Sponsor
This paper was developed from a working group convened during the Fourth Conference for Sustainability IGERTs (C4SI4), a graduate student-led conference hosted by the Ecosystem Services supporting Urbanizing Regions IGERT at Portland State University (PSU) in Portland, Oregon, and supported by NSF IGERT Grant # DGE-0966376: “Sustaining Ecosystem Services to Support Rapidly Urbanizing Areas.” Additional support was provided by Grant #DGE-0966346: “I-WATER: Integrated Water, Atmosphere, Ecosystems Education and Research Program” at Colorado State University, #DGE-1249400 to the University of Idaho, #DGE-0801577 to the University of Puerto Rico at Río Piedras (UPR), and #DGE- 1144752 to the University of Wisconsin-Madison.
Published In
Global Ecology and Conservation
Document Type
Article
Publication Date
2018
Subjects
Ecosystem services -- Social aspects, Interdisciplinary research
Abstract
Scientists, policy makers, and managers use ecosystem services and biodiversity metrics to inform management goals of novel ecosystems. Fragmented knowledge of the ecosystem services provided by novel ecosystems contributes to disagreement over these systems and how they should be managed. To address this gap, we conducted a systematic review of refereed articles to understand how novel ecosystems have changed ecosystem services and biodiversity. Despite anthropogenic drivers of change, we found that the literature on novel ecosystems is focused on ecological rather than social aspects of novel systems. Our review highlights the frequency that novel ecosystems enhance both ecosystem services and biodiversity. More than two-thirds of studies reported biodiversity equal to or above the reference state, while the portion of studies reporting increased cultural, provisioning, and regulating services was even greater. Still, we urge caution in interpreting these trends, as they exist in part due to degraded ecosystem baselines and inconsistent framing. Finally, the wide range of management recommendations we reviewed reflects both the diversity of novel ecosystems and substantial disagreement among researchers and managers about what novel ecosystems actually mean for society.
Rights
© 2018 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.
This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 International License.
Locate the Document
DOI
10.1016/j.gecco.2017.e00362
Persistent Identifier
http://archives.pdx.edu/ds/psu/25132
Citation Details
Evers, C. R., Wardropper, C. B., Branoff, B., Granek, E. F., Hirsch, S. L., Link, T. E., ... & Wilson, C. (2018). The ecosystem services and biodiversity of novel ecosystems: A literature review. Global Ecology and Conservation, e00362.