•Ecosystem service models are widely used but rarely evaluated with empirical data.•We evaluated the InVEST nutrient retention model across multiple UK catchments.•We investigated model sensitivity ...and performance with alternative input data.•The model was highly sensitive to variation in some input parameters.•The model can give good estimates of relative nutrient export between catchments.
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A wide variety of tools aim to support decision making by modelling, mapping and quantifying ecosystem services. If decisions are to be properly informed, the accuracy and potential limitations of these tools must be well understood. However, dedicated studies evaluating ecosystem service models against empirical data are rare, especially over large areas. In this paper, we report on the national-scale assessment of a new ecosystem service model for nutrient delivery and retention, the InVEST Nutrient Delivery Ratio model. For 36 river catchments across the UK, we modelled total catchment export of phosphorus (P) and/or nitrogen (N) and compared model outputs to measurements derived from empirical water chemistry data.
The model performed well in terms of relative magnitude of nutrient export among catchments (best Spearman's rank correlation for N and P, respectively: 0.81 and 0.88). However, there was wide variation among catchments in the accuracy of the model, and absolute values of nutrient exports frequently showed high percentage differences between modelled and empirically-derived exports (best median absolute percentage difference for N and P, respectively: ±64%, ±44%). The model also showed a high degree of sensitivity to nutrient loads and hydrologic routing input parameters and these sensitivities varied among catchments.
These results suggest that the InVEST model can provide valuable information on nutrient fluxes to decision makers, especially in terms of relative differences among catchments. However, caution is needed if using the absolute modelled values for decision-making. Our study also suggests particular attention should be paid to researching input nutrient loadings and retentions, and the selection of appropriate input data resolutions and threshold flow accumulation values. Our results also highlight how availability of empirical data can improve model calibration and performance assessment and reinforce the need to include such data in ecosystem service modelling studies.
The composition of species communities is changing rapidly through drivers such as habitat loss and climate change, with potentially serious consequences for the resilience of ecosystem functions on ...which humans depend. To assess such changes in resilience, we analyse trends in the frequency of species in Great Britain that provide key ecosystem functions--specifically decomposition, carbon sequestration, pollination, pest control and cultural values. For 4,424 species over four decades, there have been significant net declines among animal species that provide pollination, pest control and cultural values. Groups providing decomposition and carbon sequestration remain relatively stable, as fewer species are in decline and these are offset by large numbers of new arrivals into Great Britain. While there is general concern about degradation of a wide range of ecosystem functions, our results suggest actions should focus on particular functions for which there is evidence of substantial erosion of their resilience.
Biodiversity and Resilience of Ecosystem Functions Oliver, Tom H.; Heard, Matthew S.; Isaac, Nick J.B. ...
Trends in ecology & evolution,
November 2015, 2015-Nov, 2015-11-00, 20151101, Letnik:
30, Številka:
11
Journal Article
Recenzirano
Odprti dostop
Accelerating rates of environmental change and the continued loss of global biodiversity threaten functions and services delivered by ecosystems. Much ecosystem monitoring and management is focused ...on the provision of ecosystem functions and services under current environmental conditions, yet this could lead to inappropriate management guidance and undervaluation of the importance of biodiversity. The maintenance of ecosystem functions and services under substantial predicted future environmental change (i.e., their ‘resilience’) is crucial. Here we identify a range of mechanisms underpinning the resilience of ecosystem functions across three ecological scales. Although potentially less important in the short term, biodiversity, encompassing variation from within species to across landscapes, may be crucial for the longer-term resilience of ecosystem functions and the services that they underpin.
How much of something do we need to keep people safe and well? This question is frequently asked by those working in risk management. Across diverse sectors from flood protection to health care, ...practitioners assess risk as the product of the impact of a given event and the probability of its occurrence. Although these estimates are often uncertain, policy-makers must ultimately make spending decisions aimed at averting these risks, because the costs of inaction to society can be substantial. Biodiversity loss is a similarly critical, yet uncertain, issue. On page 288 of this issue, Newbold et al. (1) quantify global biodiversity losses, providing much-needed information on the encroachment of proposed "safe limits."
The importance of Cultural Ecosystem Services (CES) to human wellbeing is widely recognised. However, quantifying these non-material benefits is challenging and consequently they are often not ...assessed. Mapping approaches are increasingly being used to understand the spatial distribution of different CES and how this relates to landscape characteristics. This study uses an online Public Participation Geographic Information System (PPGIS) to elicit information on outdoor locations important to respondents in Wiltshire, a dynamic lowland landscape in southern England. We analysed these locations in a GIS with spatial datasets representing potential influential factors, including protected areas, land use, landform, and accessibility. We assess these characteristics at different spatial and visual scales for different types of cultural engagement. We find that areas that are accessible, near to urban centres, with larger views, and a high diversity of protected habitats, are important for the delivery of CES. Other characteristics including a larger area of woodland and the presence of sites of historic interest in the surrounding landscape were also influential. These findings have implications for land-use planning and the management of ecosystems, by demonstrating the benefits of high quality ecological sites near to towns. The importance of maintaining and restoring landscape features, such as woodlands, to enhance the delivery of CES were also highlighted.
•PPGIS was used to gather important locations in the Wiltshire landscape•High quality, diverse sites which were near to towns were important for the delivery of CES•Greater views, larger areas of woodland and the presence of historic interest were also important•These have implications for land-use planning and the management of ecosystems
Targeted therapies to stabilize the clinical manifestations and prolong pregnancy in preeclampsia do not exist. Soluble fms-like tyrosine kinase 1 (sFlt-1), an alternatively spliced variant of the ...vascular endothelial growth factor receptor 1, induces a preeclampsia-like phenotype in experimental models and circulates at elevated levels in human preeclampsia. Removing sFlt-1 may benefit women with very preterm (<32 weeks) preeclampsia.
We first show that negatively charged dextran sulfate cellulose columns adsorb sFlt-1 in vitro. In 5 women with very preterm preeclampsia and elevated circulating sFlt-1 levels, we next demonstrate that a single dextran sulfate cellulose apheresis treatment reduces circulating sFlt-1 levels in a dose-dependent fashion. Finally, we performed multiple apheresis treatments in 3 additional women with very preterm (gestational age at admission 28, 30, and 27+4 weeks) preeclampsia and elevated circulating sFlt-1 levels. Dextran sulfate apheresis lowered circulating sFlt-1, reduced proteinuria, and stabilized blood pressure without apparent adverse events to mother and fetus. Pregnancy lasted for 15 and 19 days in women treated twice and 23 days in a woman treated 4 times. In each, there was evidence of fetal growth.
This pilot study supports the hypothesis that extracorporeal apheresis can lower circulating sFlt-1 in very preterm preeclampsia. Further studies are warranted to determine whether this intervention safely and effectively prolongs pregnancy and improves maternal and fetal outcomes in this setting.
Range shifting is vital for species persistence, but there is little consensus on why individual species vary so greatly in the rates at which their ranges have shifted in response to recent climate ...warming. Here, using 40 years of distribution data for 291 species from 13 invertebrate taxa in Britain, we show that interactions between habitat availability and exposure to climate change at the range margins explain up to half of the variation in rates of range shift. Habitat generalists expanded faster than more specialised species, but this intrinsic trait explains less of the variation in range shifts than habitat availability, which additionally depends on extrinsic factors that may be rare or widespread at the range margin. Similarly, while climate change likely underlies polewards expansions, we find that more of the between-species variation is explained by differences in habitat availability than by changes in climatic suitability. A model that includes both habitat and climate, and their statistical interaction, explains the most variation in range shifts. We conclude that climate-change vulnerability assessments should focus as much on future habitat availability as on climate sensitivity and exposure, with the expectation that habitat restoration and protection will substantially improve species' abilities to respond to uncertain future climates.
One-third of the world population is infected with Mycobacterium tuberculosis and multi-drug resistant strains are rapidly evolving. The noticeable absence of a whole organism high-throughput ...screening system for studying the progression of tuberculosis is fast becoming the bottleneck in tuberculosis research. We successfully developed such a system using the zebrafish Mycobacterium marinum infection model, which is a well-characterized model for tuberculosis progression with biomedical significance, mimicking hallmarks of human tuberculosis pathology. Importantly, we demonstrate the suitability of our system to directly study M. tuberculosis, showing for the first time that the human pathogen can propagate in this vertebrate model, resulting in similar early disease symptoms to those observed upon M. marinum infection. Our system is capable of screening for disease progression via robotic yolk injection of early embryos and visual flow screening of late-stage larvae. We also show that this system can reliably recapitulate the standard caudal vein injection method with a throughput level of 2,000 embryos per hour. We additionally demonstrate the possibility of studying signal transduction leading to disease progression using reverse genetics at high-throughput levels. Importantly, we use reference compounds to validate our system in the testing of molecules that prevent tuberculosis progression, making it highly suited for investigating novel anti-tuberculosis compounds in vivo.
Sustainable agriculture aims to produce sufficient food while minimizing environmental damage. To achieve this, we need to understand the role of agricultural landscapes in providing diverse ...ecosystem services and how these affect crop production and resilience, that is, maintaining yields despite environmental perturbation.
We used 10 years of English wheat yield data to derive three metrics of resilience (relative yield across the time series, yield stability around a moving average and resistance to an extreme weather event) at 10 km × 10 km resolution. We used remotely sensed maps to calculate measures of landscape structure, including composition (proportions of different land cover types) and configuration (metrics of connectivity and proximity), known to affect ecosystem service delivery (e.g. control of pests by beneficial invertebrates). We then used an information‐theoretic approach to identify the best‐fitting combination of landscape structure predictors for each resilience metric, using a potential yield model to account for the effects of climate and soils.
Relative yield showed a strongly positive relationship with the area of arable land. For yield stability, this relationship was evident but alongside other landscape structure variables in the best‐fitting model. No relationship with arable land was evident for resistance.
Yield stability showed a strongly positive effect of proximity to semi‐natural habitats. For resistance, the best‐fitting model included positive relationships with the cover of semi‐natural habitats and proximity to semi‐natural grasslands.
Synthesis and applications. Landscapes with the highest relative wheat yields did not show the highest yield stability or resistance to extreme events. As resilience metrics were derived from shorter portions of the time series, the importance of semi‐natural habitats compared to arable land increased. This is probably driven by the complex interplay between landscape structure, agricultural management and ecosystem services. These results demonstrate that measuring relative yield over time may be insufficient to capture the full effect that non‐arable components of the landscape, and the ecosystem services they deliver, have on other aspects of resilience, and that there are clear trade‐offs in managing agricultural landscapes to maximize different aspects of crop yield resilience.
Landscapes with the highest relative wheat yields did not show the highest yield stability or resistance to extreme events. As resilience metrics were derived from shorter portions of the time series, the importance of semi‐natural habitats compared to arable land increased. This is probably driven by the complex interplay between landscape structure, agricultural management and ecosystem services. These results demonstrate that measuring relative yield over time may be insufficient to capture the full effect that non‐arable components of the landscape, and the ecosystem services they deliver, have on other aspects of resilience, and that there are clear trade‐offs in managing agricultural landscapes to maximize different aspects of crop yield resilience.
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