Does landscape-scale conservation management enhance the provision of ecosystem services?

Biodiversity conservation approaches are increasingly being implemented at the landscape-scale to support the maintenance of metapopulations and metacommunities. However, the impact of such interventions on the provision of ecosystem services is less well defined. Here we examine the potential impacts of landscape-scale conservation initiatives on ecosystem services, through analysis of five case study areas in England and Wales. The provision of multiple ecosystem services was projected according to current management plans and compared with a baseline scenario. Multicriteria analysis indicated that in most cases landscape-scale approaches lead to an overall increase in service provision. Consistent increases were projected in carbon storage, recreation and aesthetic value, as well as biodiversity value. However, most study areas provided evidence of trade-offs, particularly between provisioning services and other types of service. Results differed markedly between study areas, highlighting the importance of local context. These results suggest that landscape-scale conservation approaches are likely to be effective in increasing ecosystem service provision, but also indicate that associated costs can be significant, particularly in lowland areas

Identifying priority areas for ecosystem service management in South African grasslands

Grasslands provide many ecosystem services required to support human well-being and are home to a diverse fauna and flora. Degradation of grasslands due to agriculture and other forms of land use threaten biodiversity and ecosystem services. Various efforts are underway around the world to stem these declines. The Grassland Programme in South Africa is one such initiative and is aimed at safeguarding both biodiversity and ecosystem services. As part of this developing programme, we identified spatial priority areas for ecosystem services, tested the effect of different target levels of ecosystem services used to identify priority areas, and evaluated whether biodiversity priority areas can be aligned with those for ecosystem services. We mapped five ecosystem services (below ground carbon storage, surface water supply, water flow regulation, soil accumulation and soil retention) and identified priority areas for individual ecosystem services and for all five services at the scale of quaternary catchments. Planning for individual ecosystem services showed that, depending on the ecosystem service of interest, between 4% and 13% of the grassland biome was required to conserve at least 40% of the soil and water services. Thirty-four percent of the biome was needed to conserve 40% of the carbon service in the grassland. Priority areas identified for five ecosystem services under three target levels (20%, 40%, 60% of the total amount) showed that between 17% and 56% of the grassland biome was needed to conserve these ecosystem services. There was moderate to high overlap between priority areas selected for ecosystem services and already-identified terrestrial and freshwater biodiversity priority areas. This level of overlap coupled with low irreplaceability values obtained when planning for individual ecosystem services makes it possible to combine biodiversity and ecosystem services in one plan using systematic conservation planning.Centre of Excellence for Invasion Biolog

Network lifetime maximising distributed forwarding strategies in Ad Hoc wireless sensor networks

International audienceThe authors propose three variants of distributed and stateless forwarding strategies for wireless sensor networks, namely greedy minimum energy consumption forwarding protocol (GMFP), lifetime maximising GMFP (LM-GMFP) and variance minimising GMFP (VAR-GMFP), which aim at maximising the network lifetime while achieving a high forwarding success rate. GMFP selects a forwarding node that minimises per-packet energy consumption while maximising the forwarding progress. LM-GMFP extends the GMFP algorithm by also taking into account the remaining energy at the prospective one-hop forwarding nodes. In VAR-GMFP, on the other hand, the packet is forwarded to the next node that ensures a locally high mean and low variance of nodal remaining energy. Through simple probabilistic analysis the authors prove the intuition behind the optimum forwarding node selection for network lifetime maximisation. They then model the lifetime maximisation of a sensor network as an optimisation problem and compare the practical protocol-dependent network lifetime with the theoretical upper bound. Through extensive simulations the author demonstrate that the proposed protocols outperform the existing energy-aware protocols in terms of network lifetime and end-to-end delay

Developing pathways to improve smallholder agricultural productivity through ecological intensification technologies in semi-arid Limpopo, South Africa

Agriculture faces an enormous global challenge of feeding nine billion people by 2050. This means a comprehensive intensification of agriculture is required. Ecological intensification is gaining momentum as a clearly defined vision for increasing agriculture productivity and sustainability. How ecological intensification could be tailored to benefit smallholder farming systems in sub Saharan Africa (SSA) remains the major question. In this study, we develop pathways relying on ecological intensification technologies and suiting different farm types of smallholder agriculture. This study relies on multiyear engagements with agricultural experts and smallholder farmers in Ha Lambani, South Africa and leads to the identification of farmer groupings. We analyse 40 in-depth semi structured interviews with farmers which leads to the identification of farming patterns and constraints. We present how farming systems analysis of challenges and constraints helps to identify and link specific ecosystem services with suitable ecological intensification options. We conclude that the expert-based classification of farmers offered a more contextualized representation of farming system heterogeneity, where tailored ecological intensification technologies could play a major role in improving agricultural productivity. Beyond this community, it emphasizes the need to consider farmers type heterogeneity as a strong decision parameter for targeting ecological intensification

Grasslands - more important for ecosystem services than you might think

Extensively managed grasslands are recognized globally for their high biodiversity and their social and cultural values. However, their capacity to deliver multiple ecosystem services (ES) as parts of agricultural systems is surprisingly understudied compared to other production systems. We undertook a comprehensive overview of ES provided by natural and semi‐natural grasslands, using southern Africa (SA) and northwest Europe as case studies, respectively. We show that these grasslands can supply additional non‐agricultural services, such as water supply and flow regulation, carbon storage, erosion control, climate mitigation, pollination, and cultural ES. While demand for ecosystems services seems to balance supply in natural grasslands of SA, the smaller areas of semi‐natural grasslands in Europe appear to not meet the demand for many services. We identified three bundles of related ES from grasslands: water ES including fodder production, cultural ES connected to livestock production, and population‐based regulating services (e.g., pollination and biological control), which also linked to biodiversity. Greenhouse gas emission mitigation seemed unrelated to the three bundles. The similarities among the bundles in SA and northwestern Europe suggest that there are generalities in ES relations among natural and semi‐natural grassland areas. We assessed trade‐offs and synergies among services in relation to management practices and found that although some trade‐offs are inevitable, appropriate management may create synergies and avoid trade‐offs among many services. We argue that ecosystem service and food security research and policy should give higher priority to how grasslands can be managed for fodder and meat production alongside other ES. By integrating grasslands into agricultural production systems and land‐use decisions locally and regionally, their potential to contribute to functional landscapes and to food security and sustainable livelihoods can be greatly enhanced