ECOSYSTEM SERVICES:

1. Supporting:

Nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production

2. Provisioning:

Food, fresh water, wood and fibre, fuel

3. Regulating:

Climate regulation, flood regulation, disease regulation, water purification

4. Cultural:
Aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational

Note: for some of the services, their financial value can be calculated. Also, they operate at different
scales and each one may be more/ less important:

- Climate regulation is of global significance because ecosystems can help regulate the amount of
carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and maintain surface albedo. This is because major destructions
of ecosystems risks unbalancing the entire climate system. Climate and water cycle regulation are
the largest services in terms of value because they are global services, which benefit people
worldwide. (ex.: tropical rainforests: 1 sequester and thus regulate CO2, protecting people from
climate change, 2 intercept precipitation and help infiltration through flow, preventing flooding and
providing people with water via ground water and rivers. HOWEVER, the value of this is less than
the climate regulation because it is only benefitting the people near by only – amazon basin, congo
rainforest/ Indonesian rainforest)
- In undeveloped places that rely on farming and the use of traditional materials, provisioning services
may still be very important in everyday life but for the majority of the world has lost this direct
connection of gaining resources from ecosystems

Note: some services (food: bush meat) are of low value in an ecosystem because they benefit only
locally. & general application: millennium development goals (2000-2015) and sustainable development
goals (2015 – 2030) - no poverty, good health and wellbeing, climate change

- PG 115 LAST PART NEED TO KNOW ANYTHING???

Chapter 2: THREATS TO BIODIVERSITY

Intro: over time, species have become extinct as a result of climate change, random catastrophic events,
disease and competition with other species. 5 mass extinction events over the last 600 years. 6 th
potential mass extinction: Anthropocene (due to humans this time). There is an increasing rate of
habitat destruction and species extinction so widespread biodiversity loss.

Ways of auditing stress and ecosystems:

1. Economic scorecard: produced for the World’s Resources Institute (WRI), showing the ability of
ecosystems to produce goods and services
2. Living planet index: by WWF, monitoring changes over time in the populations of representative
animal species in forest, fresh water and marine ecosystems
3. Ecological footprint: measures human impact on planet
 4. The red list of endangered species by International Union of Conservation of nature (IUCN)
5. The millennium ecosystem assessment, a multi scale assessment by the UN

- NO pg 119

Note: the critical or endangered ecosystems are latitudinally spread out, suggesting that a large
variety of them is involved.

- In the 1990s, the most converted and so most threatened biomes were in the temperate zone
(temperate, mediterranean, mix forests, steppe and woodland). These parts have a long history of
human settlement and are the most economically developed.
- The projected losses by 2050s indicate that the threat is shifting to the tropics. This can be because of
high rates of population growth and rising levels of resource exploitation often for the benefit of other
parts of the world.
- At the very high latitude biomes (boreal forest and tundra) appear relatively unthreatened but for how
much longer?
- Factors that threaten biodiversity:
1. Unsustainably high rate of human population growth and natural resource consumption
2. Inequality in the ownership, management and flow of benefits = threatens livelihoods of the
world’s poorest people
3. The concentration of agriculture, forestry and fishing on a narrowing spectrum of products
4. The economic systems developed by governments/ businesses fail to value the environment
and its resources
5. Legal and institutional systems promote unsustainable exploitation at the expense of more
sustainable strategies
6. Lack of knowledge and understanding in the management and conservation of biodiversity

Context threats = global in scale and address all ecosystems to some extent because their impacts are
major and wide spread.

Climate change is a context hazard, because if by 2100 the world’s climate is 2-5 degrees warmer, some
ecosystems will be destroyed (arctic tundra and coral reefs). It will also press huge stress on other
ecosystems like forests and grassland with increased risk of droughts, fire, alien species and
desertification

- More specifically, a 2 degree temperature rise will cause: 15-40% of land species to be
extinct … & coral reefs are expected to bleach annually in many areas & almost 5% of the low
tundra and 25% of coniferous (needles) forests could be lost
- Above 3 degrees temp rise: 20 – 50% of land species could face extinction, massive losses in
biodiversity (especially in hotspots), large areas of coastal wetlands will be lost due to rising
sea levels, mangroves will be flooded (so no natural coastal defence), coral reefs will die &
destruction of rainforests due to excessive drying in the tropics
- Depends on the speed: even a 0.05 – 0.1 degree rise per decade, is more than most species
will be able to withstand, as they will not be able to migrate pole wards fast enough. The
pace will be too great for the revolutionary in-situ adaptation
- There will also be more damaging and frequent extreme weather events (floods, storms and
droughts. There will be an indirect impact from the rising sea levels and increase risk of pests
and diseases. Vulnerable ecosystems (could forest on tropical mountain tops and tundra) are
likely to disappear almost completely even at lower temperature increases.
- Human pressures (deforestation, pollution, overexploitation) make the situation worse.
- Resource demand is another context/ global threat. If population increases, demand for land,
minerals, ores, farmland, water ecosystem loss. Also if affluence increases, demand for these
resource will also increase more as people will afford more, and so pressure on ecosystems in term
of exploitation and pollution will increase. If these two increase, deforestation will increase too,
resulting in loss of biodiversity and resources for indigenous populations with a knock-on effect on
the food web and nutrient cycles.
- Wider environmental impacts will be caused too, such as increased erosion and flooding. Pollution
will also cause:
1. Acidification of oceans and acid precipitation of land
2. Eutrophication of lakes
3. Airborne pollution (e.g. from the use of DDT – banned synthetic pesticide)
4. Ozone depletion by CFCs
- SEE PAGES 123 – 124/ QUESTION !!!
- Impacts of global warming on the biodiversity in the Arctic:
1. Localized shifting of ecosystems in a poleward direction, coniferous forest will expand in the
tundra zone and then spread into fragmented areas of polar desert. The tundra will shrink as
rising sea levels will drown coastal areas.
2.