Assessing bundles of ecosystem services from regional to landscape scale: insights from the French Alps

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Assessments of ecosystem services (ES) and biodiversity provide a comprehensive view of the links between landscapes, ecosystem functioning and human well‐being. The investigation of consistent associations between ecological parameters, called bundles, and of their links to landscape composition and structure is essential to inform management and policy, yet it is still in its infancy.

The study mapped over the French Alps an unprecedented array of 18 ecological parameters (16 ES and two biodiversity parameters) and explored their co‐occurrence patterns underpinning the supply of multiple ecosystem services in landscapes. The authors followed a three‐step analytical framework to i) detect the ES and biodiversity associations relevant at regional scale, ii) identify the clusters supplying consistent bundles of ES at sub-regional scale and iii) explore the links between landscape heterogeneity and ecological parameter associations at landscape scale.

The joint analysis of land cover richness and ES gamma diversity demonstrated that local landscape heterogeneity alone did not imply compatibility across multiple ecosystem services, as some homogeneous landscape could supply multiple ecosystem services.
 

Full reference: 

Crouzat, E., Mouchet, M., Turkelboom, F., Byczek, C., Meersmans, J., Berger, F.,Verkerk, P.J., Lavorel, S. 2015. Assessing bundles of ecosystem services from regional to landscape scale: insights from the French AlpsJournal of Applied Ecology. 52: 1145-1155.