brought aboutby atmospheric deposition of nitrogen, sulphur andsometimes metals to soils – through effects includingacidification, denitrification, inhibition of fixation – andby sewage, industrial and agricultural effluents in aquaticsystems. It is of considerable concern in Europe.The widespread use of sewage sludge as an agriculturalfertiliser, though an effective way of recycling nutrientsremoved from soils by agriculture, has resulted incontamination of soils by heavy metals (for example zinc,copper, cadmium), which inhibit nitrogen-fixing bacteria.Changes in biodiversity of natural ecosystems broughtabout by land-use change, climate change or pollutionalter the ability of ecosystems to retain nutrient stores,resulting in release of nutrients to other ecosystems withpotentially damaging consequences.Research into the ability of soil organisms to resistanthropogenic pollution is urgent as, despite aconsiderable volume of European legislation, aciddeposition and eutrophication persist in much of the EUenvironment with the potential for accumulating damageto essential nutrient cyclesA3 Water cyclingUrbanisation, climate change and intensive agriculturehave placed Europe’s water resources under considerablepressure. The services provided by the environment indistributing, purifying and controlling water are becomingincreasingly important. Natural processes play key roles:vegetation is a major factor in controlling flows, and soilmicro-organisms are important in purification. However,the role of species diversity is not clear as many of theprocesses can be performed by a wide variety of species.There appears therefore to be considerable scope forspecies to substitute for each other and biodiversity playsonly a moderate role.The water cycle is an important process in the overallmanagement of water. Humans have made massivechanges in water cycles through drainage, dams,structural changes to rivers and water abstraction. Runoffhas become more rapid owing to changes in landscapes,including deforestation, land drainage and urbanisation.Many of those impacts are likely to be amplified throughclimate change, which will result in different patternsof water movement both spatially and temporally,including a greater frequency of extreme events (storms,droughts, etc.) and long-term trends in precipitation andevaporation. Both vegetation and soil organisms haveprofound impacts on water movements and the extent ofbiodiversity is likely to be important. Changes in speciescomposition can affect the balance between water usedby plants (‘green water’) and water flowing through riversand other channels (‘blue water’), and native flora maybe more efficient at retaining water than exotic species.A key control on the water cycle is the ease with whichwater penetrates soil. Where penetration is low becauseof compaction or development of surface crusts, runoff isincreased, which alters the blue:green balance. The mainproblems in Europe arise in the south because of deficitof water and in some central European areas which arefrequently flooded.A4 Soil formationSoil formation is a continuous process in all terrestrialecosystems, but is particularly important and active inthe early stages after land surfaces are exposed. It isa highly important ecosystem service in Europe. Soilformation is fundamental to soil fertility, especially whereprocesses leading to soil destruction or degradation(erosion, pollution) are active. Soil biodiversity is a majorfactor in soil formation. Loss of soil biota may reduce soilformation rate with damaging consequences. Intensiveagriculture can also reduce soil quality in other ways, forexample by removal of organic residues so that organiccarbon incorporation into soil is less than the rate ofdecomposition, leading to reduced soil carbon, withnutritional and structural consequences for soil. Therewill be particular concerns on soils that are subject tointense erosion, by wind or water. Northern Europeanecosystems are still in the early stages of recovery fromglaciation and consequently soils are often resilient tointensive agricultural use (Newman 1997). Much of theMediterranean region, however, has older soils with lowerresilience that have suffered severe damage and are oftenbadly eroded (Poesen & Hooke 1997). In alpine areas,12 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

high rates of erosion may be countered by high rates ofsoil development.There is, then, a contrast between northern Europewhose young soils are relatively resistant to intensiveagriculture and the Mediterranean region where therehas been considerable damage and erosion. Biodiversityof soil organisms plays a major part in creating soil andmaintaining soil function.B Regulating servicesThese are benefits obtained from the regulation ofecosystem processes.B1 Climate regulationClimate regulation refers to the role of ecosystemsin managing levels of climate forcing gases in theatmosphere. Current climate change is largely drivenby increases in the concentrations of trace gases in theatmosphere, principally as a result of changes in land useand rapidly rising combustion of fossil fuels. The majorgreenhouse gas (CO 2 ) is absorbed directly by water andindirectly by vegetation, leading to storage in biomassand in soils, ensuring the regulation of climate. Othergreenhouse gases, notably methane (CH 4 ) and nitrousoxide (N 2 O) are also regulated by soil microbes. Theinterplay between biodiversity and climate regulation ispoorly understood. The global carbon cycle is stronglybuffered, in that much of the CO 2 discharged by humanactivities into the atmosphere is absorbed by oceans andterrestrial ecosystems (Janzen 2004).Globally and on a European scale, climate regulation isone of the most important ecosystem services. Europeanecosystems play a major role; it has been calculated(see Annex 1 B1) that Europe’s terrestrial ecosystemsrepresent a net carbon sink of some 7–12% of the 1995anthropogenic emissions of carbon. Peat soils contain thelargest single store of carbon, and Europe has large areasin its boreal and cool temperate zones.The problem we face is that the rate of emissions exceedsthe capacity in oceans and terrestrial ecosystems forbuffering, and the loss or damage to ecosystem functionthrough the indirect effects of human activities is reducingthis capacity still further. Strategies will have to beadjusted to manage areas with high carbon sequesteringpotential. The most promising measures include: higherorganic matter inputs on arable land, the introductionof perennials (grasses, trees) on arable set-aside landfor conservation or biofuel purposes, the expansion oforganic or low-input farming systems, raising of watertables in farmed peatland, and the introduction of zero orconservation tillage. In Europe there are strong regionalvariations in trace gas emissions and absorption. Thesesuggest that soils across Europe vary in the contributionthey make to climate regulation services. For instance, peatsoils have especially high carbon contents, and Europecontains extensive areas of peat containing large quantitiesof carbon. Biodiversity of low-input ecosystems facilitatesprimary production and thus carbon sequestration.Given the importance of carbon storage, it is essentialthat the key ecosystems, in particular the peat soils,continue to function well. Knowledge about theirperformance and the mechanisms that underlie carbonsequestration and storage is therefore crucial. However,research is needed on the contribution of biodiversity toclimate regulation, a significant problem given that soilbiodiversity is under threat from many soil managementpractices. The current evidence suggests that biodiversityhas a moderate impact in climate regulation.B2 Disease and pest regulationPests and diseases are regulated in ecosystems throughthe actions of predators and parasites as well as bythe defence mechanisms of their prey. The servicesof regulation are expected to be more in demand infuture as climate change brings new pests and increasessusceptibility of species to parasites and predators.Disease regulation is therefore related to the control of theprevalence of pests and diseases of crops and livestock,but also of human disease vectors and disease. Majoroutbreaks of both human and wildlife (animal and plant)diseases are usually caused by the introduction of a newpathogen. Management of diseases can involve severalapproaches: control of diseased hosts, replacement ofsusceptible by resistant hosts; ecosystem management toreduce spread of the disease organism; biological controlof pathogens; and chemical control of pathogens. Someecosystems may be better able to resist invasion by novelpathogens than others, possibly because of factors suchas the structure and complexity of ecosystem.The role of biodiversity in disease regulation may beimportant. There is evidence that the spread of pathogensis less rapid in more biodiverse ecosystems. There isalso a consensus that a diverse soil community will helpprevent loss of crops due to soil-borne pests and diseases(Wall and Virginia 2000). Higher trophic levels in soilcommunities can play a role in suppressing plant parasitesand affecting nutrient dynamics by modifying abundanceof intermediate consumers (Sanchez-Moreno and Ferris2006). In many managed systems, control of plant pestscan be provided by generalist and specialist predatorsand parasitoids (Zhang et al. 2007; Naylor and Ehrlich1997). There is a need for the development of Europeanapplications of biological control, exploiting the propertiesof pest regulation in biodiverse ecosystems.B3 + C2 Water regulation and purificationThe water regulation and purification service refers tothe maintenance of water quality, including theEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 13

management of impurities and organic waste and thedirect supply of clean water for human and animalconsumption. Soil state and vegetation both act as keyregulators of the water flow and storage. Changingland use (forest cover, use of drainage) is a majorfactor, as is changing climate – with consequenthigh-intensity rainfall events and more seasonalityin rainfall distribution. Although vegetation is a majordeterminant of water flows and quality, and microorganismsplay an important role in the quality ofgroundwater, the relationship of water regulation andpurification to biodiversity is poorly understood. Inlowland Europe, there are several factors that impingeon water regulation and purification, including use offloodplains, river engineering and increasing urbanisationleading to higher levels of run-off and contaminationof water. Increasing land-use intensity and replacementof biodiverse natural and semi-natural ecosystems byintensively managed lands and urban areas have resultedin increased runoff rates, especially in mountainousregions. Increasingly, freshwater supplies are a problem inthe Mediterranean region and in such densely populatedareas as southeast England. A more coherent approachto the managed recharge of groundwater, with controlson groundwater extraction rates to protect surfaceecosystems would be a valuable enhancement to theWater Framework Directive.B4 Protection from hazardsThis is a regulating service reducing of the impactsof natural forces on human settlements and themanaged environment. It is highly valued in Europe.Many hazards arising from human interaction withthe natural environment in Europe are sensitive toenvironmental change, including flash floods due toextreme rainfall events on heavily managed ecosystemsthat cannot retain rainwater; landslides and avalancheson deforested slopes; storm surges due to sea-levelrise and the increasing use of hard coastal margins;air pollution due to intensive use of fossil fuelscombined with extreme summer temperatures; firescaused by prolonged drought, with or without humanintervention.Ecosystem integrity is important in providing protectionfrom these hazards, but less so to geological hazards,localised to a few vulnerable areas, such as volcaniceruptions and earthquakes. In alpine regions, vegetationdiversity is related to ability to reduce the risk ofavalanches (Quetier et al. 2007). Soil biodiversity mayplay a role in flood and erosion control through affectingthe surface roughness and porosity (Lavelle et al. 2006),and increasing tree diversity is believed to enhance theprotection value against rockfall (see, for example, Dorrenet al. 2004). Increased urbanisation and more intensiveuse of land for production may reduce the ability ofecosystems to mitigate extreme events.Biodiversity, then, seems to play a relatively small part,although vegetation itself is very important, for examplein preventing avalanches in mountain areas or protectinglow-lying coastlines. The existence of a healthy soilcommunity may control infiltration rate of water afterheavy rain, modifying storm flows. There will therefore bean indirect impact of biodiversity even in this case.Environmental quality regulationEnvironmental quality regulation is a new category,not in the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. Inaddition to services like water purification mentionedabove, ecosystems contribute to several environmentalregulation services of importance for human well-beingand health. Examples include the role of vegetationand green areas in urban landscapes for air cleaning,where parks may reduce air pollution by up to 85%and significantly contribute to reduction of noise.For cities, particularly in southern Europe around theMediterranean, vegetation and green areas may play avery important role in mitigating the urban heat islandeffect, a considerable health issue in view of projectedclimate change. Urban development in Europe, just aselsewhere in the world, faces considerable challengeswhere efforts to reach some environmental goals, forexample increased transport and energy efficiencythrough increased infilling of open space with urbaninfrastructure, is not done through sacrificing all otherenvironmental qualities linked to those spaces.B5 Pollination servicesThe pollination service provided by ecosystems is the useof natural pollinators to ensure that crops are pollinated.The role of pollinators, such as bees, in maintaining cropproduction is well documented and of high importance,in Europe as elsewhere in the world. There is strongevidence that loss of pollinators reduces crop yield andthat the availability of a diverse pool of pollinators tendsto lead to greater yields.Habitat destruction and deterioration, with increaseduse of pesticides, has decreased abundance anddiversity of many insect pollinators, leading to crop losswith severe economic consequences. The pressureson pollinators may result, apart from decreased cropproduction, in reduced fecundity of plants, including rareand endangered wild species. Reduction of landscapediversity and increase of land-use intensity may lead to areduction of pollination service in agricultural landscapes(Tscharntke et al. 2005; Öckinger & Smith 2007). Inparticular, the loss of natural and semi-natural habitatcan impact upon agricultural crop production throughreduced pollination services provided by native insectssuch as bees (Ricketts et al. 2008). There is increasingevidence that diversity of pollinators, not just abundance,may influence the quality of pollination service (Hoehn14 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

et al. 2008). Maintenance of biodiverse landscapes, aswell as protecting pollinators by reducing the level of theuse of agrichemicals (including pesticides) is an importantmeans for sustaining pollinator service in Europe.The concern at a European level is that change in landuse, in particular urbanisation and intensive agriculture,has decreased pollination services through the loss ofpollinator species. However, we do not fully understandthe causes behind recent declines in pollinators.C Provisioning ServicesThese are the benefits obtained from the supply of foodand other resources from ecosystems.C1 Provision of foodAmong provisioning services, the delivery andmaintenance of the food chain on which humansocieties depend is of great importance. Heywood (1999)estimates that well over 6000 species of plants are knownto have been cultivated at some time or another, butabout 30 crop species provide 95% of the world’s foodenergy (Williams and Haq 2002). Intensive agriculture,as currently practised in Europe, is centred around cropmonoculture, with minimisation of associated species.These systems offer high yields of single products, butdepend on high rates of use of fertilisers and pesticides,raising questions about sustainability, both economicallyand environmentally. The world may therefore be overdependenton a few plant species: introducing a broaderrange of species into agriculture might contributesignificantly to improved health and nutrition, livelihoods,household food security and ecological sustainability(Jaenicke and Höschle-Zeledon 2006). Maintenanceof high productivity over time in monocultures almostinvariably requires heavy subsidies of chemicals, energyand capital, and these are unlikely to be sustainable inthe face of disturbance, disease, soil erosion, overuse ofnatural capital (for example water) and trade-offs withother ecosystem services (Hooper et al. 2005). Diversitymay become increasingly important as a managementgoal, from economic and ecological perspectives, forproviding a broader array of ecosystem services.C2 Water regulation and purificationSee paragraph B3.C3 Energy resourcesEnergy – the supply of plants for fuels – represents animportant provisioning service as well. There is currentlystrong policy direction to increase the proportion ofenergy derived from renewable sources, of whichbiological materials are a major part. At present, this isbeing achieved partly by the cultivation of biomass crops,which are burned as fuels in conventional power stations,and partly by diversion of materials otherwise useableas food for people. The expectation is that these ‘firstgeneration’ fuels will be displaced – at least for ethanolproduction – by a second generation of non-foodmaterials. All of these biofuel production systems presentserious sustainability issues. There are already establisheddamaging impacts on food production, availability andprices worldwide. In addition, full analyses of the carbonfluxes show that the carbon mitigation benefits are muchsmaller than anticipated because of losses of carbon fromnewly cultivated soils; destruction of vegetation whennew land is brought under the plough; losses of othergreenhouse gases such as nitrous oxide from nitrogenfertilisedbiofuel production systems; and transportand manufacturing emissions. Biodiversity of the cropwill probably play a small direct role in most biofuelproduction systems, although all land-based biofuelproduction will rely on the supporting and regulatingservices, for which biodiversity is important. Land-basedbiofuel production systems have the potential to beespecially damaging to conservation of biodiversitybecause their introduction on a large scale will inevitablylead both to more intensive land use and to theconversion of currently uncultivated land to production.There is, however, the potential of economic incentivesfor that currently degraded land with little generation ofany services being restored to produce biofuel. With thecorrect regulations and institutions, these areas couldsimultaneously generate a suite of other services as well.C4 Provision of fibresThe provision of fibre has historically been a highlyimportant ecosystem service to Europe. Most textilesconsumed in the EU are now produced and manufacturedabroad. However, the pulp and paper industry hasa significant presence in Europe, representing thedominating production of plant fibres in Europe, withmost raw pulp being produced from highly managedmonocultures of fast-growing pine and eucalypts. Treesplanted for pulp are grown at high densities with limitedscope for biodiversity. Such large-scale monoculturesare vulnerable to runaway pathogen attack (Mock et al.2007). Biodiverse cropping systems may prove of valuefor ensuring robust future productivity. Wool productionis generally a low-intensity activity on semi-managedpasture lands with the potential to support considerablebiodiversity.C5 Biochemical resourcesEcosystems provide biochemicals – materials derivedfrom nature as feedstocks in transformation tomedicines – but also other chemicals of high valuesuch as metabolites, pharmaceuticals, nutraceuticals,crop protection chemicals, cosmetics and other naturalproducts for industrial use. A report from the USEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 15

Environmental Protection Agency (2007) concludesthat economically competitive products (comparedwith oil-derived products) are within reach, such as forcelluloses, proteins, polylactides, plant oil-based plasticsand polyhydroxyalkanoates. The high-value products maymake use of biomass economically viable, which couldbecome a significant land-use issue. Biodiversity is thefundamental resource for bioprospecting (Beattie et al.2005) but it is rarely possible to predict which species orecosystem will become an important source. Harvestingfor biochemicals, however, might itself have a negativeimpact on biodiversity if over-harvesting removes a highproportion of the species.C6 Genetic resourcesGenetic resource provision, for example provision ofgenes and genetic material for animal and plant breedingand for biotechnology, is a function of the current levelof biodiversity. EU extinction rates remain low; however,there may be problems in poorly studied systems (forexample soils, marine environments). Genebanks arebetter developed in the EU than elsewhere but havelimited capacity to conserve the range of genetic diversitywithin populations. There are now numerous initiatives tocollect, conserve, study and manage genetic resourcesin situ (for example growing crops) and ex situ (forexample seed and DNA banks) worldwide, including mostEU countries. New techniques, using molecular markers,are providing new precision in characterising biodiversity(Fears 2007).Of these provision services, then, only that for foodappears to be critical for Europe. The availability ofalternative sources from outside Europe, where there isgreater general diversity and higher productivity, makesprovisioning of fibre, fuel, biochemicals and geneticmaterial from European sources, though important, lesscritical. Nevertheless, relying on imported materials formany of these provisions may not be sustainable, eithereconomically or environmentally. Biodiversity appears tobe a critically important factor in biochemicals and geneticresources. Otherwise the role of biodiversity is less herethan in other services.D Cultural servicesThese are best considered as falling into two main groups:(1) spiritual, religious, aesthetic, inspirational and senseof place;(2) recreation, ecotourism, cultural heritage andeducational.All the services within these groups have a large elementof non-use value, especially those in the first group towhich economic value is hard to apply. Those in thesecond group are more amenable to traditional valuationapproaches. Biodiversity plays an important role infostering a sense of place in all European societies andthus may have considerable intrinsic cultural value.Evidence for the importance of these services to citizensof the EU can be found in the scale of membership ofconservation-oriented organisations. In the UK, forexample, the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds hasa membership of over one million and an annual incomeof over £50 million. Cultural services based on biodiversityare most strongly associated with less intensivelymanaged areas, where semi-natural biotopes dominate.These large areas may provide both tranquil environmentsand a sense of wilderness. Low-input agricultural systemsare also likely to support cultural services, with manylocal traditions based on the management of land andits associated biological resources. Policy (includingagricultural and forestry policies) needs to be aimed atdeveloping sustainable land-use practices across the EU,to deliver cultural, provisioning and regulatory serviceseffectively and with minimal cost. Maintenance of diverseecosystems for cultural reasons can allow provisionof a wide range of other services without economicintervention.In Europe, then, cultural services are considered to be ofcritical importance because of the high value many ofEurope’s people place on the existence and opportunityto enjoy landscapes and open spaces with their flora andfauna. Although the intrinsic biodiversity of natural spacein Europe varies greatly, there is evidence that people value‘pristine’ environments and regard the impoverishment oflandscape, flora and fauna as negative factors, impactingheavily on their enjoyment of nature. The economic valueof ecosystems for tourism and recreation often exceedstheir value for provisioning services.3.3 The significance of ecosystem servicesin a European contextTable 1 shows the results of the assessment of importanceof each particular service relative to its overall globalimportance. For example, the supporting service ofwater purification in ecosystems has a high importancefor Europe, because of the heavy pressure on waterfrom a relatively densely populated region, whereasthe provisioning service of genetic resources is of lowimportance compared with its overall global importancebecause there is so much more genetic resource in otherparts of the world.3.4 The role of European biodiversity inmaintaining ecosystem servicesInformation on the role of biodiversity in the continuingflow of these services, though incomplete, suggests thatthere are ecosystem services of high value in Europe thatcritically depend on biodiversity. Table 2 summarises the16 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

Table 1 Expert opinion of the importance to the EU of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment ecosystemservicesIn this analysis, we have added a new service of environmental quality in the Provisioning category, and we havecombined water provision and regulation into a single regulating service.CategoryType (MillenniumEcosystemAssessment)EU ratingSupporting Soil formation Locally high: soil formation is most valuable where loss rates of soil by erosion are high orwhere soils are very young (hundreds of years) and have not yet matured to the point wherethey can sustain high productivity. This service is therefore most important in mountainareas.Nutrient cycling High: the cycling of nutrients in soils and waters is essential for the maintenance ofproductivity and has a high value throughout.Primary productionWater cyclingHigh: production underlies all biological processes.Locally high: critically important in arid regions of southern Europe.Regulating Climate regulation Locally high: northern European peat soils have global significance as carbon stores.Disease regulation Uncertain: emerging diseases of increasing importance but role played by ecosystems inregulating these is unclear.WaterHigh: the regulating and provisioning services for water are combined here. Floodingand drought becoming increasingly important as rainfall patterns and land-use change;availability of clean water especially significant in heavily urbanised and industrialised areas.PollinationMedium: hard to replace in both natural and agricultural ecosystems.Provisioning FoodHigh: food production a key service in the EU and likely to become more so as global foodprices rise.Fresh waterCovered under regulating services.FuelMedium: traditional uses (fuel wood) only locally significant in EU, but rapidly growingemphasis on biofuels may lead this to be a major service.FibreMedium: important industry in boreal regions; likely to increase in significance in other areas.BiochemicalsLow: currently of marginal importance, but could gain significance within novel agriculturalsystems, providing added value to biomass crops for fuel.Genetic resources Low: current valuation low, but likely to increase.Environmental quality High: provision of goods such as clean air and a safe and peaceful environment alreadyvalued, for example in property values.Cultural Spiritual /religious/aesthetic/inspirational /sense of placeValues of high importance to many EU citizens but very hard to quantify economic value(see section 4.3); however, extensive membership of wildlife and conservation bodiesindicates significance.Recreation/ecotourism/cultural /heritage/educationalHigh: increasingly these are major economic values in rural areas, especially whereagricultural value has declined.Table 2 Expert opinion of the role of biodiversity in maintaining current ecosystem services in EuropeIncreasing role of biodiversity ➞Increasing importance ofecosystem service ➞A3: Water cycling A1: Primary productionA4: Soil formation A2: Nutrient cyclingB1: Climate regulation B5: PollinationB3/C2: Water regulation and provisionD2: Cultural services: recreationB4: Protection from hazardC1: Food provisionC7: Environmental qualityC3: Energy provision B2: Disease regulationC4: Fibre production C5: Biochemicals provisionD1: Cultural services: spiritual C6: Genetic resourcesEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 17

eview of expert opinion on this factor. In this part of thereview, Working Group members and other reviewersrated each of the Millennium Ecosystem Assessmentecosystem services according to their importance in aEuropean context and the importance of biodiversityin their maintenance (low, medium or high). Theseratings form the basis of the assessment in Table 2. Theecosystem services that are of critical importance inEurope (high European importance) have been separatedinto the upper quadrants, and those for which biodiversityis especially important have been identified and placedin the top right-hand quadrant. The lower quadrantscontain those ecosystem services and biodiversitycontributions rated medium and low. In Europe it seemsthat most of the supporting services, including primaryproduction, nutrient cycling and soil formation, arecrucially important and depend critically on biodiversity.Pollination stands out as a crucial regulation servicedepending critically on biodiversity whereas hazardprotection, although critical in Europe, depends less onbiodiversity.18 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

4 Managing ecosystem services in Europe4.1 How ecosystems respond to changeAll ecosystems experience environmental change anddisturbance, varying in scale and impact. Long-termrecords of ecological history obtained from peats andlake sediments show that change is a normal feature ofecosystems, but also that they have the ability to maintainthemselves in the face of change. In the extensiveliterature on the phenomenon of ecological succession,the successive appearance of distinct communities ofplants and animals on a site after disturbance, there is adistinction between primary and secondary succession.Primary succession occurs on bare or recently uncoveredsurfaces such as muds, glacial moraines and river gravels.Secondary succession is the replacement of an existingcommunity after removal of all or part of the vegetation.The major difference between the two processes is thatsoil has to be formed in primary succession and theprocess may take thousands of years, although the earlystages can be quite rapid. Secondary succession is oftenexemplified by the return of woodland to abandonedagricultural fields, a process of substantial interest nowthat this is a policy objective in many parts of Europe; thesame process occurs in miniature in a forest every timea tree dies. A critical control on the rate of communityrecovery in secondary succession is the ability of thespecies to survive or disperse back into the disturbed area.If the disturbance is on a very large scale, recovery of theecosystem can be slow.The concept of succession implies that communitiesrecover in predictable ways after disturbance. However,sometimes the species previously found on a site fail tore-colonise, for a variety of reasons. If the disturbance ison a very large scale, in space or time, the species mayhave gone extinct in the area and cannot disperse backin; sometimes, where species are very long-lived suchas trees, the local environment may have changed somuch that they are no longer able to reproduce or growfrom seed. Environmental changes that can bring aboutsuch a shift in tolerance include those of the physicalenvironment, such as climate change, and of the bioticenvironment, such as an invasive species or a parasite.If the environmental change is sufficiently severe, it mayshift the community to a new stable state, as happenedin the well-documented example of the Newfoundlandcod fishery, where the serious disturbance of gross andsustained over-fishing drove the population below a levelfrom which it has been unable to recover.Sustaining desirable states of an ecosystem in the faceof multiple or repeated perturbations therefore requiresthat functional groups of species remain available(Lundberg and Moberg 2003). Consequently, highlevels of biodiversity in an ecosystem can be viewedas an insurance against major disturbance and thelikelihood that the community will fail to recover toits original state, simply by increasing the chance thatkey species will survive or be present. This insuranceaspect of biodiversity has been discussed principally inthe context of productivity and in simple equilibriumsystems (see, for example, Tilman and Downing 1994;Ives and Hughes 2002; Loreau et al.2002). However,the insurance metaphor can help us understand howto sustain ecosystem capacity to cope with and adaptto change, even in more complex ecosystems that havenumerous possible stable states and in human-dominatedenvironments (Folke et al. 1996; Norberg et al. 2001;Luck et al. 2003). In biodiverse ecosystems, species withinfunctional groups will show a variety of responses toenvironmental change, and this diversity of response maybe critical to ecosystem resilience. However, high speciesdiversity does not necessarily entail high ecosystemresilience or vice versa, and species-rich areas may also behighly vulnerable to environmental change.The large challenge that remains for ecology is to predictthe likely changes in ecosystems after disturbance orenvironmental change. One approach is to build modelsbased on large-scale ecological patterns, such as therelationship between the number of species and thearea being studied, or among the relative abundancesof common and rare species in a community. It may thenbe possible to determine whether fragmentation ofhabitats, or reduced supply of energy and matter, result inpredictable changes on whole ecosystems as a functionof their size, and whether losses of ecosystem services aretherefore predictable from the way in which an ecosystemresponds to change (Southwood et al. 2006).Predicting ecosystem response to environmental changerequires modelling. Schröter et al. (2005) used a rangeof models and situations of climate and land-use changeto conduct a Europe-wide assessment of the likelyimpact of global change on the supply of ecosystemservices. Large changes in climate and land use werepredicted to result in large changes in the supply ofecosystem services. Although some of these trends maybe thought of as positive (increases in forest area andproductivity) or offer opportunities (surplus land foragricultural extensification), many induced changes haveincreased vulnerability as a result of a decreasing supplyof ecosystem services (declining soil fertility and greenwater, increasing risk of forest fires). Mediterranean andmountain regions proved particularly vulnerable.Modelling tools allow improved regional estimates,and are an increasingly reliable source for estimatesof ecosystem response to environmental change. As asignificant example of an estimate of European ecosystemEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 19

esponse, climate change combined with the effects ofincreased atmospheric CO 2 concentrations on vegetationgrowth were shown to produce changes in the cyclingof carbon in terrestrial ecosystems (Morales et al. 2007).Impacts were predicted to vary across Europe, showingthat regional-scale studies are needed.There are good prospects for reliably modelling ecosystemresponses to environmental change at local or regionalscales. Current strategies of habitat management andland use in Europe will need to take into account thevulnerability of ecosystems to environmental change.If we are to ensure the delivery of multiple ecosystemservices, ecosystem management strategies need bebased on effective monitoring of environmental changeand trends in biodiversity.4.2 Threats to biodiversity, and consequencesfor ecosystem services in the EuropeanUnionThe landscapes of Europe have altered substantiallyin the past 60 years, under the twin pressures of theintensification of agriculture and urbanisation. Manytraditional land-use systems have been lost or diminished,as land uses have polarised either towards extensificationand even re-wilding on the one hand, or intensification onthe other (Pleininger et al. 2006). Some of these pressureshave been simply economic, but there has also been alarge policy element, especially in agriculture, whereprice support has driven farm practices. There has beena general lack of coherence of policies; for example, setasidewas designed to address economic issues of farmingsupport but was not optimised to address biodiversityissues, despite its obvious potential to do so.Intensive agriculture threatens delivery of many ecosystemservices, especially in intensively used agricultural areas inEuropean lowlands (for example the Netherlands, parts ofsouthern England and northern France) and in large-scaleirrigation systems (for example in Greece). The amountof carbon stored as soil organic matter has declinedin most intensive arable soils; improved managementpractices that take carbon sequestration as a goal coulddouble the amount stored, with demonstrable impactson carbon emission targets. Many other examples havebeen documented, including threats to pollinators leadingto a decline in the service of pollination, essential formany crops and for all natural ecosystems; increased pestproblems due to the more rapid spread of pathogensthrough ecosystems with low biodiversity; and the impactof atmospheric nitrogen deposition (derived from fossilfuels and excessive use of fertilisers and other intensiveagricultural practices) on semi-natural ecosystemsresulting in declines in biodiversity and poorer waterquality. The evidence for the effects of nitrogen depositionis clear: the long-running (more than 150 years) ParkGrass experiment at Rothamsted Experimental Station(now known as Rothamsted Research) in Hertfordshire,UK, shows that a species-rich grassland can be convertedto a monoculture of a single grass by sustained additionof high levels of ammonium nitrogen; and the almostcomplete loss of heathland from the Netherlands hasbeen ascribed to atmospheric nitrogen deposition.The direct outcome of these pressures on biodiversityis seen in the impact on farmland species. Preliminaryindicators based on birds, butterflies and plants suggesta decline of species populations in nearly all habitats inEurope. The largest declines are observed in farmlands,where species populations declined by an average of23% between 1970 and 2000 (de Heer et al. 2005).Large declines in agricultural landscapes of populationsof pollinating insects, such as bees and butterflies, andbirds, which disperse seeds and control pests, may haveconsequences not only on agricultural production butalso on maintaining species diversity in natural and seminaturalhabitats across Europe.Landscapes in Europe have also changed throughurbanisation. In some regions, such as central Belgium, theeffect is to produce a dichotomy between highly urbanisedand protected areas (Figure 1). Urban environments havemany distinctive features, the most prominent of whichis their extreme heterogeneity: there are patches whereecosystem service delivery is minimal, for example whereland surfaces are covered with concrete or tarmac, andothers where biodiversity may be very high, as in somegardens and parks. A consequence of this heterogeneity isthe fragmentation of habitats, which favours species thatare effective dispersers but militates against others. Thispronounced selection leads to distinctive communities,often dominated by alien species, which by definition aregood at dispersing or being dispersed.4.3 Methods of valuing biodiversity andecosystem servicesMany of these threats to ecosystem services arisebecause of the way in which different land uses areFigure 1 Central Belgium is composed principallyof highly urbanised areas and areas of highconservation value (Natura 2000 areas).Source: European Environment Agency basedon Corine land cover 2000 and Natura 2000.20 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

valued. The immediate value taken into account indecisions is typically expressed in terms of the marketprice of the land to a developer or the value of a cropit will produce. These approaches ignore the value ofthe ecosystem services provided by the land, which willbe placed in jeopardy by the proposed development.The valuation of ecosystem services offers the potentialto place a value on the services forfeited by thedevelopment to balance the value of the developmentitself in assessments of costs and benefits of alternatives.Approaches of this kind have been used widely inproject evaluation both of alternative land use and forconservation investments.The EU has taken as active role in advancing valuationsthrough the recent TEEB (The Economics of EcosystemServices and Biodiversity) initiative. The report of thefirst phase of the work (European Communities 2008)highlights the importance of valuation of ecosystemsservices and the biodiversity that underpins them, andgives powerful global examples. It concludes that thereare major threats to ecosystem services from the currenthigh rate of loss of biodiversity but that there is anemerging range of policy instruments, based on valuingecosystems services, that provides options for managingthem in future.At the most basic level, the services provided by anecosystem at risk can form a powerful part of thenarrative in project assessment. Simply by settingdown the nature of the services and their potentialscale it is possible to alter the terms of assessment sothat the ‘development gain’ is not the only factor forconsideration. In more ambitious assessments, it hasproved possible to attach an actual economic value to theecosystem services or to provide a ranking of alternativesto guide decisions.4.3.1 Quantitative methodsIn recent years there has been considerable progress inattaching monetary value to ecosystem services and, incertain cases, to the biodiversity underpinning them.Ecosystems have value in terms of their use, for examplefor the production of food or management of floodrisk. However, they also have a set of non-use valuesassociated, for example, with the cultural and aestheticsignificance they have. It has proved possible to captureboth main kinds of value through a range of instruments.The instruments fall broadly into three main classes, asfollows.1. Revealed preference methods based on evidenceof current values as shown, for example, in themarket price of products, the impact of services onproductivity or the costs associated with recreationaluse of landscape.2. Cost-based methods based on costs such asthose of replacing an ecosystem service with othermeans (hard flood defence as a substitute for coastalwetlands, for example) or of damage costs avoided(the costs of repair to property exposed to erosion byloss of soil function, for example).3. Stated preference methods that assess the amountpeople say they would be prepared to pay forecosystem services, once these are fully explained.Each method has strengths and weaknesses but statedpreference methods, especially in the form of contingentvaluation, have been most widely used in dealing with thereal case of multiple services from an ecosystem. This biasreflects both an ability to handle multiple services betterthan the more objective methods that tend to focus onsingle attributes (for example food production or flooddefence) and the poor availability of the economic datathat those methods require.Contingent valuation has proved flexible and is bothwidely accepted and widely researched. It has producedcredible results, reflecting real public/communityopinions about willingness to pay. Although thereremain challenges and it has proved difficult to persuadesome policy-makers of the results, contingent valuationremains the most effective means at present of attributingmonetary values to complex ecosystems deliveringmultiple services.Despite the simplicity and effectiveness of contingentvaluation, there is much current interest in thedevelopment of markets for ecosystem services, asexemplified by carbon trading schemes. A new tool thatis being actively developed is payment for ecosystemservices (PES). Wunder (2005) defines a payment for anecosystem service as a voluntary transaction where a welldefinedecosystem service is bought by at least one buyerfrom at least one supplier, but only if the supplier securesthe provision of the service. The transaction should bevoluntary and the payment should be conditional on theservice being delivered. Paying for an ecosystem service isnot necessarily the same as trading nature on a market:markets may play a role, but because many ecosystemservices are public goods, we cannot rely on marketsalone. Actions by governments and intergovernmentalorganisations are also needed.The way in which PES operates depends on the numbersthat benefit from the service and the scale of activity.We can distinguish cases where the ecosystem servicebenefits a small group of agents from those where itbenefits a large and presumably more diverse group. Ifwe consider regulatory services that impact everybody,the ecosystem service resembles a public good. Anotheruseful distinction is between cases where service‘suppliers’ and ‘demanders’ are geographically locatedEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 21

close together, so the feedback is local, and those caseswhere they are not (see Table 3)There are numerous challenges to the implementationof PES. First, we often have a poor understanding ofthe ‘production function’ of ecosystem services andcannot easily estimate how a given managementintervention will translate into service outputs, even ifwe can value those outputs. Second, even successfulPES schemes may lead to their own demise becausethey trigger behavioural changes: for example, payingmoney to farmers for not growing crops may result inhigher prices of food crops, which in turn induce otherfarmers to convert new areas of habitat into agriculturalfields. Third, it is not always obvious who will pay for theecosystem services, because markets fail in the presenceof public goods. Within a nation’s borders, governmentcan play an important role: using taxes to pay for publicgoods is an excellent solution, and the governmentpurchases the ecosystem service from the supplier onbehalf of society at large. However, we lack internationalinstitutions to broker deals between suppliers ofecosystem services and the rest of the world, thoughsome non-governmental organisations play that role forspecific projects and the Global Environmental Facility(GEF), funded by all countries, is designed to deal withglobal conservation issues.4.3.2 Qualitative methods: multi-criteria analysisGenerally, economic valuation of biodiversity offers waysto compare tangible benefits and costs associated withecosystems (Pagiola et al. 2004), but ignores informationabout non-economic criteria (for example cultural values)that define biodiversity values. However, decision-makingprocesses require knowledge of all influencing factors(OECD 2004). Multi-criteria analysis is a structuredapproach for ranking alternative options that allow theattainment of defined objectives or the implementation ofpolicy goals. A wide range of qualitative impact categoriesand criteria are measured according to quantitativeanalysis, namely scoring, ranking and weighting. Theoutcomes of both monetary and non-monetary objectivesare compared and ranked. Hence multi-criteria analysisfacilitates the decision-making process while offering areasonable strategy selection in terms of critical criteria.The basis of all valuation methods, however, is anassessment of the nature and scale of the ecosystemservices themselves and, in cases where the viability ofTable 3 Classification of cases relevant for payment for ecosystem servicesFew demandersMany demanders(public good)Local feedbackPollination services: loss of insects means that cropsmay fail and hand-pollination may be required(cf. section 1.1). In Costa Rica’s coffee plantations,this service may be worth about $60,000 perfarm. Coffee plots close to forests have 20%higher yields thanks to more visiting insects.Farmers might therefore wish to pay the forestowner to offset any incentives that exist todestroy the forest. Hand pollination of fruittrees is now necessary in Maoxian County inSichuan, China (cf. section 1.1), imposing costson local farmers.Watershed management: a simple market solutioncannot apply where the service is a public goodand susceptible to free-riders exploiting it: ifnobody can be excluded from enjoying a service,it cannot be priced on a market and no-one willinvest to make it available. Such market failuredoes not invalidate PES but does require aninstitution that enables co-ordination. New YorkCity gets most of its drinking water from theCatskill Mountains watershed. Poor water qualityin the 1980s implied large costs for installing waterpurification plants ($5 billion up-front and $250million per annum). Alternatively, government couldinvest in watershed management and conservation,and pay farmers to limit pollution, at an initial costof about $250 million and recurring costs of$100 million each year. The savings on purificationplants can be viewed as a proxy for the valuation ofthe regulatory services provided by the watershed.International feedbackThe Panama Canal and regulatory services: afterdeforestation, sediments and nutrients flowing into thecanal caused clogging and eutrophication, necessitatingregular and costly interventions like dredging, while waterflows became more episodic. Reforesting the watershedwas the cheapest way to maintain the canal. Largecompanies that depend on the canal were willing to investin it by underwriting bonds to finance replanting of theforest with native tree species; the companies thenqualified for reduced insurance premiums. Here, economicsand conservation interests coincide: a profitable businessdeal yields large environmental benefits.Global carbon trading: when we want to reduce emissionsof greenhouse gases it does not matter whether we planttrees and fix carbon in India, or invest in new technologiesin the Netherlands – a tonne of carbon is a tonne of carbon.There is great scope for market instruments to lower thecosts of reducing emissions (invest where success is cheap),but progress in fixing carbon is slow and fragile because ofsignificant free-riding incentives.22 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

the ecosystem is placed at risk, the nature and scale ofthe consequent impacts on the provision of ecosystemservices. Where the ecosystem services are dependent onbiodiversity, loss of biodiversity can be valued in terms ofecosystem services foregone or reduced, provided thatthere is a robust description of the relationship betweenbiodiversity and ecosystem services. The quality of theunderlying science is therefore of great significance in allkinds of valuations.4.3.3 Putting valuation into practiceAn example of putting valuation into practice has beenprovided by the UK Department for Environment, Foodand Rural Affairs (Defra). Its appraisal of a range ofoptions for a Flood and Coastal Erosion Risk Management(FCERM) scheme includes specific estimates of theeconomic value of changes in ecosystem services under arange of options, using the ‘impact pathway approach’.This involves a series of steps, so that a policy change, theconsequent impacts on ecosystems, changes in ecosystemservices, impacts on human welfare and economic valueof changes in ecosystem services are considered in turn(Defra 2007, p. 22). In this analysis the steps were:1. establish the environmental baseline;2. identify and provide qualitative assessment of thepotential impacts of policy options on ecosystemservices;3. quantify the impacts of policy options on specificecosystem services;4. assess the effects on human welfare;5. value the changes in ecosystem services (Defra2007, p. 22).This approach ensures that key stakeholders in FCERMare broadly supportive of moves towards greater inclusionof economic value estimates in appraisals, despite theremaining uncertainty about the absolute value of theecosystem services, resulting from uncertainty aboutboth the physical changes in ecosystem services andthe appropriate monetary values to apply to these.The authors suggest that ‘practical appraisals needto compare the relative magnitude of changes in theprovision of ecosystem services across different options’and conclude that ‘this can be possible even with limitedavailability and precision of scientific and economicinformation. In most cases it should be possible to presenta robust assessment, with suitable sensitivity analysis,highlighting the key uncertainties and exploring theirimplications’ (Defra 2007, p. 49).The prime current example of PES, carbon trading, isdeveloping rapidly. In Europe, the EU Emissions TradingScheme (EU ETS) is in a second phase of development andnow accounts for about 65% of global carbon trading.Current allowance prices for carbon within the EU ETSshow some volatility but are currently (September 2008)around €22 (per tonne CO 2 equivalent). Volumes tradedaverage about 8.5 million tonnes per month.Voluntary offsets also contribute to global reductionsof greenhouse gas emissions. These are taken up ascompanies and individuals seeking to reduce their carbonfootprints, motivated by corporate social responsibility orby personal concern. The market in offsets is developingrapidly. Volumes transacted in 2007 were about65 million tonnes CO 2 equivalent, up from 25 milliontonnes in 2006.The costs of carbon offsets vary widely, reflecting thequality of the offset, with prices ranging from €2 to over€300. The average for 2007 was double the 2006 price,at about €6 (New Carbon Finance 2008).It seems, therefore, that the methods for valuingecosystem services and biodiversity are becomingaccepted and embedded in a wide range of policyinstruments. The results of valuation are also increasinglyrecognised and accepted in policy debates and inindividual decisions, on environmental impacts ofprojects of economic development, for example. Currentknowledge of ecosystem services and the processesbehind them gives a strong basis for valuation. However,it is clear that there is much further that can be doneto strengthen the underpinning science. Annex 1summarises some key areas for further work.4.4 Prioritising ecosystem services in landmanagement: weighing up alternativeland usesThe availability of biodiversity-related ecosystem servicesdepends on land use. In Europe, habitat managementis usually undertaken for economic or aesthetic/culturalreasons, the latter typically involving biodiversityconservation, focusing on species and/or habitats. Atthe EU level, conservation of endangered or otherwisevaluable natural habitats and plant and animal species isregulated by the Habitats Directive. Although evidenceis accumulating that not only biodiversity per se but alsothe continued provision of essential ecosystem servicesis vulnerable to land-use change, there has been onlyweak attention on the impact of land use on ecosystemservices. Alternative land uses maximising particularservices have rarely been discussed.In Europe, the status of ecosystems depends on thedominant land use. Natural ecosystems with spontaneousbiota develop in conditions without human interference,but are rare in Europe. Human activities such as timberharvesting in forests and grazing of traditional extensivegrasslands give rise to semi-natural ecosystems, with analtered structure. Cultivated and urban ecosystems areEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 23

characterised by the presence of cultivated or introducedspecies and large changes in ecosystem structure. Thesebroad types of ecosystem, as well as different dynamicstages within these broad types, differ greatly in theircapabilities to provide services.Global scenarios of changes in biodiversity for the year2100 identified that, for terrestrial ecosystems, land-usechange will probably have the largest effect, followedby climate change, nitrogen deposition, biotic exchangeand the direct effects of elevated carbon dioxideconcentration in the atmosphere (Sala et al. 2000). Thetype and intensity of land use in Europe have changeddramatically during recent centuries (Poschlod et al.2005). Historical floras show that the highest diversityoccurred around 1850, after which changes in land usehave caused a decrease in biodiversity. Major land usechanges have included: the intensification of arable fieldfarming from about 1840 owing to the foundation ofagricultural chemistry; the abandonment of low-intensitygrazing systems and the change to livestock housing; thedrainage of wetlands, their amelioration for agriculturalpurposes and for extracting fuel; and afforestation of thelowlands with coniferous, often non-indigenous trees(Poschold and WallisDeVries 2002). During the latter partof the twentieth century, the ‘period of the economicmiracle’, the decreasing price of energy caused anotherdrastic change. First, the extent of urban and intensivelycultivated land increased tremendously. Second, cheapimports of agricultural products from more distant regionscaused further decrease of extensive agriculture: thesehabitats were either converted into more intensively usedagricultural systems, were afforested or abandoned.During recent decades, the proportions of forests andurban areas have increased whereas those of arable landand permanent crops have decreased in Europe. At thesame time, there has been an increase in the intensity ofland use, both in forests, where naturally regeneratedold stands are being replaced by conifer plantations,and arable land with increasing use of fertilisers andpesticides. European statistics on the area of semi-naturalgrasslands and undrained wetlands are not available, butnational surveys report a strong decrease in their area.There have been numerous attempts to find optimalhabitat management strategies for particular broadecosystem types, aiming to maintain biodiversity. Innatural ecosystems such as forests, minimal interventionis usually the best habitat management strategy, althoughdifferent types of sustainable forestry may work as well(Kuuluvainen 2002). In natural aquatic ecosystems,the management of nutrient status of ecosystems is ofprimary importance (Baattrup-Pedersen et al. 2002),whereas regulation of hydrology is an important issuewhen managing wetland ecosystems. Optimal habitatmanagement in agricultural ecosystems (Rounsevell et al.2006) requires the regulation of land-use intensity. Therehas been much attention on semi-natural grasslands:optimal grazing and mowing regimes, techniques ofcutting shrubs and burning, etc. have been discussed(Poschlod and WallisDeVries 2002). However, in allthese cases the linkage to delivery of ecosystem serviceshas been weak.At the same time, there is accumulating evidence ofthe impact of land-use type and intensity on ecosystemservices. For instance, the significance of Europeansemi-natural grasslands as a source of clean andsustainably produced fodder has been recently recognised(Bullock et al. 2007). Those grasslands are extremelyrich in species, but also rich in genetic variability withinspecies and may thus provide genetic resources, whichmight contribute to the development of new breeds ofagricultural plants, medical plants, etc. They also providedifferent regulatory services like pollination (Tscharntkeet al. 2005) or hazard prevention (Quetier et al. 2007),or multiple cultural services. The availability of thoseservices is primarily dependent on the continuation of theextensive land use in agricultural landscapes.Although agri-environment schemes encourage farmersto restore species-rich grasslands on arable land or onculturally improved pastures, the land-use types thatmaximise ecosystem services are not targeted in thecurrent policies of the EU. The Common AgriculturalPolicy aims to increase agricultural production, withoutvaluing ecosystem services. Similar policies apply to landuse in forest or wetland ecosystems. Current policies alsolack a landscape perspective and fail to take into accountthe linkages between landscape units or the delivery ofmultiple services from ecosystems. The opportunity formaintaining both ecosystem services and biodiversityoutside conservation areas lies in promoting diversity ofland use at the landscape and farm rather than field scale(Swift et al. 2004). To achieve that goal, however, wouldrequire an economic and policy climate that favoursdiversification in land uses and diversity among land users.Current strategies of habitat management and land usein Europe, focusing on economic benefit on the one handand on the conservation of habitats and species of specialinterest on the other, now need to be broadened in orderto cover a wider range of societal needs. There is thereforean urgent need for policies that prioritise the delivery ofecosystem services from land and that favour appropriateland use, encouraging habitat management and aimingto preserve or improve multiple ecosystem services. Properecosystem management strategies have to offer principlesfor land use in order to minimise the possible conflictbetween management goals that target different services.Besides traditionally accepted cultural services and moreutilitarian services like production of food, fibre and fuel,supporting and regulative services deserve much moreattention than they have received until now.24 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

5 Policy options and recommendations5.1 Introduction: the current policy andmanagement framework5.1.1 The policy contextPolicy-makers need an improved evidence base onwhich to develop and justify environmental policy.To support the increasing calls for ‘an ecosystembasedapproach’ to environmental management andsustainable development policy more generally, evidenceis required to demonstrate the importance of ecosystemsin terms of their structure, function and the servicesthey provide to society and the consequent benefits tothe economy. These values need to be translated intoterms that are consistent with the frameworks withinwhich policy-makers operate, and into measures thatenable integration into decision-making frameworks, inparticular into economic models.Although the concept of ecosystem services is widelyaccepted by natural scientists and some policy-makers,to non-scientists the concept is intangible and it issometimes difficult for people to translate the theory intoterms that are meaningful in their everyday life.The emphasis of the science has been on improvingunderstanding of the biological, physical and chemicalcharacteristics of different ecosystem types, and theinter-relationships within and between ecosystems. Morerecently, this emphasis has shifted to understandingthe functions of these systems and the respective rolesof each of the components. This knowledge needs tobe brought together, summarised and translated intoterminology and principles that are relevant to policies.5.1.2 European policy backgroundSustainable development is the overarching long-termgoal of the EU set out in the European Treaty. In 2001 theEuropean Council set out a strategy for implementing thisgoal. This strategy has been under review, and a revised‘platform for action’ (COM 2005 658 final) was adoptedat the June 2006 European Summit. Despite its EuropeanTreaty status, sustainable development in the EU hastaken a back seat to the goals of economic development.This was highlighted in 2004 when the review of theEuropean Union Sustainable Development Strategy (EUSDS) was delayed to enable the European Commissionto undertake the Lisbon Strategy mid-term review.Although the potential of environmental technologiesfor supporting economic growth are now acknowledgedand promoted, the importance of environmentalsustainability, and in particular the fundamental role ofecosystems for providing the goods and services on whichsociety and ultimately economic growth depend, hasnot been yet been acknowledged by the wider Europeanpolicy community.The review of the EU Biodiversity Strategy and ActionPlans, and the production of the European BiodiversityCommunication have similarly fallen low on the EU PolicyAgenda, with the Communication appearing a year laterthan expected. However, now that the Communicationhas been issued, the profile of biodiversity in theEU is relatively high. Furthermore, the BiodiversityCommunication includes within it a proposal for a newEU mechanism for informing implementation of the EUBiodiversity Action Plan and further policy development,and for enhancing research on biodiversity. The preferredoption for delivery is to create a secretariat basedwithin the European Environment Agency (EEA) but tosupport this with groups of independent experts. Thesegroups would respond to requests from the EuropeanCommission for advice on matters relating to biodiversityand ecosystem services. This project on the relationshipbetween biodiversity and ecosystem services aims toprovide support to these initiatives.5.1.3 The European management frameworkEU concern about the decline of biodiversity culminated inthe European Commission 2006 Statement on Biodiversity.The EU’s aim is to halt loss of biodiversity by 2010.The Communication identified four key policy areas:• biodiversity in the EU;• the EU and global biodiversity;• biodiversity and climate change;• and the knowledge base.The following priority objectives were proposed in thecommunication:• addressing most important habitats and species;• actions in the wider countryside and marineenvironment;• making regional development more compatible withnature;• reducing impacts of invasive alien species;• effective international governance;• support to biodiversity in international development;• reducing negative impacts of international trade;EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 25

• adaptation to climate change;• strengthening the knowledge base.The Communication suggests four supporting measures:• adequate financing;• strengthening EU decision-making;• building partnerships;• promoting public education, awareness andparticipation.Although these objectives and measures provide aframework for addressing biodiversity loss, the keyobjectives of the EU remain the sustainable developmentobjectives set out in the Barcelona Statement. Withinthis larger framework, environment in general andbiodiversity in particular appears less immediate than theneeds of economic development in improving quality oflife in Europe and is given less weight in policy discourse.To address this weakness, European policy-makers arelooking for a more powerful narrative to link biodiversityto long-term sustainability, and hence to quality oflife. This may include an evaluation of the economicimportance of ecosystem services.5.2 Is what is known about this topic sufficientfor progress in making policy on Europeanbiodiversity?This review has demonstrated that the services providedto humanity by ecosystems in Europe are many, varied, ofimmense value, and frequently not open to substitution byany artificial process. Because living organisms are essentialcomponents of all ecosystems, it follows that they play akey role in the delivery of the services. In some cases, thepresence of organisms is what matters, and typically theirphysical structure: for example, in stabilising slopes againsterosion or coastlines against tidal surges, what mattersis that there is vegetation and, as far as is known, themake-up of that vegetation matters less. In these cases,biodiversity appears to play a relatively small role.However, there are some services where there is clearevidence that the number of types of organisms makesa substantial difference to the delivery of the service. Wehave highlighted four of these services as being both ofkey importance to our survival as a society and particularlysusceptible to the biological richness of the ecosystemsthat deliver them: primary production, nutrient cycling,pollination and a set of cultural services centred aroundecotourism and recreation. There are other servicesfor which the evidence suggests that biodiversity isimportant, but these appear to play a smaller role insustaining modern European societies, at least at present.Focussing on these services may obscure a morefundamental point: that all ecosystems deliver a broadrange of services, for some of which biodiversity is crucialand some of which are of particular economic or socialvalue. A forest can be a major store of carbon, helpingto regulate climate; it can be a source of resources forindustry in the form of fibre or fuel; it can prevent lossof soil and nutrients, flooding and avalanches; it canplay a key role on the water cycle, ensuring cycling ofwater vapour back to the atmosphere; and it can bea substantial attractant to visitors, boosting the localeconomy directly.Two key points arise from understanding that allecosystems deliver multiple services. The first is thatmanaging an ecosystem primarily to deliver one servicewill almost certainly reduce its ability to provide others:a forest managed exclusively for timber production willhave minimal amenity and ecotouristic value, will storelittle carbon and will be ineffective at retaining nutrients.The second point is that many of the multiple servicesthat arise from a single ecosystem are either undervaluedor completely unvalued: in the case of the forest,society currently places no value on nutrient cycling,only rarely values water cycling and regulation, and isonly beginning to find ways to value carbon storageeffectively.Generally speaking, all ecosystem services that do notprovide goods that can be handled through conventionalmarket mechanisms are undervalued. Some value isplaced on amenity, because of the increasing recognitionthat the economy of many rural areas in agriculturallymarginal zones is heavily dependent on tourism, asdramatically revealed by the 2001 foot and mouthdisease epidemic in the UK. No effective values areplaced on most of the basic supporting services (soilformation, water and nutrient cycling) and primaryproduction is generally only valued in so far as it createsmarketable goods. Regulating services are almostalways undervalued, perhaps most notably in the case ofpollination, despite the fact that in this case it is possibleto understand the value that it provides in relation tomarketable goods such as food.Perhaps the best recent example of a policy failurethat arose from considering ecosystem services singlyis biofuels. The European target of 10% of motor fuelderived from biofuel was set as a means of reducingcarbon emissions from transport. This is a highlydesirable goal, but the consequences have beenhighly undesirable. First-generation biofuels almostnever reduce net carbon emissions, and evensecond-generation approaches may well be ineffective.The problem is that the policy leads to the managementof ecosystems for a single service – the production ofbiomass for fuel – ignoring the other services, such ascarbon storage and trace gas regulation performed bythe same or other organisms in the same system.26 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

There is an urgent need therefore to provide incentives tomanagers of land and water to ensure the maintenanceof the broad range of services from the ecosystems thatthey manage. Because of the difficulty of using traditionaleconomic instruments to achieve this goal, as set out inChapter 4, an alternative regulatory framework is needed.In the narrow case of water, which represents a subset ofecosystem services as discussed here, the EU has tackledthe problem by a set of binding legal requirements, theWater Framework Directive. We believe that the EUshould move to creating an Ecosystem Services Directive,which would require Member States to give explicitattention to the broad consequences of existing andproposed forms of ecosystem management.5.3 Recommendations: what is it sensible todo now?The research that has been assessed in this reportdemonstrates that both the quality and quantity ofbiodiversity are important for maintaining the health ofecosystems and their ability to deliver services to society.The importance of biodiversity varies greatly amongservices, being particularly strong for primary production,nutrient cycling and pollination, for example, but muchless so for protection from natural hazards. The way inwhich biodiversity ensures the processes that underlieecosystem services is only partly understood, and there isan urgent need for research to determine how great a lossof biodiversity can be experienced before service deliverydeclines.We have used the classification of ecosystem servicesproposed by the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment,but it should not be imagined that these services aredelivered individually. All ecosystems provide multipleservices, although the relative importance will vary fromsystem to system. Some services, such as nutrient cyclingand primary production, are complementary: enhancingone will also enhance the other. Others, however, arepotentially conflicting, and there are therefore trade-offsbetween services. Management of an ecosystem forprovisioning services, in particular, tends to reduce theirability to provide regulating and cultural services.Many ecosystems have been profoundly affectedby human activity: intensive agriculture and urbanlandscapes are prime examples. In intensive agriculture,the focus is exclusively on production of food (or otherproduce); consequently, a range of other services, fromcarbon storage for climate regulation through waterquality to cultural services, is diminished. This focus on afew provisioning services has arisen because the goodsproduced in such systems can easily be valued by typicalmarket mechanisms. In contrast, the other services lackmarkets and although effective ways of valuing them arenow available, there has been little attempt to incorporatethese methods into economic planning processes, eventhough many of the currently unvalued services are offundamental importance to the survival of society andmay literally be irreplaceable.There is therefore an urgent need for European policiesto recognise this discrepancy and to provide directsupport to the maintenance of healthy ecosystems able tocontinue to deliver key ecosystem services in a sustainablemanner.One challenging option to encourage land use targetedto the delivery of ecosystem service would be a special EUEcosystem Services Directive, analogous to the existingEU Habitat Directive that delineates the strategy andtargets of biodiversity conservation in Europe. Althoughthe Habitat Directive focuses mainly on biodiversity per seas a cultural service and does not consider the functionalrole of biodiversity, an Ecosystem Services Directivewould aim to create a strategy for the conservation andmaintenance of ecosystem functions and the servicesecosystems provide not only for the European population,but also worldwide. Like the Habitat Directive, whoseAnnexes (Annex 1 ‘Habitat types of Community interest’and Annex 2 ‘Species of Community interest’) set thepriority targets of biodiversity conservation, the EcosystemServices Directive might establish the priorities with thehelp of two Annexes. We propose that two technicalannexes to the Directive need to be developed:• Annex 1. ‘Key ecosystem services of Communityinterest’. Table 1, especially focussing on servicescategorised as having high value for the EU, wouldserve as a draft proposal for such an Annex.• Annex 2. ‘Service providing units of Communityinterest’. Here we propose to consider both species(Annex 2.1) and ecosystems (Annex 2.2) that arecritically important in particular regions of Europeowing to the services they deliver.The concept of Service Providing Units comes from Lucket al. (2003). Service providing units are populationsthat are critically important as providers of particularecosystem services. Although this approach waspopulation-centric, Luck pragmatically suggested that theconcept could be extended beyond the population levelto include ecological communities. A parallel concept isthat of Ecosystem Service Providers by Kremen (2005),which suggests that the services provided by ecosystemsare ecosystem-wide or community attributes that can becharacterised by the component populations, species,functional groups or habitat types that collectivelyproduce them.The establishment of a new EU directive is a politicaldecision, which would need to be based on thoroughscientific analysis and evidence. We submit this report asthe basis for urgent discussion on its feasibility.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 27

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Annex 1 Assessment of the current state of knowledge aboutEuropean biodiversity and ecosystem servicesEcosystem servicesA. Supporting servicesThese are the basic services that make the production ofall the other services possible. They are characterised bylong timescales and changes may be slow to take effect.A1 Primary productionThe assimilation of energy and nutrients by organisms.General significancePrimary production is largely determined byphotosynthesis and is a fundamental biosphere propertythat forms the basis of all ecosystem processes. Primaryproduction shows marked global variation, causedin terrestrial systems by patterns of precipitation,temperature and geology; and in marine systemsprincipally by nutrient supply (upwellings, dust deposition,etc.). There are very strong spatio-temporal gradients inEurope, seasonal, latitudinal and altitudinal. Seasonalvariation is especially strong in the north and in aridregions. Richmond et al. (2007) suggest that terrestrialnet primary productivity can be used as a proxy for severalother ecosystem services and, following Gaston (2000),note that the output of food, timber and fibre tends tobe higher in areas with high net primary production, andthat at global scales, biodiversity and associated servicesgenerally increase with net primary production. Perhapsunsurprisingly, human population density also correlateswith primary productivity, leading to a relationshipbetween population density and biodiversity acrossEurope (Araújo 2003). In other words, people tend to livein the most productive areas, which are also those withgreatest biodiversity.Role of biodiversityThe single largest body of evidence relating diversity to anecosystem process concerns primary production. Muchof the active debate about the impact of variations inbiodiversity for ecosystem function and the consequentoutput of ecosystem services concerns the role ofbiodiversity in maintaining productivity. The evidenceincludes theoretical, controlled-environment and smallandlarge-scale field studies (see, for example, Naeemet al. 1995; Tilman et al. 1996, 1997; Lawton et al. 1998),but there are few data from mature natural ecosystems:Grace et al. (2007) compared a large set of naturalecosystems and suggested that the influence of diversityon productivity is weak when examined at small spatialscales. A meta-analysis of published studies found clearevidence of an effect of biodiversity on productivity, andthe effect was strongest at the same trophic level asthat where biodiversity was measured (Balvaneraet al. 2006). At broad spatial scales, Costanza et al.(2007) showed that over half of the spatial variation innet productivity in North America could be explained bypatterns of biodiversity, if the effects of temperature andprecipitation were taken into account. They predict thata 1% change in biodiversity results in a 0.5% change inthe value of ecosystem services, within the temperatureranges in which most of the world’s biodiversity is found.Biodiversity is also associated with enhanced productivityin marine systems (Worm et al. 2006): in a meta-analysisof published experimental data, increased biodiversityof both primary producers and consumers enhancedthe ecosystem processes examined; the restoration ofbiodiversity in marine systems has also been shown toincrease productivity substantially.The primary driver of biodiversity in mature naturalecosystems is frequently the legacy of evolutionaryhistory; the relationship between diversity andproductivity is therefore often hard to discern (Pärtel et al.2007). In many mature natural ecosystems, biodiversityas such may play a small role in controlling productivity,and typically the diversity of functional groups is moreimportant.In intensively managed and disturbed ecosystems,maximum productivity is typically achieved in systemsof very low diversity, for example heavily fertilisedmonocultures. However, the maintenance of thesesystems requires large inputs of resource, includingfertilisers, biocides and water, which are generally notsustainable, either environmentally or economically.Sustained high production without anthropogenicresource augmentation is normally associated with highlevels of biodiversity in mature ecosystems. Bullock etal. (2007) reported positive effects of increased speciesrichness on ecosystem productivity in restored grasslandson a range of soil types across southern England, inan eight-year study. Similarly, Potvin & Gotelli (2008)reported higher productivity in biodiverse tree plantationsin the tropics, suggesting that increasing plantationdiversity may be a viable strategy for both timber yieldsand biodiversity conservation.Evidence for a positive association between the diversityof functional types and productivity is particularly strongin relation to soils. Many experiments have shownsignificant enhancements of plant production owing tothe presence of soil animals, and specifically their diversityin the case of earthworms (Lavelle et al. 2006). Theenhancement of primary production might be the resultof increased release of nutrients from decomposition,enhancement of mutualistic micro-organisms (van derEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 33

Heijden et al. 1998), protection against diseases, andeffects on soil physical structure. However, experimentallyremoving key taxonomic groups from soil food websoften has little impact on rates of processes such as soilrespiration and net ecosystem production (Inghamet al. 1985; Liiri et al. 2002; Wertz et al. 2006), possiblybecause that the exceptional diversity of soil organismsand the relatively low degree of specialisation in manygroups means that many different species can performsimilar processes (Bradford et al. 2002; Fitter et al. 2005).The mechanisms underlying the reported relationshipbetween diversity and productivity are unclear. Particularspecies may play key roles in communities that allow themaintenance of high levels of productivity, for examplenitrogen-fixing plants or mutualistic symbionts. Morebiodiverse communities are inherently more likelyto contain such key species or those that contributedisproportionately to the maintenance of productivity,a phenomenon known as a ‘sampling effect’ (Huston &McBride 2002).A recent extensive and detailed review (Hooper et al.2005) concluded that certain combinations of speciesare complementary in their patterns of resource use andcan increase average rates of productivity and nutrientretention. They argue that the diversity of functionaltraits in the species making up a community is one ofthe key controls on ecosystem properties, and thatthe redundancy of functional traits and responses inecosystems may act as an ‘insurance’ against disturbanceand the loss of individual species, if the diversity of speciesin the ecosystem encompasses a variety of functionalresponse types.Ecosystems involvedAll ecosystems contain and depend upon primaryproducers. The highest productivity is typically found inwarmer and wetter regions of Europe, and on youngerand inherently more fertile soils. Cold (alpine, Arctic), dry(some Mediterranean) and infertile (some sandy soils)ecosystems generally have low productivity. Ecosystemsin which productivity is strongly linked to biodiversity mayinclude those under management regimes that involvethe harvesting of significant amounts of biomass (andhence nutrients) at regular intervals, including grasslandsand forests.European concerns/contextOn a large spatial scale, productivity is likely to declineowing to increased prevalence and severity of drought inparts of southern Europe: the severe heatwave of 2003resulted in a Europe-wide decline in primary production(Ciais et al. 2005). Air pollution associated withheatwaves will also reduce productivity locally. However,productivity may increase in the north and in alpineregions owing to an extended growing season. Locally,increased nutrient supply (either by deliberate fertilisationor unintended pollution) will increase production, withbenefit in agricultural systems but potentially seriousdamage to natural ecosystems through eutrophication,which causes local extinction of species adapted tonutrient-poor environments. Loss of biodiversity dueto land management practices may render ecosystemsless resilient to impacts of climate change (for exampledrought).Policy implicationsMaintaining primary production of agricultural, naturaland semi-natural ecosystems is essential for achievingseveral life-support services and policy goals, includingcarbon sequestration in soils and vegetation, agriculturalproduction, and use of land for other productivepurposes (fuel, fibre, etc; see section on provisioningservices). However, current policy offers incentives forunsustainable practices that often prioritise productionover other ecosystem services: high levels of fertiliser inputsupported by Common Agricultural Policy thresholdsresult in reductions in biodiversity, water quality andother goods. Achieving good levels of agriculturalproductivity in biodiverse systems will be important ineconomic development of rural areas to encouragetourism alongside traditional agricultural livelihoods; forexample, Bullock et al. (2007) suggest that the re-creation(or preservation) of diverse grasslands of conservationvalue can increase hay yield over the long term, which willenhance farm incomes.Research needsEvidence for role played by biodiversity is stronger herethan for most other services. Numerous small-scaleexperiments have produced largely consistent results. Amajor research need is for large-scale experiments withnatural species assemblages that allow impacts of changesin production on other ecosystem processes and socioeconomicvariables to be examined. The relationshipsbetween diversity, productivity and ecosystem propertiessuch as stability and resilience also remain to be resolved,and there is an urgent need to clarify the mechanisms bywhich diversity can enhance productivity.A2 Nutrient cyclingThe distribution throughout the ecosphere of theelements essential to life, notably nitrogen andphosphorus.General significanceNutrient cycling is a key process in both terrestrialand aquatic systems and is essential for maintenanceof fertility. Availability of nutrients that determineproductivity (notably nitrogen and phosphorus) is34 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

determined by the rate of nutrient cycling. Nutrientcycles are especially sensitive to disruption when theelement has a large atmospheric pool (nitrogen andcarbon); in these cases, rates of fixation of the elementinto biomass and its return to the atmosphere throughdecomposition determine both productivity andatmospheric composition. In marine systems, cyclingis determined by a balance of rates of input from land,fixation from atmospheric pools, and upwelling and lossby sedimentation.Role of biodiversityBecause nutrient cycles include numerous transformationsof elements, often involving complex biochemistry, manydifferent species are typically implicated. For example,in the nitrogen cycle, large numbers of bacterial species(both symbiotic and free-living) are capable of fixationof di-nitrogen gas (N 2 ) from the atmosphere; othersare involved in the conversion of ammonium to nitrate(nitrification) and the release of ammonium from organicmatter during decomposition; whereas the overall rateof the cycle is closely linked to productivity, in whichbiodiversity is known to play a large role. Nitrogencycling may depend on diversity of plant communitiesand particularly on the presence of particular functionalgroups. Symstad & Tilman (2001) found a higher rateof nitrogen loss by leaching from a community fromwhich cool-season (C3) grasses had been removed, andMabry et al. (2008) reported greater capacity of naturalwoodland to store nutrients and avoid leaching to surfacewater, compared with disturbed woodland missing onefunctional group (spring ephemerals). Decompositionrate is also susceptible to variation in plant biodiversity:Chapman & Koch (2007) reported that decompositionrate of needle litter in a coniferous forest ecosystemincreased with plant species diversity; and Scherer-Lorenzen (2008) found that diversity of plant functionaltypes determined decomposition rate in experimentalgrasslands.In many processes within nutrient cycles, keystone speciesare involved: for example, heavy-metal contamination,often resulting from use of sewage sludge on land,inhibits the growth of symbiotic nitrogen-fixing bacteriaand severely limits the nitrogen cycle (Knights et al.2001). Some key nutrient cycling processes (for examplenitrification) are performed by a few key species. Theseare defined by Schimel (1998) as ‘narrow processes’. Incontrast, there are others (for example decompositionof cellulose cell walls) that can be performed by abroad range of species. Narrow processes may be moresusceptible to changes in biodiversity than broad ones.Soil biodiversity has a particularly strong impact onnutrient cycling. Barrios (2007), in reviewing theimportance of the soil biota for ecosystem servicesand land productivity, emphasised positive impactsof microbial symbionts on crop yield, as a result ofincreases in plant available nutrients, especially nitrogen,through biological nitrogen fixation by soil bacteriasuch as Rhizobium, and phosphorus through arbuscularmycorrhizal fungi. Soil nutrient availability itself affectsplant diversity, because of both the direct uptake ofnutrients and the feedback effects of plants on soilmicrobial dynamics and consequent changes in nutrientfluxes (Hooper & Vitousek 1997, 1998; Niklaus et al.2001).Nitrogen is the major fertiliser in intensive agriculture,with often dramatic impacts on crop yield, althoughat rates of application that typically result in largelosses of nitrogen to water and to the atmosphere, asammonia and nitrous oxide, the latter being an especiallypotent greenhouse gas. However, nitrogen fertiliseris increasingly expensive (about 90% of the cost isenergy, typically from gas) and supplies are thereforenot sustainable. Biological nitrogen fixation accountsfor around half of all nitrogen fixation worldwide, andsustainable agricultural systems will increasingly rely onthis process.Similarly, phosphate fertiliser is routinely added inintensive agricultural systems, but world supplies ofrock phosphate are restricted, and typically only 5–10%of added phosphate is recovered in crops, owing to itsstrong fixation by soils. In natural ecosystems, symbioticmycorrhizal fungi are the main route of phosphorustransfer from soil to plant, and the diversity of mycorrhizalfungi can regulate both plant diversity and nutrient and,possibly, water use efficiency (Brussaard et al. 2007).Sustainable agricultural systems will need to make greateruse of mycorrhizal fungi, whose diversity is currently verylow in arable systems (Helgason et al. 1998).The ability of vegetation to capture and store nutrientsis widely exploited in, for example, the establishment ofbuffer strips to protect water courses from agriculturalrun-off, and in the construction of reed-beds, as part ofwater purification measures. Diverse systems appear to bemore effective in retaining nutrients within the ecosystem:Engelhardt & Ritchie (2001, 2002) have shown thatincreased flowering plant diversity enhances productivityand aids the retention of phosphorus in wetland systems,thereby aiding the water purification service.Nutrient availability depends both on the stock ofnutrients in the ecosystem (including the atmosphere)and the rate at which nutrients cycle: some ecosystemswith very large stocks (for example of organic nitrogenin organic matter in soil) may nevertheless have lowproductivity due to low rates of cycling (for examplein peat soils), whereas others with small stocks andrapid cycling may be highly productive (for exampleshallow lakes). Ecosystems may act as large storesof nutrients. It is particularly important to understandthe capacity of ecosystems to sequester nutrientswhen management interventions are contemplated.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 35

Marrs et al. (2007), for example, have shown thatbracken has a greater capacity to store carbon, nitrogen,phosphorus, potassium, calcium and magnesium thanother vegetation components in the same habitats. As aresult, bracken control measures can result in nutrientsbeing released through run-off. This effect poses adilemma for conservation policies, suggesting ‘a needto balance conservation goals against potential damageto biogeochemical structure and function’ (Marrs et al.2007, p. 1045). The example of bracken suggests that theroles of biodiversity and of particular ‘keystone’ species incommunities need to be looked at together.Ecosystems involvedNutrient cycling occurs in all ecosystems and is stronglylinked to productivity (section 1A), because of theenergetic requirements of the nutrient transformationsinvolved and the need for nutrients in all metabolicprocesses. A key element is nitrogen, which occurs inenormous quantities as the inert di-nitrogen gas in theatmosphere and is converted to a biologically useableform (ammonium) by bacteria, either living independentlyor symbiotically in roots of some plants, notably legumes.Biological nitrogen fixation is a major source of nitrogen inEuropean ecosystems and tends to be greatest in the earlystages of ecosystem development when little nitrogen isstored in soils in organic form. In contrast, the source ofphosphorus in natural ecosystems is minerals in rocks. Itis progressively lost from soils as they mature, so that veryold soils are the most phosphorus deficient.European concerns/contextDisruption to nutrient cycles can be brought aboutby atmospheric deposition of nitrogen, sulphur andsometimes metals to soils – through effects includingacidification, denitrification, inhibition of fixation – andby sewage, industrial and agricultural effluents in aquaticsystems. These are major problems in the EU; they havepronounced effects on natural ecosystems, particularlyin heavily industrialised areas. Classic examples includeatmospheric nitrogen deposition in the UK and Holland,which has been shown to damage natural ecosystems;and acid and metal pollution in the Czech Republic,Poland and other Member States. The widespread use ofsewage sludge as an agricultural fertiliser has resulted incontamination of soils by heavy metals (for example zinc,copper, cadmium), which inhibit nitrogen-fixing bacteria.In intensively farmed landscapes, phosphate may belost to watercourses, despite the ability of soils to retainand sequester the element, causing both damage towater quality and economic losses on farms. Changes inbiodiversity of natural ecosystems brought about by landusechange, climate change or pollution alter the ability ofecosystems to retain nutrient stores, resulting in release ofnutrients to other ecosystems with potentially damagingconsequences.Policy implicationsBiological nitrogen fixation is of enormous value inagriculture and avoids large-scale addition of nitrogenfertilisers in many agricultural systems. The developmentof policies on sustainable agriculture will require greaterreliance on biological nitrogen fixation and on symbioticmycorrhizal fungi to gain access to stores of nitrogen (inthe atmosphere) and phosphorus (in the soil). Policiesthat promote soil microbial diversity will be required.Barrios (2007) has argued more generally that we needland-quality monitoring systems that inform managersabout their land’s ability to deliver ecosystem services,improve capacities to predict and adapt to environmentalchanges, and support policy and decision-making:currently no recognition is given in EU policies to thenutrient cycling services offered by ecosystems that arenot managed for production.European policies, implemented at United NationsEconomic Commission for Europe (UNECE) and EU levelsto manage environmental acidification from air pollutioncould be expected to have a beneficial effect on nutrientcycling. However, there remain large areas of Europewhere deposition of sulphur and, particularly, nitrogenexceeds critical loads. Further progress to reduce sulphurand nitrogen emissions, and in consequence deposition,will be needed if the aims of the EU and UNECE are tobe achieved. Although the impacts on nutrient cyclingare not captured in the current assessment of benefitsof these policies, they remain an important additionalbenefit that should be included in future assessments,for example those made by the International Institute forApplied Systems Analysis (IIASA).Research needsWe do not know whether the ability of microbialcommunities in soil responsible for processes of nutrientcycling to withstand anthropogenic inputs such as sulphur(causing acidification), nitrogen (causing acidification andeutrophication) and metals (directly affecting microbialgrowth and survival) depends on the diversity of thecommunity, especially for ‘narrow processes’. Robson(2006) recommends that there is a greater need to:• Develop models to assess the importance of factorsin gas regulation and primary production, geneticexchange and dispersal, nutrient cycling, andthe roles of different taxa in the delivery of theseprocesses in marine ecosystems.• Understand the threshold of tolerance for extremeconditions under the scenarios of climate change,and their potential effects on ecosystem function, forexample rates of soil process such as nutrient cyclingor shifts in dominant ecosystem processes of primaryproduction and decomposition.36 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

Assimilation of current understanding of the impacts ofenvironmental acidity on nutrient cycling into integratedassessment modelling would provide a further estimate ofthe value of policies to reduce acidic emissions in Europe.A3 Water cyclingThe distribution of water so that it is available to livingorganisms throughout the ecosphere.General significanceThe water cycle is an important process in the overallmanagement of water. It affects the distribution of waterand the capability of natural processes to condition itfor its various functions in the environment and uses forpeople. The different processes involved in the cyclingof water include evaporation, precipitation, the flow ofwater over and through land and the intervention ofpeople, other organisms and the physical environmentin the regulation of those flows. Humans have mademassive changes in water cycles through drainage,dams, structural changes to rivers and water abstraction,especially from subsurface reservoirs. Often runoff hasbecome more rapid owing to changes in landscapes,including deforestation, land drainage, urbanisationand engineering works. Many of those impacts arelikely to be amplified through climate change, whichwill result in different patterns of water movement bothspatially and temporally, including a greater frequencyof extreme events (storms or droughts, for example) andlong-term trends in precipitation and evaporation. Thedynamics of ecosystems in arid and semiarid climates arestrongly dependent on the availability of soil water, andprojections of climate change do not encourage optimismfor the trajectory of change in much of southern Europe.Role of biodiversityLand use and landscape structure are more significant inmaintaining this service than biodiversity per se, but bothvegetation and soil organisms have profound impacts onwater movements (compare with water regulation), andthe extent of biodiversity is likely to be important. Theinfluence that different types of habitat have on the rateof water flow through the hydrological system is widelycited in the literature on ecosystem services. For example,Zhang et al. (2007) note that vegetation cover in upstreamwatersheds can affect quantity, quality and variabilityof water supply, all of which can affect agriculturalproductivity. They suggest that maintaining forest covermay not necessarily increase absolute amounts of waterretained by the ecosystem: other vegetation may do justas well. Although there is no consistent effect of forestmanagement on storm runoff and erosion (Sidle et al.2007), forests generally appear to stabilise water flow(Armstrong et al. 1990), thereby reducing the differencesin flow between wet and dry seasons.Distinct pathways of water movement in the hydrologicalcycle have been encapsulated in the terms ‘green’ and‘blue’ water (Falkenmark et al. 1997; Jewitt 2002). Bluewater is the runoff originated from precipitation whichgenerates stream flow at the land surface or formingbase flow and groundwater recharge in the subsoil.Green water is stored in the root zone of plants and isthe key to water and food security in drought-proneregions. The balance of blue and green water affectscritical feedbacks to the water cycle, including the flowof water to the atmosphere both by transpiration fromvegetation and by evaporation from soil, lakes andwater on the surface of leaves (Röckström et al. 1999).Changes in species composition can affect the balancebetween green and blue water yields, and native floramay be more efficient at retaining water than exoticspecies.Bosch & Hewlett (1982) reviewed evidence from 94experimental catchments, and concluded that forestsdominated by coniferous trees or Eucalyptus spp. causedlarger changes than deciduous hardwoods on watersupply after planting. Subsequent work, mostly outsideEurope, has confirmed this relationship; in southernPortugal, Robinson et al. (2006) reported significantlocal changes in flows, especially in Eucalyptus globulusplantations. Invasive plants may divert water resources:the reduction in surface water runoff as a result ofinvasive alien plants in South Africa may be equivalent to7% of the national total (van Wilgen et al. 2008), despiteactive programmes to limit their spread. A key control onthe water cycle is the ease with which water penetratessoil. Where penetration is low due to compaction ordevelopment of surface crusts, the increased runoffalters the blue:green balance. Soil invertebrates play animportant role in the delivery of ecosystem services byinfluencing soil structure: invertebrates tend to decreasesurface runoff by increasing surface roughness andstructural porosity of soils (Flury et al. 1994; Lavelle et al.2006). Flows of water in ecosystems also determine thenetwork structure of rivers that act as ecological corridorsfor aquatic organisms, including water-borne diseasepathogens.Ecosystems involvedThe main problems in Europe arise in the south becauseof deficit of water and in some central European areaswhich are frequently flooded. Riverine ecosystems arechanging in response to land use and climate change, andmany lowland rivers now suffer severe loss of base flowas a result of water abstraction for irrigation. Wetlandsand tidal transition ecosystems are threatened all overEurope by drought, drainage or sea-level rise, and the riskof loss of their important ecosystem services is of concern.Urban areas with sealed surfaces provide new challengesas water moves more rapidly to rivers and there is lessgroundwater recharge. Flood events are predictedto increase owing to climate change (compare withEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 37

water regulation below). Responses to water deficit areincreasingly reliant on fossil water stores, with consequentissues of the sustainability of water cycles.Policy implicationsIn a major new development, EU Member States havebegun to implement the Water Framework Directive.This major policy initiative covers both surface waterand groundwater and has at its core the link betweenwater cycling and the ecological status of catchments.Member States are under obligations to ensure goodecological status within catchments, which creates amajor locus for assessments of ecological status andwater cycling. A further development in theunderstanding of the links between biodiversity andwater cycling that will give essential added definitionto the objectives of the WFD is a policy to managegreen water – the water needed for the maintenance ofecosystem functions and processes.Research needsStudies of the importance of biodiversity at catchmentlevel in maintaining overall ecological status wouldsupport the linkage between the EU Water FrameworkDirective and emerging biodiversity policy. There isactive research on the relationship between vegetationstructure and soil moisture distributions affectingcomposition and groundwater recharge. However,there are important gaps in knowledge on howvegetation will respond to changes in climate and onthe importance of species composition, and especiallythe particular role of invasive species, on water fluxes.The role of form and function of water pathways andtheir ecological corridors on biodiversity also needsfurther study. Although it is known that soil biotadetermine a range of soil properties that play key rolesin the water cycle, the impact of functional groupdiversity or keystone species is not known and hencethe significance of the biodiversity of the soil communitycannot be assessed.A4 Soil formationThe formation of soil at a rate sufficient to support arange of provisioning services, including the provision offood, fibres and fuel.General significanceSoil formation is a continuous process in all terrestrialecosystems but is particularly important and active inthe early stages after land surfaces are exposed (forexample after glaciation). The process of soil formation ishighly dependent on the nature of the parent materials,biological processes, topography and climate. Soilformation involves the conversion of a mineral matrix,which has limited capacity to support nutrient cycles,into a complex medium with both inorganic and organiccomponents, and solid, liquid and gas phases, in whichchemical and biological transformations take place.The progressive accumulation of organic materialsis characteristic of the development of most soilsand depends on the activity of plants and associatedorganisms.Soil formation is fundamental to soil fertility, especiallywhere processes leading to soil destruction or degradation(erosion, pollution) are active. Agriculture in northernand central Europe has been resilient to the decline inproductivity encountered in many regions of the worldwhere cultivation has been continuous for long periods.One of the reasons for this is that the soils are young,recently developing after deglaciation, and consequentlyare able to maintain supplies of essential nutrients fromparent materials in the face of continuous depletion.Soil formation is a continuous process. Rates of soilformation vary greatly, depending on rock type, climate,location and vegetation, but typically lie in the range0.04–0.08 mm yr −1 , which would create soil at a rateof less than 1 cm per century. Soil is also lost by naturalprocesses of erosion, by both wind and water, but ata much slower rate, typically about 0.02 mm yr −1 . Amajor issue for current agricultural methods is that theyaccelerate soil loss rates to as high as 4 mm yr −1 , up to100 times faster than the rate of soil production. Evenwithout accelerated loss by erosion, loss of soil biota mayreduce soil formation rate with damaging consequences.Intensive agriculture can also reduce soil quality in otherways, for example by removal of organic residues so thatorganic carbon incorporation into soil is less than the rateof decomposition, leading to reduced soil carbon, withnutritional and structural consequences for soil.Role of biodiversitySoil biodiversity is a major factor in soil formation: keytaxa have large influence, including bacteria, fungiand invertebrates. Some species or groups of species(‘ecosystem engineers’) have the ability to transformthe structure of the ecosystem. The best example ofecosystem engineering in soil is earthworms: by mixingsoil, they radically alter its structure and its properties.Vegetation is also important in soil formation; againthere are key taxa, such as legumes for their ability to fixatmospheric nitrogen and build up soil nitrogen stores,and deep-rooted species which can bring nutrientelements from the parent material and relocate themto surface layers. There is a lack of empirical evidenceon the role of biodiversity per se in soil formation. Soilsare among the richest environments on Earth in termsof biodiversity, but there may be no simple relationshipbetween numbers of species and the activity or extent ofsoil processes. Nevertheless, the composition of biological38 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

communities has been shown to be important: whatis essential is the presence and activity of a range offunctional types.Soil structure depends on the activity of a wide range oforganisms (Brussaard et al. 1997; Lavelle & Spain 2001),A large part the organic material in many soils derivesfrom the faeces of soil animals, and both the gross andfine structure of the soil is determined by biologicalactivity. The separation of soil into horizons is determinedby interactions between physical processes, such asleaching, and biological ones, such as worm activity androot exudation. At a fine scale, structure may dependon fungal mycelia, and the activity of mycorrhizal fungi,symbiotic with plant roots, which are the most abundantfungi in most soils, is of central importance (Miller &Jastrow 2000). At an intermediate scale, burrows createdby soil animals can act as channels for root growth, waterflow and aeration. Much of this structure is destroyedby cultivation, sometimes with damaging impacts onsoil fertility; a soil whose structure has previously brokeninto fine units can rapidly be reconstructed into the largeaggregates that promote many soil functions by endogeicearthworm activity (Lavelle et al. 2006).Ecosystems involvedSoil formation occurs in all terrestrial ecosystems. It is ofespecial importance in ecosystems that are developingon newly exposed or created substrates (moraines, lava,gravel deposits, etc.), where the build-up of soil fertilitydepends entirely on biological processes. There will beparticular concerns about soils that are subject to intenseerosion, by wind or water, where reconstruction of the soilprofile and soil fertility again depend on the biologicallydriven processes of soil formation; these will be found, forexample, where arable agriculture is practised on slopeswith inadequate conservation measures, and on sandysoils with seasonal vegetation cover.European concernsNorthern European ecosystems are still in the earlystages (10,000 –20,000 years) of post-glacial recovery,and consequently soils are often resilient to intensiveagricultural use (Newman 1997). Much of theMediterranean region, however, has older soils with lowerresilience that have suffered severe damage and are oftenbadly eroded (Poesen & Hooke 1997). In alpine areas, highrates of erosion may be countered by high rates of soildevelopment.Policy implicationsSoil conservation policies are needed to ensure that soilstocks are retained, and need to be broadened to includesoil ‘health’ guidelines that recognise the importanceof soil biological processes in the creation of soil. Policyimplications discussed under nutrient cycling (section A2)also apply here.Research needsBarrios (2007) suggests that future studies linking soilbiota to soil processes and ecosystem services shouldhave increasing focus on hot spots of activity by soilbiota, for example the rhizosphere and soil carbon pools.The above-ground consequences of soil biodiversityare strongly dependent on context, such as the types ofsoil organism considered, the role of plant species in acommunity (dominant versus rare or subordinate species)and site fertility. Because of this, it has been suggestedthat new insights from studies on interactions betweenabove-ground and below-ground should be used toimprove our predictions of the effects of human-inducedenvironmental changes on biodiversity and ecosystemproperties and to enhance the efficiency of humaninterventions in restoration and conservation efforts(Wardle et al. 2004).Swift et al. (2004) have argued that a better understandingis needed of the ways in which the functional propertiesof soil organic matter are influenced by the diversity oforganic materials from which it is synthesised, and that thismay require the characterisation of the functional groupsof organisms necessary to maintain specific ecosystemservices. Usher et al. (2006) suggest that a research priorityis the need to determine whether there are particularkeystone species among the soil biota, which, if lost, willirreversibly damage the soil. Is there some stress thresholdbeyond which soil function will be irretrievably impaired?EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 39

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B. Regulating servicesBenefits obtained from the regulation of ecosystemprocesses.B1 Climate regulationThe role of ecosystems in managing levels of climateforcing gases in the atmosphere.General significanceClimate is regulated on Earth by a natural ‘greenhouseeffect’ that keeps the surface of the planet at atemperature conducive to the development andmaintenance of life. The mechanism for this is wellunderstood: trace gases in the atmosphere, notably watervapour and carbon dioxide, absorb infra-red radiationemitted from the Earth as it is heated by solar radiation,and hence effectively warm the atmosphere. Numerousfactors interact in the regulation of climate, including thereflection of solar radiation by clouds, dust and aerosolsin the atmosphere. In recent years climate has beenchanging and the Earth is becoming warmer.Current change is largely driven by increases in theconcentrations of trace gases in the atmosphere,principally as a result of changes in land use and rapidlyrising combustion of fossil fuels. The major greenhousegas (CO 2 ) is absorbed directly by water and indirectly(through photosynthesis) by vegetation, leading tostorage in biomass and in soils as organic matter; theability of soils to store carbon is a major regulatorof climate (Post & Kwon 2000) after ‘climate. Othergreenhouse gases, notably methane (CH 4 ) and nitrousoxide (N 2 O) are regulated by soil microbes. Marinesystems play a key role in climate regulation throughphysical absorption of CO 2 , through photosyntheticcarbon fixation and through aerosol production.Acidification of the seas resulting from increaseddissolution of CO 2 will have an impact on these processes.An additional issue is the impact of vegetation onalbedo – the reflection of incident radiation by landsurfaces. Dark surfaces, especially those covered byevergreen forest, absorb more radiation than light ones.Consequently, afforestation of boreal zones may have agreater warming effect than any reduction resulting fromenhanced carbon sequestration. The role of aerosolsemitted by vegetation in ‘dimming’ solar radiationremains to be quantified.Aerosols have a profound effect on climate, largelyby intercepting and scattering radiation and by actingas cloud condensation nuclei, thus reducing theamount of solar radiation reaching the Earth’s surface.The production of aerosols by marine systems is wellunderstood and has been taken into account in climatemodels. However, there is increasing evidence that forestsemit substantial amounts of biogenic volatile organiccompounds, which can form aerosol particles. Forests aretherefore simultaneously sinks for CO 2 , sources of aerosolparticles and determinants of albedo, and the impact ofincreased forest growth on climate change is complex(Kulmala et al. 2004).Role of biodiversityThe interplay between biodiversity and climate regulationis poorly understood. When major change occurs inecosystems, the time lags in the feedbacks on ecosystemprocesses that result are important and unresolved.Nevertheless, the global carbon cycle is strongly buffered,in that much of the CO 2 discharged by human activitiesinto the atmosphere is absorbed by oceans and terrestrialecosystems (Janzen 2004). The problem we face isthat the rate of emissions increasingly exceeds thisabsorption capacity, which is being reduced still further byanthropogenic damage to ecosystem function.Globally, the largest pool of actively cycling carbon interrestrial ecosystems is the soil. The loss of soil organiccarbon is a particular issue in Europe. It has beenestimated that since 1980 the organic carbon contenthas declined on average by 15% in arable and rotationalgrass soils, 16% in soils under permanent managedgrassland, and 23% in soils on agriculturally managed,semi-natural land. In addition to the consequences foratmospheric CO 2 concentration, such declines haveobvious implications for the productivity of soils and theirvulnerability to the erosion hazard.Europe’s terrestrial biosphere represents a net carbon sinkof between 135 and 205 gigatonnes per year, equivalentto 7–12% of the 1995 anthropogenic carbon emissions(Janssens et al. 2003). This capacity could be increased:carbon sequestration in cultivated soils in Europe coulddouble under improved management practices (see,for example, Smith 2004b), if the management changewere permanent (Freibauer et al. 2004) and focussed onareas with high carbon sequestering potential. The mostpromising measures include: higher organic matter inputson arable land, the introduction of perennials (grasses,trees) on former arable land used for conservation orbiofuel purposes, the expansion of organic (or at least lowinput) farming, raising of water tables in farmed peatland,and the introduction of zero or conservation tillage.Practices designed to improve the agricultural productivityof peatlands can lead to changes in the above groundvegetation which in turn lead to changes in the carboncycle (Worrall et al. 2004). At a finer scale, sequestrationof carbon in stable aggregates depends on the activityof the soil fauna: the aggregates formed by networks offungal hyphae and bacterial mucilages are more labilethan those formed in earthworm casts (Lavelle et al.2006). Disruption of these communities by cultivation andloss of soil fauna due to soil degradation will thereforereduce soil capacity to sequester carbon.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 41

The largest single store of carbon in terrestrial ecosystemsglobally and in Europe is in the peat soils of the borealand cool temperate zones of the northern hemisphere.The response of peatlands to climate changes is crucialto predicting potential feedbacks on the global carboncycle (Belyea & Malmer 2004). The climate-regulatingfunction of peatlands also depends on land use becauseintensification of land use (for example for biofuelsproduction, section C3) is likely to have profound impactson soil carbon storage and on the emission of trace gases.Considering the area of drained and mined peatlands,peatland restoration on abandoned mined peatlands mayrepresent an important biotic offset through enhancedcarbon sequestration (Waddington et al. 2001). However,peatlands are also major sources of methane, a potentgreenhouse gas. The biodiversity of soil microbes isnot a key determinant of peat-related carbon storage(Laggoun-Defarge et al. 2008), because peat formswhen biological activity is minimised, but it is likely toplay an important role in trace gas (methane, nitrousoxide) production. Niklaus et al. (2006) found lower N 2 Oemission rates from the soil of experimental systemswith higher plant diversity. However, they concludedthat keystone species played a more significant role indetermining this than plant species richness per se, butcurrent evidence for the role played by soil biodiversity inkey processes leading either to carbon sequestration or tothe release of these trace gases (methane, nitrous oxide)is poor.In global terms, the oceans contain the largest reservesof carbon, but most of this is in deep ocean layers andnot in active circulation, at least not in times measuredin human generations (Janzen 2004). Nevertheless, theexchange of CO 2 between atmosphere and ocean islarger than that between air and terrestrial ecosystems.Some of this occurs by physical processes, involvingthe equilibrium between CO 2 and carbonate, but asignificant proportion is accounted for by biologicalprocesses. Although oceanic plants, mainly algae,account for less than 1% of global biomass carbon, thenet primary productivity of the oceans is roughly equal tothat of all terrestrial systems.Ecosystems involvedAll soils store carbon, but to widely varying extents.The largest stores are in peatlands, but soils rich inorganic matter occur in many ecosystems, especiallywhere low temperature, low pH or waterlogging inhibitdecomposition. Forests are the only major ecosystemswhere the amount of carbon stored in biomass of theplants exceeds that in the soil; deforestation thereforealso has the capacity to affect climate regulation.Agricultural ecosystems currently have low soil carbonstores due to intensive production methods, and there isscope for enhancing those stores. Marine ecosystems alsoplay a major role in climate regulation, through carbonsequestration and aerosol emission.European concerns/contextAll soils contain organic matter, which is a major storeof carbon, but peat soils have especially high carboncontents. Europe contains extensive areas of peatcontaining large quantities of carbon. Losses of carbonfrom these peat (and other) soils could easily outweighany savings made by reductions in fossil fuel use: UK soilsmay have lost as much as 0.6% of their stores of carboneach year over the past 25 years (Bellamy et al. 2005).There are concerns over the methodology used in thisstudy, but it illustrates the importance of having goodknowledge about the performance of soils in Europe ascarbon stores. This is particularly important in the case ofpeatlands, which have a capacity to sequester substantialamounts of carbon.There are strong regional variations in trace gas emissionsand absorption, and soils across Europe therefore vary inthe contribution they make to climate regulation services.There are other new pressures on soils which requireassessment as part of an overall system for managingcarbon stores in Europe. For example, intensive biofuelproduction, though it might appear to provide a source ofrenewable energy, may lead to reduced carbon retentionin soils, because the goal will be to remove as muchbiomass as possible; it will also simultaneously increaseemissions of nitrous oxide (N 2 O, a potent greenhouse gas)as a result of increased nitrogen fertiliser additions to soils.Policy implicationsThe fundamental concern is to ensure that Europeanpolicies take into account multiple impacts: for example,consequences of changes in land use aimed at increasingbiomass production for carbon storage in soils andemissions of greenhouse gases (methane, nitrous oxide).Agricultural policy has a large influence on this area:peatlands, for example, have historically been viewedeither as waste land that can be brought into cultivationby drainage, with inevitable large-scale loss of soil carbonto the atmosphere; or as fuel mines, which produce thesame result more quickly. Similarly, soil managementpolicies need to account for the benefits that accrue fromsustaining or increasing soil carbon sequestration; thiswill be especially important for any policies that seek toenhance biofuel production from agricultural land, wherethere is serious potential for negative carbon balancedue to losses of stored carbon and increased trace gasemissions from soils.There is a need to develop a whole-systems ecosystemapproach to the management of carbon and the role thatbiodiversity plays in future climate mitigation strategies.This is particularly important, for example, given thesuggestion that expanding woodland cover might makea significant contribution to future climate mitigationstrategies. Afforestation may achieve net uptake initially,but a new equilibrium is established once the forests42 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

mature and the forest may cease to be a net carbon sink.The role of forests in future emission mitigation strategiestherefore depends strongly on their management and theuses of the products that we generate from them, whichcan ensure that net carbon sequestration can accumulateindefinitely. Forest industries can play a role in shapingmore sustainable patterns of both production andconsumption, through carbon reserve management andcarbon substitution management.Research needsWe need to understand the long-term potential ofcarbon sequestration, how much more carbon can besequestered in terrestrial ecosystems, and how secure isthe newly stored carbon. The role of soil micro-organismsin determining rates of key processes in the carboncycle is central to these questions. We need data onhow soil communities react when exposed to a rangeof anthropogenic stresses, including those associatedwith agriculture, forestry, pollution and erosion, andthe implications these changes might have ecosystemprocesses. In all of these processes the diversity of the soilcommunity is likely to be important. Forests contributeto climate regulation in complex ways, through carbonstorage, aerosol production and control of albedo. Weneed to discover how biodiversity contributes to theseprocesses.B2 Disease and pest regulationControlling the prevalence of pests and diseases of cropsand livestock, and of human disease vectors and disease.General significanceDisease-causing organisms are normal componentsof all ecosystems. Their populations are regulated bydensity-dependent factors such as the activity of theirown parasites and predators and the availability andsusceptibility of their hosts, the latter dependent on theevolution of defence mechanisms by the hosts. Theirpopulations are also controlled by density-independentmechanisms such as climatic extremes. Despite theseregulating and controlling factors, outbreaks of diseaseoccur in all natural ecosystems, though they are usuallyshort-lived. In managed ecosystems, however, diseasesare frequently endemic and can only be controlled byhuman intervention.Major outbreaks of both human and wildlife (animaland plant) diseases are usually due to the introductionof a new pathogen. The recent appearance of bluetongue disease in cattle in the UK is attributed to theimproved survival of the midge that is the vector of thedisease organism, whereas sudden oak death is causedby a fungus probably introduced horticulturally. Someecosystems may be better able to resist invasion by novelpathogens than others, possibly because of factorssuch as the structure and complexity of ecosystem. Theevidence on this is, however, unclear.Management of diseases can involve several approaches:control of diseased hosts, replacement of susceptibleby resistant hosts; ecosystem management to reducespread of the disease organism; biological control ofpathogens; and chemical control of pathogens. Selectionpressures on pathogens in many managed ecosystemsare now intense: Tilman et al. (2002) have observed thatthe evolutionary interactions among crops and theirpathogens mean that any improvement in crop resistanceto a pathogen is likely to be transitory. For example, maizehybrids in the United States now have a useful lifetimeof about 4 years, half of what it was just 30 years ago.Similarly, agrochemicals, such as herbicides, insecticides,fungicides and antibiotics, are also major selective agents.Within one to two decades of the introduction of each ofseven major herbicides, herbicide-resistant weeds wereobserved. Insects often evolve resistance to insecticideswithin a decade. The implication is that in designingfuture agricultural systems, we need to understand muchmore deeply what kinds of properties confer resilienceto ecosystems, and potentially preserve the wild geneticresource base (see section C6) from which new strategiescan potentially be developed.Some pest organisms are not disease-causing, but ratherinvasive species that alter the biological community,causing effects such as extinction of native species,disruption of nutrient cycles (for example where theinvader is capable of nitrogen fixation), and diversion ofwater resources. The impacts of invasive alien specieson ecosystem services and biodiversity are significant(estimates vary, but the total costs can be in the order oftens of billions of US dollars each year (McNeely 2001;Pimentel 2002; Pimentel et al. 2005).Role of biodiversityThere is good evidence that the spread of pathogensin managed systems can be reduced by increasingbiodiversity. Examples of this phenomenon include thebeneficial effect of cultivar mixtures on scab controlin apple orchards (Didelot et al. 2007), on control ofPhytophthora infestans in potato fields (Phillips et al.2005) and on barley mixtures (see section C1). Similarpatterns are seen in natural communities and thetheoretical basis of this phenomenon is well understood.There is also consensus that a diverse soil community willnot only help prevent losses due to soil-borne pests anddiseases but also promote other key biological functionsof the soil (Wall & Virginia 2000). Soil-borne pest anddiseases such as root-rot fungi cause enormous globalannual crop losses (Haas and Défago 2005), but bacteriain the rhizosphere (the soil surrounding roots) can protectplant roots from diseases caused by root-rot fungi (Haas& Keel 2003); similarly, symbiotic mycorrhizal fungi canEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 43

protect roots from pathogenic fungi (Newsham et al.1995). Plant-parasitic nematodes represent a majorproblem in agricultural soils because they reduce the yieldand quality of many crops and thus cause great economiclosses. However, nematodes have a variety of microbialantagonists that include nematophagous and endophyticfungi, actinomycetes and bacteria (Dong & Zhang2006). Higher trophic levels in soil food webs can play arole suppressing plant parasites and affecting nutrientdynamics by modifying abundance of intermediateconsumers (Sanchez-Moreno & Ferris 2006).In many managed systems, control of plant pests canbe provided by generalist and specialist predators andparasitoids, including birds, spiders, ladybirds, flies andwasps, as well as entomopathogenic fungi (Naylor& Ehrlich 1997; Zhang et al. 2007). For example, inthe Netherlands, great tits (Parus major) reduced theabundance of harmful caterpillars in apple orchards by50 –99% and increased apple yields (Mols et al. 2002).Invasive species are found in most ecosystems, butespecially those that are most affected by human activity.In the UK, for example, most invasive species are inlowland rather than upland habitats. There is no simplerelationship between biodiversity of a community and itssusceptibility to invasion: some species-poor communities(for example heathland) have few invasive species.Susceptibility of a community to invasion by exotic speciesis strongly influenced by species composition and, undersimilar environmental conditions, generally decreaseswith increasing species richness (Joshi et al. 2000).However, other factors, such as propagule pressure,disturbance regime and resource availability, also stronglyinfluence invasion success and may override effectsof species richness. Hooper & Chapin (2005) cautionthat by increasing species richness one may increasethe chances of invasibility within sites if these additionsresult in increased resource availability, as in the case ofnitrogen-fixers (Prieur-Richard et al. 2002a), or increasedopportunities for recruitment through disturbance (see,for example, D’Antonio 2000). It is also possible that highlevels of biodiversity may increase the chance of diseaseoutbreaks, by increasing the number of potential hosts,particularly of susceptible as opposed to resistant species,as appears to be the case for sudden oak death in westernNorth America (Condeso & Meentemeyer 2007).Ecosystems involvedThe natural control of diseases and invasions occurs in allecosystems. Those heavily influenced by human activityincur much the greatest risk of both disease outbreaksand invasion.European concern/contextEmerging diseases from wildlife are often mediated byintensive livestock production, large-scale movementsof people, organisms and products, and often severalof these acting together (Christensen 2003). There istherefore an important interaction with food productionand distribution systems.It is likely that climate change will lead to the emergenceof new diseases and the exacerbation of existing ones,especially where vectors (for example tick, rodent,mosquito) are favoured by a warmer climate. Diseasessuch as Lyme disease and West Nile disease are likelycandidates, but there are as yet few or no clear casesof disease spread linked to climate change (Zell 2004).However, if pathogen spread does occur, then theinteraction with new potential hosts may offer newevolutionary opportunities and lead to the emergenceof pathogens with distinctive virulence (Pallen & Wren2007).One consequence of increased pest and pathogenimpact due to environmental change will be a pressurefor greater use of agrochemicals. European policyon chemicals has had a significant impact on thedevelopment of new agricultural pesticides. There ispotential for the development of European applicationsof biological control, exploiting the properties of pestregulation in the ecosphere and taking models from thestructure of resilient ecosystems.Most of the invasive plant species likely to emerge inEurope over the next decades are almost certainly alreadypresent, grown in cultivation, often in gardens. Manycurrent invasives, such as Himalayan balsam (Impatiensglandulifera) and Japanese knotweed (Fallopia japonica),were introduced by this route. Some garden species arebeyond the limits of their climatic tolerance for survivaland reproduction in the wild, but may evolve widertolerance as the climate changes.Policy implicationsMost pests and pathogens are kept in check in intensiveagriculture by application of agrochemicals. Futureagricultural policy may need to rely on less invasivecontrol measures and to use the potential benefits ofincreased biodiversity in disease control. Pest regulationservices have the potential to support EU policies onpesticide use by providing alternative strategies forthe control of agricultural pests. Such strategiesmight involve different levels of intervention, includingthe use of semi-managed ecosystems such as fieldmargins.There may need to be closer controls on the movementof species into and around Europe if invasive problemsare to be avoided, although many future invasive speciesare already present in Europe and will not becomeproblematic until environmental change or evolutionfavours their spread; other future problem species willarrive without human intervention.44 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

Research needsAlthough there is a good understanding of the way inwhich pathogens spread through populations, applicationof this research to practice lags behind. Hooper &Chapin (2005) suggest that integrating results fromfield surveys with results from within-site experimentalmanipulations and mathematical models is importantfor both theoretical understanding and broad-scalemanagement of invasions by exotic species (Levine &D’Antonio 1999; Levine 2000; Shea & Chesson 2002).There is a considerable body of research into biologicalcontrol of agricultural and public health pests, mainly intropical systems, which could usefully be assimilated intoemerging strategies for low-intervention farming systems.As in many examples, knowledge of interactionsbetween soil organisms, pathogens and invasive speciesis inadequate, despite the fact that many serious diseasecausingorganisms are soil inhabitants.B3/C2 Water regulation and purificationThe maintenance of water quality, including themanagement of impurities and organic waste, andthe supply of clean water for human and animalconsumption.General significanceNatural systems play a major role in controlling the supplyof water and in making it fit for consumption. Rates offlow of water from catchments into lowland areas aredetermined by many factors, including penetration,storage and overland flow. Soil state, climate, vegetationand their interrelations act as key regulators. However,vegetation itself is determined by availability of waterin arid and semi-arid areas, giving rise to concern aboutclimatic fluctuations and change. Changing land use,including loss of forest cover and increased drainage,is a major factor, as is changing climate, especially ifit leads to greater frequency of high-intensity rainfallevents and altered seasonality in rainfall distribution.There are also links between this service and soil erosion(see section A4).Quality of water depends on a range of factors,including travel through soil and other porousformations before release into water bodies, becausethe microbial processes in sewage works are effectivelyreplicated in soil. Changes to water quality that occurin soil include the transformations of persistent organicpollutants (POPs), sequestration and conversion ofinorganic ions (nitrate, phosphate, metals), and removalof disease-causing microbes such as Cryptosporidium(Lake et al. 2007). Similar processes occur in waterbodies, including lakes and rivers. There is a strong linkbetween regulation of water supply and water quality,because rapid flows of water through soil or waterbodies reduces the time for transformations to occur;extreme weather events thereby lead to poorer waterquality. Unsustainable use of water resources, such asexcess withdrawals forcing saltwater intrusion in coastalaquifers, may also imperil water quality for several usesof societal importance.Role of biodiversityAlthough vegetation is a major determinant of waterflows and quality, and micro-organisms play an importantrole in the quality of groundwater, the relationshipof water regulation and purification to biodiversity ispoorly understood, except in so far as the states of soiland vegetation determine water flows and storage.The activity of soil organisms has a large and directimpact on soil structure and hence on infiltration andretention rates (compare with section A3). However, itis likely that many of the key transformation processesin soil are ‘broad’ processes, in the sense that they canbe performed by a variety of common soil microbes,including pseudomonads. On the other hand, wherenovel compounds such as pollutants are concerned, itis more likely that particular microbial species have theability to improve water quality, and these should beregarded as ‘narrow’ processes in which biodiversity mayplay a large role.Ecosystems involvedWater reaches freshwater stores (lakes, rivers, aquifers)by a variety of routes, including direct precipitation,surface and subsurface flows and human intervention.In all but the first case, the water quality is altered bythe addition and removal of organisms and substances.Ecosystems therefore play a major role in determiningwater quality. In particular, the passage of waterthrough soil has a profound impact, both through thedissolution of inorganic (for example nitrate, phosphate)and organic (dissolved organic carbon compounds,pesticides) compounds and the modification of manyof these by soil organisms. This service is thereforerelevant to all terrestrial ecosystems, but may be ofparticular significance in urban and intensively managedecosystems.European concerns/contextIn lowland Europe, many factors impinge on waterregulation and purification, including the use offloodplains, river engineering and the increasingimpermeability of land surfaces in urban areas, leadingto rapid runoff and reduced infiltration of water into soil.Nearly 80% of Europeans live in urban areas, in whichtraffic and industry emit substantial amounts of pollutants(metals, nutrients, organic toxins) which are washed withrainwater from the sealed surfaces directly to surfacewaters. Sealed soils cannot purify contaminated waterand the distorted hydrological cycle impacts not onlyEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 45

the city but also surrounding ecosystems. Removal ofpollutants (both toxins and nutrients) is therefore a keyissue, and there are emerging problems, including theincreasing use of biochemicals and pharmaceuticals,the spread and appearance of disease organisms suchas Cryptosporidium, and increasing input of dissolvedorganic carbon (apparent as brown colouration) inareas where water supply comes from peat catchments.All these challenge the ability of natural systems tocontinue to purify water to an acceptable level, at a timewhen water treatment utilities throughout Europe arestruggling to meet the demands of new standards fordomestic water supply. The use of the water purificationservices of natural ecosystems has the potential to easethis pressure by reducing intake loads of contaminants.Both water availability and water quality need to besecured, with equitable access. The EU as a whole hassufficient water, but projections for both the south andthe north under climate change suggest this situationmay not persist. Increasingly, freshwater supplies are aproblem in the Mediterranean region and in such denselypopulated areas as southeast England. The impacts ofthe consequent pumping from groundwater bodies canhave a damaging impact on the base flow of rivers and onsaltwater intrusion in coastal aquifers. There will thereforebe increasing demand to redistribute water, which byitself has major impacts on both biodiversity and otherecosystem functions.There will be an increasing need to develop productionsystems based on increased efficiency of water use.Tilman et al. (2002) estimate that globally 40% ofcrop production comes from the 16% of agriculturalland that is irrigated; in parts of the southern EUMember States, up to 90% of agriculture is dependenton groundwater, and, overall, agriculture is estimatedto require twice as much water in the next few decades(Schiermeier 2008). The effects of water shortagestherefore are already shifting attention from health andsanitation to key economic activities such as agricultureand energy production.Policy implicationsMost policy implications are not closely related to issuesof biodiversity, but there is a need for trans-boundaryapproaches to catchment management: a balancebetween engineered and ecosystem-based approachesto water regulation. The EU Water Framework Directivetends to treat groundwater and surface water systemsas separate compartments. A more coherent approachto the managed recharge of groundwater, with controlson groundwater extraction rates to protect surfaceecosystems, would be a valuable enhancement ofthe WFD.Rates of urbanisation, especially in new MemberStates, highlight the need for planned developmentsto minimise damage to water cycles. There is also aneed for more coherent policies on the use of water inagricultural production and on the relationships betweengroundwater and surface water. In general, the need isfor sustainable development practices.Research needsIn relation to biodiversity, the principal area of uncertaintyis in the role of diverse communities of soil microbes in theremoval of contaminants from water.B4 Protection from hazardsReduction of the impacts of natural forces on humansettlements and the managed environment.General significanceMany hazards arising from human interaction withthe natural environment in Europe are sensitive toenvironmental change. Examples include:• flash floods due to extreme rainfall events on heavilymanaged ecosystems that cannot retain rainwater;• landslides and avalanches;• storm surges due to sea-level rise and the increasinguse of hard coastal margins;• air pollution due to intensive use of fossil fuelscombined with extreme summer temperatures;• fires caused by prolonged drought, with or withouthuman intervention.Other hazards, particularly those with geological causesthat are localised to areas known to be vulnerable, such asvolcanic eruptions and earthquakes, are not relevant to aconsideration of biodiversity effects.Role of biodiversityThe role of biodiversity in delivering protection fromnatural hazards is generally small. In some cases,the integrity of the affected ecosystem is of centralimportance, and it is likely that loss of biodiversity mayreduce resilience. Biodiversity plays a key role in thepreservation of wetlands and tidal landforms that deliversignificant ecosystem services throughout Europe. Forexample, sea-level rise places intense selective pressureson halophytic vegetation whose fate is critical to thesurvival of saltmarshes and other transition ecosystems,as shown by Marani et al. (2004) in the lagoon of Venice.Soil biodiversity may play a role in flood and erosioncontrol through affecting the surface roughness andporosity (Lavelle et al. 2006). Trees, for example on theboundaries of parks, have been shown to reduce the46 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

levels of air pollutants within parks during episodesof high pollution, and incidence of asthma has beenshown to be reduced in tree-rich urban areas. Whetherbiodiversity plays a role (that is, whether it matterswhich tree species are planted) is unknown. In mountainforests, increasing tree diversity is believed to enhance theprotection value against, for example, rockfall (see, forexample, Dorren et al. 2004).Ecosystems involvedFlooding is a problem in a wide range of ecosystems,including steep deforested catchments, flat alluvialplains and urban ecosystems with constrained waterflows. Flooding can also occur because of exceptionallyhigh tides and storm surges, a problem that will beexacerbated by rising sea levels; coastal wetlands areknown to play a major part in defence against tidalflooding. Wind breaks from managed woods or fromthe use of natural forest features are a traditional meansof protecting crops and habitations against both violentstorms and general damage from exposure of highwinds. In all these cases the role of vegetation isstructural, and the part played by species compositionwill normally be indirect, in controlling the stability andresilience of the system.European concerns/contextIncreased levels of urbanisation and more intensive use ofland for production may reduce the ability of ecosystemsto mitigate extreme events. Coastal protection is anincreasingly serious issue as sea level rises. Increasingly,protection will depend on ‘soft’ defences (salt-marshes,etc.) rather than hard coastal defences.Policy implicationsNon-engineering solutions to coastal protection will beincreasingly important, and the maintenance of forestcover in steep catchments is essential.Research needsThere are no research imperatives in this field; wherepossible roles of biodiversity emerge (as in the recentlydiscovered impact of trees on asthma incidence), followupresearch to identify the role of different species in theresponse will be required. The principal area of researchon biodiversity in relation to natural hazards is to elucidatethe role that it plays in regulating the resilience ofecosystems and their ability to withstand environmentalchange and disturbance.B5 PollinationThe use of natural pollinators to ensure that crops arepollinated.General significancePollination of flowers by insects is an essential part ofsexual reproduction in 90% of all flowering plant species(Kearns et al. 1998); others – including many trees andall grasses, including cereals – are pollinated by wind,whereas a few species are pollinated by other vectors suchas water or birds. Habitat destruction and deterioration,together with increased use of chemicals, has decreasedabundance and diversity of many insect pollinators.There are examples of crop loss with severe economicconsequences in the United States, for example, inalmond production. In the USA, 30% of food supplydepends on animal pollination (Kremen et al. 2002), andthe pressures on pollinators may result in decreased cropproduction in Europe as well as reduced fecundity ofplants, including rare and endangered species.Role of biodiversityCrop pollination is perhaps the best-known ecosystemservice performed by insects (Zhang 2007; see also Losey &Vaughan, 2006). Over 75% of the world’s most importantcrops and 35% of food production is dependent uponanimal pollination (Klein et al. 2007). Bees are thedominant taxon providing crop pollination services, butbirds, bats, moths, flies and other insects can also beimportant. Pollinator diversity is essential for sustainingthis highly valued service, which Costanza et al. (1997)estimated to be worth about $14 per hectare per year.Hajjar et al. (2008) argue that the loss of biodiversity inagro-ecosystems through agricultural intensificationand habitat loss negatively affects the maintenance ofpollination systems and causes the loss of pollinatorsworldwide (Kearns et al. 1998; Kremen and Ricketts2000, 2004; Richards 2001; Kremen et al. 2002). Richards(2001) reviews well-documented cases where low fruitor seed set by crop species and the resulting reduction incrop yields has been attributed to the impoverishmentof pollinator diversity. There is increasing evidencethat conserving wild pollinators in habitats adjacentto agriculture improves both the level and stability ofpollination, leading to increased yields and income (Kleinet al. 2003). Several studies from Europe and Americahave demonstrated that the loss of natural and seminaturalhabitat, such as calcareous grassland, can impactupon agricultural crop production through reducedpollination services provided by native insects such as bees(Kremen et al. 2004).Biesmeijer et al. (2006) examined the evidence for paralleldeclines in pollinators and insect-pollinated plants inBritain and the Netherlands, based on almost one millionrecords for all native bees and hoverflies in both countries.Compared with the period up to 1980, bee abundancehas declined in both Britain and the Netherlands, but thatpattern is only found for some species of hoverflies insome locations. In both countries, pollinators with narrowEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 47

habitat requirements showed the greatest declines, andin Britain, plants most dependent on insect pollinators(obligatorily out-crossing species) were declining, whereaswind- and water-pollinated species were increasing andself-pollinating species were broadly stable. Althoughit is difficult to determine whether the decline in insectpollinatedplants precedes the loss of pollinators or viceversa, taken together they suggest a causal connectionbetween local extinctions of functionally linked plant andpollinator species.The EU Rubicode programme highlights the importanceof traits in biodiversity. One example quoted is the needfor diversity of traits such as tongue length and colourattraction in pollinators. This approach is supported byevidence that pollinator diversity, though not abundance,is positively related to seed set in pumpkins (Cucurbitamoschata) (Hoehn et al. 2008).Ecosystems involvedAll ecosystems, though possibly least important inspecies-poor boreal forests, where most species arewind-pollinated. However, there will be rare and possiblyendangered species in all ecosystems that are potentiallyvulnerable to declines in pollinator activity. Greatesteconomic losses will be encountered in agro-ecosystemswhere insect-pollinated crops are grown and aredependent on wild pollinators.European concerns/contextReduction of landscape diversity and increase of land-useintensity may lead to a reduction of pollination service inagricultural landscapes (Tscharntke et al. 2005; Öckinger& Smith 2007). Decreased pollinator services mayendanger rare plant species. Semi-natural open habitats(including forest edges and hedges) are under threatthroughout Europe; these habitats are essential to themaintenance of vibrant populations of pollinating insects,especially bees, but also hoverflies, butterflies, beetles andother pollinators.Policy implicationsThere is a need to maintain diverse landscapes thatcreate networks of open habitats which will encouragereservoirs of pollinators and provide resilience toenvironmental change. Critical habitats include long-termfallow, which has been largely eliminated in the rushto biofuel production, low-intensity grassland, hedges,and forest and woodland edges. There should also beencouragement of bee-keeping, using native bee species,and careful consideration given to the regulation ofpesticide use.Research needsWe need better data on the effects of landscapecomposition and configuration on pollinator diversity andabundance, in particular whether there are thresholds foramounts of natural habitat adjacent to crops to providepollination services. Flowering crops (such as oilseed rape,clover and alfalfa) and forms of agriculture that allowweed survival (as often in organic agriculture) may beimportant in promoting bee densities.Pollination is often assumed not to be a limiting factorin either cultivated or wild plants, so establishmentof its relative importance for yield or plant fitnessis an important research gap, as is understandingthe importance of pollinator diversity, especially forcreating resilience to change and in the maintenanceof biodiversity. The importance of this question isemphasised by recent marked declines in pollinatorabundance, particularly in populations of honey-bees,which remain unexplained and are an urgent researchneed, in terms of both causes and consequences.Climate warming is already markedly altering floweringtimes for most plant species (Fitter & Fitter 2002), butthere are few data on the parallel responses of pollinatorsor whether differences in the responses of plants andpollinators could have large-scale impacts on naturalcommunities.48 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

C. Provisioning servicesC1 FoodThe delivery and maintenance of the food chain on whichhuman societies depend.General significanceFood production is critically dependent on primaryproduction (q.v.; section A1) and on all the othersupporting services (nutrient and water cycling, soilformation) as well as on regulating services (for examplepollination). Heywood (1999) estimates that well over6000 species of plants are known to have been cultivatedat some time or another, and many thousands that aregrown locally are scarcely or only partly domesticated,whereas as many, if not more, are gathered from the wild.These figures exclude most of the 25,000 species that areestimated to have been used or are still in use as herbalmedicines in various parts of the world. However, onlyabout 30 crop species provide 95% of the world’s foodenergy (Williams & Haq 2002) and it has been arguedthat the world is currently over-dependent on a few plantspecies. Diversification of production and consumptionhabits to include a broader range of plant species, inparticular those currently identified as ‘underutilised’, cancontribute significantly to improved health and nutrition,livelihoods, household food security and ecologicalsustainability (Jaenicke & Höschle-Zeledon 2006; Procheset al. 2008).Role of biodiversityIntensive agriculture, as currently practised in Europe,is centred around crop monoculture, with minimisationof associated species such as insects and fungi, some ofwhich are pathogenic and able to have large impacts onyield. These systems offer high yields of single products,allowing economically efficient relationships betweenproducers and distributors; they also depend on heavyuse of fertilisers and pesticides, raising questions abouteconomic and environmental sustainability. However,some agricultural systems based on a diversity of varietiesare more robust and responsive (Hajjar et al. 2008). Morediverse production systems may allow farmers to:• respond to changing market demands orenvironmental variations that might affect cropproduction (Vandermeer 1995; Brush and Meng1998; Gauchan and Smale 2007);• command price premiums for high-quality traditionalvarieties that compensate for lower yields (Smale2006);• meet social and cultural obligations (Latournerie-Moreno et al. 2006).;• improve dietary diversity and improve nutrition (Johnsand Sthapit 2004).Diverse systems also seem to be associated with reducedpathogen attack (q.v.; section B2) and application ofpesticides, whereas Hooper & Chapin (2005) note thatdiversity of pasture species can reduce nutrient leaching,production variation, and insurance costs. Thus diversityis consciously incorporated into ecosystems managed forextraction of food and fibre as a safeguard against risk, tooptimise use of resources and to provide multiple goodsand services. Intercropping and agroforestry studieshave frequently demonstrated benefits arising fromcomplementarity or facilitation among crop or forestryspecies, a response that matches findings from manyecological experiments.Farming communities outside Europe value the diversityof ‘landraces’, farmer-developed populations of cultivatedspecies that show among- and within-population diversityand which are linked to traditional cultures (Negri 2004).In southern Mexico, farmers rely on growing a diversityof maize land races because of heterogeneous soil andproduction conditions, risk factors, market demand,consumption, and uses of different products from a singlecrop species (Bellon 1996); whereas in Turkey farmersgrow different types of wheat in different agronomicconditions or for different uses (Brush & Meng 1998).Moreover, farmers rely on the diversity of other farmsor communities to provide new seeds when a crop failsand seed is lost or to renew seed that no longer meetsthe farmer’s criteria of good seed (Louette & Smale2000). In contrast, few farmers in Europe use land racesand most are no longer conscious of the importance ofdiversity in agricultural production. However, Padulosiet al. (2002) report the case of hulled wheat, a collectivename for Triticum monococcum, T. dicoccum and T.spelta, which are an important speciality crop in Italy andother European countries, where both ex situ and in situconservation strategies are being attempted.Failure to maintain sufficient genetic diversity in crops canincur high economic and social costs. The potato faminein Ireland in the nineteenth century is generally attributedto the low genetic diversity of potatoes there, makingthe crop susceptible to potato blight fungus, a problemresolved by using resistant varieties from South America,where the potato had originated. Barley mixtures maysuccessfully reduce disease incidence in Europe, andso increase yields (Hajjar & Hodgkin 2007), whereasthere is potential to use mixed soft wheat varieties forenergy-efficient feedstock for the bioethanol industryin the UK (Swanston & Newton 2005). Other examplesof the use of varietal mixtures in Europe, NorthAmerica, Asia and South America are reviewed in deVallavieille-Pope (2004). However, there is much variationamong these studies, and sometimes conflictingconclusions can be drawn about the benefit of varietaldiversity. Agricultural strategies need to be tailoredto local conditions, including field size and the spatialarrangement of strains.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 49

Hooper & Chapin (2005) argue that maintenance of highproductivity over time in monocultures almost invariablyrequires heavy and unsustainable subsidies of chemicals,energy, and capital. They suggest that diversity becomesincreasingly important as a management goal, from botheconomic and ecological perspectives, with increasingtemporal and spatial scales and for providing a broaderarray of ecosystem services. Some types of farming systemin Europe can promote biodiversity. Organic farming canincrease biodiversity (species richness and abundance), butwith inconsistent effects among organisms and landscapes(Bengtsson et al. 2005): benefits are greatest in intensivelymanaged agricultural landscapes. Even though crop yieldsmay be 20% lower in organic systems, inputs of fertiliserand energy were reduced by 34–53%, and pesticide inputby 97%, suggesting that the enhanced soil fertility andhigher biodiversity found in organic plots may render thesesystems less dependent on external inputs (Mader et al.2002). However, use of land for non-intensive agriculturalproduction is likely to reduce yields and there is then atrade-off between land for agriculture and land for wildbiodiversity: we could devote spare land to biodiversity byusing intensive agriculture or use more land for productionin extensive or organic systems that promote biodiversity.Ecosystems involvedFood is produced principally in intensively managedagro-ecosystems, comprising 45% of the EU’s land areaat present, down from 49.5% in 1995. However, thereare large areas of Europe in which food productionis achieved with less impact, including extensiveareas of uplands devoted to grazing, principally bysheep, and large areas, again principally in areas ofcomplex topography, where more traditional forms ofagriculture still function. Apart from areas devoted towildlife conservation or recreation, those used for otherproduction systems (for example forestry) and urbanareas, most of the European landscape is involved infood production to some extent. Even some urban andsuburban areas have allotment and other forms of gardenthat are used for food production.The ubiquity of agricultural production in Europe alsomeans that other ecosystems are frequently adjacentto food-producing land, and processes and practicesof agriculture may therefore have a broader impact.Obvious examples of this phenomenon are spray driftand nutrient pollution, both of which can damage seminaturalhabitats. Agro-ecosystems may also act as barriersto the migration and dispersal of organisms amongremaining patches of non-agricultural land, with negativeconsequences for the ability of distributed populations towithstand environmental change.European concerns/contextCurrently, although the EU is a net exporter of food inmany agricultural sectors, notably cereals, the patternof trade is such that the EU is actually highly dependenton imports, not simply for fruit and vegetables, but alsofor some key high-value products within other sectors.The high dependence of European food supplies onimports of some critical parts of the European diet raisesimportant questions about food security and exposesEU citizens to risks associated with both supply and cost.Dependence on imports potentially imposes large carboncosts on the food supply chain, although full life-cycleanalysis may reveal that importing food from countrieswith more productive climates is more carbon-efficient insome cases.Policy implicationsAs world food prices rise, there will be pressure tomaximise the area under production and this will havepotentially devastating impacts on biodiversity. Greenet al. (2005) argue that farming is already the greatestextinction threat to birds (the best-studied group),and its adverse impacts look set to increase, especiallyin developing countries. They suggest therefore thatwe need to consider the overall effects of differentproduction strategies on biodiversity and compare a‘wildlife-friendly farming’ with a ‘land sparing’ option thatminimises demand for land by maximising yields. Theyconclude that athough the evidence base is incomplete,current data suggest that for a wide range of speciesin developing countries, high-yield farming combinedwith areas set aside for biodiversity conservation mayallow more species to persist overall. On the otherhand, a sustainable solution to this conflict betweenfood production and biodiversity conservation may beto recognise that, although some areas will need to beprotected from agricultural exploitation, agro-ecosystemstoo will need to be managed so as to garner the benefitsof biodiversity.There is therefore a need for a Europe-wide assessment ofthe impacts of changing land-use. The EU is in a uniqueposition to assess the costs and benefits of alternativeapproaches to land-use management and make soundchoices at the right scale. This will involve ensuring thatevolving agricultural support policies and farm paymentsystems properly value the full range of ecosystemservices delivered by agricultural land, and do not focuspurely on food production. Other services such as nutrientcycling, water quality and regulation and carbon storagewill need to be viewed as of equal status in managementof agro-ecosystems.Research needsAgriculture meets a major human need, and both affectsand depends on all other life support systems. Currenttrends point to continued human population growth andever-higher levels of consumption as the global economyexpands. This will stress the capacity of agriculture to meetfood needs without further sacrificing the environmental50 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

integrity of local landscapes and the global environment.Agriculture’s main challenge for the coming decades willbe to produce sufficient food and fibre for a growingglobal population at an acceptable environmentalcost. This challenge requires an ecological approachto agriculture that is largely missing from currentmanagement and research portfolios. Crop and livestockproduction systems must be managed as ecosystems, withmanagement decisions fully informed by environmentalcosts and benefits. Currently, too little is known aboutimportant ecological interactions in major agriculturalsystems and landscapes and about the economic valueof the ecosystem services associated with agriculture.To create agricultural landscapes that are managed formultiple services in addition to food and fibre will requireintegrative research, both ecological and socioeconomic,as well as policy innovation and public education.In the USA, Swinton et al. (2006) have emphasisedthat despite the artificiality of agro-ecosystems, theyhave great potential to expand the supply of ecosystemservices compared with semi-natural systems. Theyargue that this is because much more is known aboutthe biophysical relationships within them and we alreadyhave precedents for ways to intervene through marketsor regulatory mechanisms. They also suggest that ongrounds of past performance, agricultural systems havethe capacity to respond to such external drivers. A similarargument probably exists for agricultural landscapes inEurope. However, higher levels of biodiversity, especiallyin soil, may be essential if less energy-intensive forms ofagriculture are to be adopted in future, and research oncritical levels of soil biodiversity is urgently needed.C3 EnergyThe supply of plants for fuels.General significanceNatural systems provide a great diversity of materials forfuel, notably oils and wood, that are directly derived fromwild or cultivated plant species. In some parts of Europe,gathering of wood for fuel remains an important domesticenergy source. There is currently intense interest andstrong policy direction to increase the proportion of energyderived from renewable sources, of which biologicalmaterials are a major part. At present, this is beingachieved partly by the cultivation of biomass crops (forexample willow, Miscanthus) which are burned as fuelsin conventional power stations, and partly by diversion ofmaterials otherwise useable as food for people or animals,including wheat and maize, to manufacture ethanol asa replacement for petrol and other oil-derived fuels. Theexpectation is that these ‘first generation’ fuels will bedisplaced – at least for ethanol production – by a secondgeneration of non-food materials, principally celluloseand lignin from both food crops and dedicated energycrops. However, in the absence of substantial subsidy, theeconomic viability of second-generation biofuels dependson improvements in enzymatic degradation processesand probably the development of high-value productseparation during processing.All of these biofuel production systems present serioussustainability issues. There are already establisheddamaging impacts on food production and availabilityand on prices worldwide; in addition, full analyses of thecarbon fluxes and other environmental impacts associatedwith current and envisaged biofuel production systemsshow that the carbon mitigation benefits are either muchsmaller than anticipated or even illusory. Several factorsthat have not been properly assessed in formulationof existing policies undermine the apparent benefits,including: losses of carbon from newly cultivated soils;destruction of vegetation when new land is broughtunder the plough; losses of other greenhouse gasessuch as nitrous oxide from nitrogen-fertilised biofuelproduction systems; and transport and manufacturingemissions.Many believe that the only sustainable and economicallyviable biofuels will be a ‘third generation’, probablyutilising single-celled marine algae, grown in saline waterin areas where reliable high solar radiation fluxes areavailable.Role of biodiversityIt seems unlikely that biodiversity of the crop will play adirect role in most biofuel production systems, althoughall land-based biofuel production will rely on thesupporting and regulating services, such as nutrient andwater cycling, for which biodiversity of soil organisms isimportant. The exception is the proposal to use mowngrassland as a second-generation biofuel; sustainedproduction in such a system may well be best achieved bya diverse mixture of plant species (compare with section1a, primary production).There may be a need to trawl widely for potentialbiofuel crop species and algae, emphasising the need tomaintain and conserve genetic diversity. However, landbasedbiofuel production systems have the potential tobe especially damaging to conservation of biodiversitybecause their introduction on a large-scale will inevitablylead both to more intensive land use and to theconversion of currently uncultivated land to production.Much of the damage seems likely to be inflicted outsideEurope, particularly in tropical regions, but it will beEuropean demand for biofuels that will be at least partlyresponsible.Ecosystems involvedEcosystems likely to be used for biofuel productioninclude forests, arable land generally and grasslands.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 51

There is likely to be strong pressure to bring land currentlyregarded as marginal for agriculture into production forbiofuel production; because time-to-market issues are lessimportant than for food production systems, remote andrelatively inaccessible areas where land values are low maybe targets for biofuel systems, introducing conflicts withrecreation and biodiversity conservation.European concerns/contextEnergy strategy in Europe currently includes a significantbiomass element. However, full carbon budgets forbiomass energy production are unknown and it is notclear that there are net benefits in the use of any kinds ofbiomass.Biomass for power production and fuel (biodiesel) is likelyto become a significant land-use pressure in parts of EU,and the implications of this for other types of land use andfor food prices are unknown. In some parts of the EU, peatis used as a fuel in power stations; this is an inefficientway to generate electricity, returns soil carbon directly tothe atmosphere as carbon dioxide, and is exceptionallydamaging to a restricted and sensitive ecosystem.Policy implicationsThe EU should undertake a full audit of implications ofincreased biomass and bioenergy production, includingthe full carbon budgets (covering transport, soil carbonstorage, emissions and all other flows of carbon), theimpacts of expanded biofuel production on biodiversity,and the likely use of genetically modified crops in biofuelsystems. There should be an immediate re-assessment ofthe EU biofuels provisions, and future policy should havea strong and explicit evidence base, and be developedon clear sustainability criteria. The use of peat as a fuelshould be discouraged.Research needsThe most urgent need is for whole life-cycle carbon andenergy budgets of biofuel production systems (bothterrestrial and aquatic) to be determined. This researchshould include a forecasting element to take intoaccount likely future technologies and future economicand policy conditions, so that robust models can bedeveloped. Because biofuel systems that compete withfood production are unlikely to be favoured, there shouldbe empirical research into alternative systems, such asthe ability of diverse grasslands or mixed biomass cropsto generate sustainable high yields with minimal inputs,while simultaneously delivering other ecosystem servicebenefits.C4 FibreThe supply of fibres from plants and animals for theproduction of woven materials.General significanceThe provision of fibre has historically been a highlyimportant ecosystem service to Europe. The wealth ofmany parts of Europe stems from production of materialsand products based on wool, linen, cotton and silk.Although much of the fibre used in these manufacturingcentres was initially produced locally, the trend has beentowards the use of imported fibres, and most textilesconsumed in the EU are now manufactured outsidethe EU. Historically, the wool industry was of principalimportance in establishing Western Europe as a centreof manufacturing and export, but wool production isnow a minor activity in Europe because of competitionfrom synthetic fibres and imports from Australia andNew Zealand. Sheep grazing does, however, remain asubstantial activity, particularly in upland and marginalagricultural areas, providing subsidised incomes for ruralareas, and supporting relatively low input pasture land.Sheep husbandry requires the use of topical pesticideapplications with consequences for local water systems,but recent EU regulations have tightened controls on useof several of these.Plant fibres have been produced for textile and bindingapplications for many years. Flax and hemp were majorEuropean crops with associated industries for theproduction of linen and rope. These industries, along withthe associated agricultural production, were lost largelyin the early twentieth century because of competitionfrom imported cotton. Bast fibre textiles have largelybeen replaced by cotton, and ropes are now mostly madewith more durable synthetic fibres. A small-scale industrybased on locally produced flax remains in Belgium andnorthern France, producing high-quality linen for thefashion industry. In recent years, attempts have beenmade to re-establish a bast fibre industry in Europe.Bast fibres from flax and hemp have mechanical andinsulation properties competitive with synthetic fibres.The automotive industry has started to adopt plant-fibrebasedcomposites for low-grade applications such asinterior panelling in cars. However, there are substantialproblems in the uptake of plant fibres for compositeapplications, mostly related to reliability in raw materialquality and supply (deJong et al. 1999). To extract bastfibres, the plant stems need to undergo a process ofpartial degradation, called retting. Historically, this wasachieved by submerging plants in large tanks and pondsallowing partial anaerobic digestion to occur, but theadverse effects on the environment of this process (andthe appalling smell) led to it being abandoned in favourof dew retting, whereby the cut crop is left to partly rot inthe field. The unpredictability of dew retting leads to largelosses of fibre and highly inconsistent quality. Until theseproblems are overcome, the widespread uptake of bastfibre crops in Europe seems unlikely.Cotton is not a major crop for Europe although there issome production in southern countries. Cotton cultivation52 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

equires high inputs of freshwater and chemicals,particularly pesticides. The introduction of geneticallymodified cotton varieties expressing insecticidal Bacillusthuringiensis toxins has reduced quantities of pesticidesprayed on the crop, along with decreased carbonemissions and increased farmer profits (Quaim & deJanvry 2005).The pulp and paper industry has a significant presencein Europe, using both recycled paper and forestry crops.Agro-foresty is a major activity in parts of northernEurope, as well as in more southerly areas such asSpain and Portugal where there are significant areas ofeucalyptus production. Pulp production generally relieson rapidly growing monocultures, with relatively shortrotation times. The pulping industry itself has historicallybeen a substantial source of environmental pollution,particularly for water resources because of the need forharsh chemical treatment to release and bleach the fibres.Substantial improvements in emissions from pulp millshave been achieved, particularly in Sweden in responseto regulatory constraints (Environmental Performance,Regulations and Technologies in the Pulp and PaperIndustry 2006 EKONKO Inc.), which tends to stimulateprocess innovations. Genetic modification has led tosome trees with altered lignin structures that are easier topulp, which may decrease the chemical requirements forpulping in the future (Pilate et al. 2002).Role of biodiversityCommercial production of plant fibres is mostly confinedto the pulp and paper industry in Europe, with most rawpulp being produced from highly managed monoculturesof fast-growing pine and eucalypts. Trees planted for pulpare grown at relatively high densities, resulting in limitedscope for biodiversity. Such large-scale monoculturesare vulnerable to runaway pathogen attack, of the sortthat recently devastated pine forests in western Canada(Mock et al. 2007) (compare with section B2). Biodiversecropping systems may prove of value in terms in ensuringrobust future productivity. Textile fibre crops currentlyaccount for very minor areas of arable land. Woolproduction is generally a low-intensity activity onsemi-managed pasture lands with the potential tosupport considerable biodiversity.Ecosystems involvedFibre production in Europe is currently largely confinedto forestry plantations on sub-optimal agricultural landor in areas supporting boreal forest. Wool production isgenerally confined to marginal farming areas in Europesuch as upland pastures.European concernsForest products represent a major component in theeconomies of the Nordic countries and Baltic states.These countries invest heavily in research to maintaintheir international competitive position, as well asto increase their environmental sustainability, and thisshould be encouraged and supported. Wool productionis not an economically advantageous occupationcurrently in Europe, owing to competition fromAustralia and New Zealand in particular, and may notsurvive without subsidies. Bast fibre crops such ashemp and flax are attractive as they require relativelylow inputs in terms of agrichemicals, but seem unlikelyto become major crops without additional research andsupport.Policy implicationsThe production of fibres for textiles is a very limitedactivity in Europe at present and this is unlikely tochange in the current globalised economy owing tocompetition with other regions producing cotton andwool. Greater awareness of sustainability and the desirefor localised rural production could change this in thecoming years. The paper industry is a major consumerof freshwater and a major source of environmentalpollution. Western societies continue to be majorconsumers of paper, and policy leading to reductions inpaper consumption in EU will improve environmentalsustainability.Research needsThe drive toward greater environmental sustainabilityrequires us to consider how to obtain maximum utilityfrom agricultural products, while minimising impacts onthe environment and biodiversity. An important aspect ofthis will be the development of integrated bio-refineriesthat ensure maximum value is extracted from plantproducts. It may be worth re-evaluating crops such ashemp that grow well with minimal inputs and producea range of potentially useful materials including oil andprotein from seed, as well as bast fibres from stems, withresidual biomass perhaps serving as biofuels. Replacingman-made fibres with plant fibres in various industrialcontexts appears desirable, but careful life-cycle analysesshould be undertaken to confirm this. Improving therecovery of bast fibres from plant stems will be importantin improving fibre raw material quality to enable uptakeof plant fibres into industrial applications. Reducing thechemical inputs necessary for paper production, as wellas improving the capture and recycling of these inputs,will help improve the sustainability of the pulp andpaper industries. The consumption of paper per capita inEurope is high and research into reducing this would bebeneficial.C5 BiochemicalsMaterials derived from nature as feedstocks intransformation to medicines, food additives, etc.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 53

General significanceBiochemicals encompass a broad range of chemicals ofhigh value, for example metabolites, pharmaceuticals,nutraceuticals, crop protection chemicals, cosmetics andother natural products for industrial use (for exampleenzymes, gums, essential oils, resins, dyes, waxes) andas a basis for biomimetics that may become increasinglyimportant in nanotechnology applications. The diverseindustrial applications associated with bioprospectingare discussed in detail in chapter 10 of the MillenniumEcosystems Assessment.Some of the best-characterised examples arepharmaceuticals. It has been estimated that of the top150 prescription drugs used in the USA, 118 originatefrom natural sources (74% from plants, 18% from fungi,5% from bacteria, 3% from vertebrates) (EcologicalSociety of America, www.actionbioscience.org). Inaddition to these high-value biochemical products,there is an important related consideration in the use ofbiomass for chemical feedstocks in addition to bioenergy(Royal Society report ‘Sustainable biofuels: prospects andchallenges’, chapter 3, January 2008) where developmentof integrated biorefineries will generate the buildingblocks (platform chemicals) for industrial chemistry. Someof these products may be regarded as biochemicals. Areport from the US Environmental Protection Agency(Bioengineering for pollution prevention throughdevelopment of biobased energy and materials; Stateof the science report, September 2007) concludes thateconomically competitive products (compared with oilderived)are within reach, for example for celluloses,proteins, polylactides, plant oil-based plastics andpolyhydroxyalkanoates. The high-value products maymake use of biomass economically viable, which couldbecome a significant land-use issue.Role of biodiversityBiodiversity is the fundamental resource forbioprospecting, but it is rarely possible to predict whichspecies or ecosystem will become an important source.A wide variety of species – microbial, plant and animal– have been a valuable source of biochemicals but theachievements so far are assumed to be only a very smallproportion of what could be possible by more systematicscreening. The impact of the current global declinein biodiversity on the discovery of novel biochemicalsand applications is probably grossly underestimatedbecause of a general lack of recognition of the potentiallycommercially important species.This use to produce biochemicals might itself have anegative impact on biodiversity if over-harvesting removesa high proportion of the species – it is necessary to protectagainst this by agreeing harvesting protocols on acase-by-case basis. More problematically, biodiversity lossin consequence of relatively low-value activities such asindiscriminate logging may compromise the futurehigh-value activities (as yet undiscovered) associated withthe search for novel biochemicals and chemicals.Ecosystems involvedAll ecosystems are potential sources of biochemicals:–there are numerous examples from the oceans andshoreline, freshwater systems, forests, grasslands andagricultural land. Although species-rich environmentssuch as tropical forests have often been assumed tosupply the most products, there are many examplesassociated with European habitats. However, the problemof the general lack of a robust and reliable measure toassess the commercial or other value of an ecosystem iscompounded by the expectation that most biochemicalresources have yet to be discovered and exploited.Microbes seem likely to be especially rich in undiscoveredmetabolic capacities, and the complexity of soilecosystems means that there is likely to be great potentialin searching for novel biochemicals there.European concerns/contextBecause of the general lack of understanding aboutwhat controls biochemical production and about likelyfuture sources of new agents (some which could satisfycurrently unimagined applications), it may be assumedthat the issues for biochemicals are broadly related tothe issues for primary production. In the context ofEuropean competitiveness, however, there is also needto consider the issues for supporting Europeancompanies in their activities to identify and usebiochemicals obtained from ecosystems in othercountries. Thus, broadly there will be need for EUinitiatives to support public–private partnerships withdeveloping countries, with consideration of the optionsfor protecting intellectual property and benefit sharing.There is a potential role for the European Commissionin supporting pre-competitive research by helping todevelop and make accessible integrated databases of thecurrent biochemical resources as a basis for new discoveryin the diverse industry sectors. Although there is a verylarge resource, it is assumed, to be tapped in the variousnatural species, there are also specific examples wheregenetic modification may add value. However, the EU iscurrently a difficult environment for this work on geneticmodification.Policy implicationsThe activities to identify new sources of establishedbiochemicals/chemicals and novel biochemicals/chemicalsare anticipated to increase. New high-value industriesmay be created. Advances in the fundamental scienceof genomics can be expected to be applied to enhanceproductivity of natural processes. It is important forEU innovation policy to capitalise on these broad54 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

opportunities. It is important that issues within theConvention on Biological Diversity relating to researchand development of novel compounds are resolved.Research needsThere is a major need in many industrial sectors fornew programmes to screen natural products. In thepharmaceutical sector, there had been a move awayfrom natural product screening on the assumption thatgenomics research would provide future targets forcombinatorial chemistry-based approaches. A new moodof realism will see a return to screening natural products(especially if there is the prospect that yields/attributes canthen be optimised using genomics-based techniques).For example, the need for companies to develop newapproaches to tackling antibiotic resistance will likelyinclude new natural product screening programmes(Royal Society symposium, March 2008, report In Press).As in other ecosystem assessment areas, there is a needto develop new research methodologies to map andvalue future options: this is particularly difficult in thisarea because of the magnitude of the future unforeseenapplications when compared with present achievements.C6 Genetic resourcesProvision of genes and genetic material for animal andplant breeding and for biotechnology.General significanceCurrent rates of extinction (both at local and global levels)make the continued availability of this provision fromnatural systems potentially a concern, especially in poorlydocumented ecosystems (soil, sea). Extinction rates withinthe EU appear to remain low, although data from poorlystudied systems (for example soils, marine environments)are too patchy to make clear statements. Genebanksare better developed in the EU than elsewhere but havelimited capacity to conserve the range of genetic diversitywithin populations.As discussed elsewhere, genetic diversity of cropsdecreases susceptibility to pests and climate variation(Ewel 1986; Altieri 1990; Zhu et al. 2000). Especiallyin low-input systems, locally adapted varieties oftenproduce higher yield or are more resistant to pests thanvarieties bred for high performance under optimalconditions (Joshi et al. 2001). In agriculture, the diversityof genetic resources comprises the traditional resources(wild types and the older domesticated landraces)together with modern cultivars. Genetic resourceswill be increasingly important in support of improvedbreeding programmes, for example for crop plants,farm animals, fisheries – with wide range of objectivesfor increasing yield, resistance to disease, nutritionalvalue, adaptation to local environment and to climatechange. The advances in genomics research are openingup a new era in breeding, where the linkage of genesto traits (marker-assisted selection) provides a moreefficient and predictable route to conventional breedingprogrammes. There are also increasing opportunities forgenetic modification – for example where a desirablecharacteristic may only be available by using an unrelatedspecies.Genetic resources are also important for other purposes– for example in support of new activities to identifyand optimise the production of important biochemicals(section C5).Role of biodiversityThis is a service for which biodiversity is of centralimportance, because genetic diversity is inevitably lostwhen biodiversity declines. In so far as the delivery ofgenetic diversity can be viewed as a service in itself,therefore, biodiversity is fundamental to it. The greatestfocus on genetic diversity as a service is in the protectionof gene pools for agriculture. The Food and AgricultureOrganization of the United Nations (FAO) has donemuch significant work at the global level to supportcharacterisation of genetic resources in the food crop,livestock, fisheries and forestry sectors, but quantifiabledata on trend analysis in genetic resources are verylimited and have been collected for relatively briefperiods. There are now numerous initiatives to collect,conserve, study and manage genetic resources in situ(for example growing crops) and ex situ (for exampleseed and DNA banks) worldwide, including most EUcountries. New techniques using molecular markers areproviding new precision in characterising biodiversity (atthe level of molecular systematics and taxonomy) and thegenetic diversity within collections – a significant aid todeveloping management strategy to identify gaps andredundancy (Fears 2007).Ecosystems involvedAll ecosystems are important. Agricultural biodiversitycan be considered to have a special status because ofprevious human efforts to improve varieties, hence thespecific focus of the International Treaty on PlantGenetics Resources to conserve the resources for foodand agriculture. The replacement of landraces byhigh-yielding food crop varieties, taken together withother changes in agricultural practice (for example thecollectivisation of large farms in Eastern Europe), hasaccelerated the erosion of genetic variation in cultivatedmaterial. The loss of genetic diversity associated withmore intensive agriculture may also have deleteriousimpact on the non-domesticated plants and animals(and micro-organisms) in the ecosystem. A decline incrop genetic diversity has consequences for their geneticvulnerability and their plasticity, for example, to respondto biotic and abiotic stress. However, much more researchEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 55

using molecular marker-based technologies is nowneeded to monitor the change in genetic diversity andhelp quantify the challenges for sustainable agriculture.Such research is now getting started at the EU level (forexample the European Commission-funded Crop GeneticDiversity Project, www.niab.com/gediflux).European concerns/contextThere has been a resurgence of EU interest in this area(for example the joint European Commission–industryTechnology Platforms on Plants for the Future and onAnimal Health), partly in consequence of the 2004EASAC report Genomics and crop plant sciences inEurope. However, the mechanisms linking laboratoryto field are still poor. There is need to build betterrelationships between fundamental science and breeding,because both commercial and academic expertisehas been lost from the EU in plant sciences and inconventional breeding programmes in consequence ofthe deteriorating environment for genetically modifiedproducts. There is need to grow the skills for curationand use of gene and seed banks within the EU and theappropriate sharing of their information and benefits.In addition, the EU must explore the opportunities forcapitalising on global genetic resources, both for localEuropean applications and to support technology transferto developing countries.Policy implicationsBecause the bulk of genetic diversity exists in natural andsemi-natural ecosystems, there is need to ensure thatexisting policies on biodiversity loss and on protection ofhabitats (for example Natura 2000) are implemented, andthat ecosystems that currently lack protection, notably soiland much of the marine environment, are given properprotection.Access to genetic resources is governed by the Conventionon Biological Diversity and by the International Treatyon Plant Genetic Resources for Food and Agriculture.The latter has significant potential on a multilateralbasis to support plant breeding research in Europe, butit is ambiguous about what specific genetic resourceswould be patentable. There is need for further debate onalternative options for treating genetic resources as publicgoods, for example the option of open-source licensingmethodology for sharing information, with patentprotection focused on end products.There is a general difficulty in valuing genetic resourcesas a basis for breeding improved varieties because ofuncertainties in the cost required to validate proof ofconcept and in the likelihood of reduction to practice.Thus, there is need to build stronger linkages between thetechnical, regulatory, commercial communities and policymakers.Research needsThe role of genetic diversity in determining the attributesof populations and ecosystems is an important area offundamental research: we need to establish the extent towhich genetic richness confers attributes such as stabilityand resilience.There is a large amount of research to be completedto address currently identified priorities in genomesequencing, characterisation of key gene functions at themolecular level and as determinants of physiology, foruse as resources in structured breeding programmes. TheEASAC report (2004) provides detailed discussion of someof the EU priorities (augmented by Fears (2007) for theglobal level). In addition to research on the determinantsof food production, research is required to support newcrop/biomass applications for bioenergy and chemicalfeedstocks.56 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

D. Cultural servicesThe services listed under this heading by the MillenniumEcosystem Assessment are best viewed as falling into twogroups:(1) spiritual, religious, aesthetic, inspirational and senseof place;(2) recreation, ecotourism, cultural heritage andeducational.General significanceAll these services have a large element of non-use values,especially those in the first group to which economicvalue is hard to apply. Those in the second group are moreamenable to traditional valuation approaches. Althoughall societies value the spiritual and aesthetic ‘services’ thatecosystems provide, these may have different significancein affluent, stable and democratic societies (Pretty et al.2005). Nevertheless biodiversity plays an important role infostering a sense of place in all European societies and hasconsiderable intrinsic cultural value (Moore 2007).Evidence for the importance of these services to citizensof the EU can be found in the scale of membershipof conservation-oriented organisations. The largestmembership organisation in the EU is the National Trust inthe UK, with 3.4 million members. Other large societies inthe UK include the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds(more than one million members) and the Royal Societyfor Nature Conservation (670,000), whereas in Germanythe Naturshutzbund (NABU) has 450,000 members.Cultural services are of unusually high importance inEurope because of the high value placed by Europeanson recreation, tourism and ecotourism. Stark evidence ofthe relative importance of these services compared withtraditional forms of land use was given by the 2001 footand mouth disease epidemic in the UK, which closedlarge areas of the uplands to tourism; one estimate of theeconomic impact was that gross domestic product fellby £3.8 billion during 2001 and 2002 as a result of theepidemic, of which 86% was due to losses in tourism.Most ecosystem-related tourism is protective ofbiodiversity; indeed the desire to see particular speciesmay be the rationale for the visit in many cases. Incontrast, some recreational uses of ecosystems are actuallyor potentially damaging. Shooting of migratory birds is themost blatant of these and is the cause of conflict betweenthe EU and certain Member States in southern Europe,but the management of land for game birds is also viewedby some as destructive of biodiversity because it typicallyinvolves suppression of predatory species. Golf coursesare a substantial user of land in some parts of the EU;traditionally, golf course management was a low-intensityactivity, but modern approaches are often associated withlow biodiversity and high water and agrochemical use,making them potentially or actually damaging.Role of biodiversityThe role of biodiversity varies greatly among these servicesbut is likely to be particularly large for ecotourism andeducational uses of ecosystems. However, in many casesbiodiversity may not be the typical identifier of the valuebeing placed on the ecosystem, but nevertheless underliesthe character recognised by the visitor. Typical landscapesin different parts of Europe are in part identifiable bythe organisms, especially trees, growing there. Schröteret al. (2005) predicted that several typical tree speciesof the Mediterranean region are likely to decline as aresult of the impact of climate change, including corkoak (Quercus suber), holm oak (Q. ilex), aleppo pine(Pinus halepensis) and maritime pine (P. pinaster). Somekey cultural sites are protected by ecosystems that arevulnerable to climate change: for example, vegetationchanges in response to sea level rise will undermine thehalophytic ecosystems surrounding the lagoon of Venice.These changes would affect the sense of place andcultural identity of the inhabitants, traditional forms ofland use and the tourism sector. Phillips (1998) also arguesthat several Europe-wide studies have confirmed themany conservation and environmental values associatedwith such traditional landscapes, and that they can alsoact as models for the sustainable use of natural resources.Many cultural services are associated with urbanareas, especially those with very long histories ofhuman occupation; in these the role of biodiversity islikely to be less important. However, there is goodevidence that biodiversity in urban areas plays apositive role in promoting human well-being. Forexample, Fuller et al. (2007) have shown that thepsychological benefits of green space in Sheffieldincrease with biodiversity, whereas a green view froma window increases job satisfaction and reduces jobstress (Shin 2007). Green spaces also promote healthby encouraging exercise and have obvious educationalbenefits.Ecosystems involvedCultural services based on biodiversity are most stronglyassociated with less intensively managed areas, wheresemi-natural biotopes dominate. These large areasmay provide both tranquil environments and a sense ofwilderness. Low-input agricultural systems are also likelyto support cultural services, with many local traditionsbased on the management of land and its associatedbiological resources.Policy implicationsAlthough separated here, cultural services providea coherent challenge to policy, in that preferencesEASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 57

expressed in economic terms (for example tourism)are based on aesthetic and other perceptions. Policy(especially agricultural policy) needs to be aimed atdeveloping sustainable land-use practices across theEU, to deliver cultural, provisioning and regulatoryservices effectively and with minimal cost. Maintenanceof diverse ecosystems for cultural reasons can allowprovision of a wide range of other services withouteconomic intervention. However, there will frequentlybe actual or potential conflicts arising when differentcultural traditions meet. Good examples of these conflictsinclude the shooting of migratory birds by hunters inMediterranean countries conflicting with the desire ofmany northern Europeans to conserve (and view) thesebirds; the protection of geese by conservation bodiesin western Scotland conflicting with farmers’ needs toreserve grazing for livestock rather than the geese; andthe perceived need by managers of game-bird estates inScotland and northern England to control predators suchas hen harriers (Circus cyaneus) that prey on young grousebut which are protected.Research needsProgress in understanding the role of cultural serviceswill depend on new interdisciplinary working methodsbringing together natural and social scientists, to allowmore appropriate economic models and effectivemeasurements of interactions between people andnatural systems.58 | February 2009 | Ecosystem services and biodiversity EASAC

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Annex 2 Previous EASAC work on biodiversitySince its inception, EASAC has produced eight reports, and a series of briefing papers, on a range of scientific topics.Each of these has had a specific relevance to policy development in the European institutions of governance, the EUCommission, Parliament, Council and the Economic and Social Committee. However, the governments and public atlarge within Member States are also seen as audiences for EASAC’s reports.In the autumn of 2004, the European Parliament Environment Committee commissioned EASAC to prepare a briefingon indicators of biodiversity. It was the Committee’s concern that the EU Sustainability report, prepared by the EuropeanCommission, had so far failed to provide information on trends in biodiversity in the EU. Parliamentarians were trying tounderstand whether there were suitable indicators available and, if so, what factors were impeding their use.In a follow-up visit to the European Parliament Environment Committee Secretariat and the Commission’s DGEnvironment, it emerged that, although the concept of ecosystem services was recognised as a powerful idea, suchthinking was not in general currency within the Commission and, indeed, was subject to considerable suspicion fromCommission economists. The EASAC Secretariat agreed to consider how EASAC might respond to these concerns.In May 2006, the Royal Society’s Science Policy environment team met with the EASAC Secretariat to discuss thepotential for EASAC to undertake a project on ecosystem goods and services. The intention was to investigate whetherEASAC could look at ways to take the Millennium Ecosystem Assessment framework forward in a European contextgiven the recent developments in EU policy, and in particular the emphasis of EU economic and social policy overbroader sustainable development, environment and biodiversity policy. EASAC Council approved a proposal for thiswork in June 2006.EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 67

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Annex 3 Working Group members and expert consultationThis report was prepared by a Working Group of experts, acting in an individual capacity, and was reviewed andapproved by EASAC Council.Members of the Working GroupAlastair Fitter (Chairman)Erwin BulteThomas ElmqvistAndrea RinaldoHeikki SetäläSusanna Stoll-KleemannMartin ZobelJohn Murlis (Secretary)University of York, UKTilburg University, the NetherlandsStockholm University, SwedenUniversity of Padua, Italy; and Ecole Polytechnique Federale Lausanne, SwitzerlandUniversity of Helsinki, FinlandUniversity of Greifswald, GermanyTartu University, EstoniaEASAC, UKDuring the course of this work, many experts were consulted on the content of Annex 1, and we are pleased toacknowledge their contribution. Special thanks go to Marian Potschin, Roy Haines Young and colleagues at theUniversity of Nottingham for a major contribution in preparing Annex 1. Charles Perrings also provided valuable inputto the main report.Experts consultedRichard Abbott (University of St Andrews)Richard Bardgett (Lancaster University)Charles Godfray (University of Oxford)Ian Graham (University of York)Louise Heathwaite (Lancaster University)Phil Ineson (University of York)Mike Jeger (Imperial College London)Alan Jenkins (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)Sven Kullander (Uppsala University, Sweden)Georgina Mace (Imperial College)Simon McQueen Mason (University of York)Dan Osborne (Centre for Ecology & Hydrology)Juliet Osborne (Rothamsted Research)Marco Pautasso (Imperial College London)Edward Penning Rousell (Middlesex University)John Pickett (Rothamsted Research)Jules Pretty (University of Essex)Dave Raffelli (University of York)Peter Smith (University of Aberdeen)Teja Tscharntke (University of Göttingen)Helmut van Emden (University of Reading)EASAC Ecosystem services and biodiversity | February 2009 | 69

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