GEOG 310 Chapter Notes - Chapter 4: Ecosystem Services, Ringfort, Structural Equation Modeling
Document Summary
Biodiversity loss and it"s impact on humanity (by cardinale): 1980s --> large concern about the loss of species, which in turn influenced habitat formation and thus entire ecosystems. Biodiversity ecosystem services (bes) group attempted to research how biodiversity loss was affected by environments (rather than the other way around) Conducted at the landscape scale and focused on major habitat modifications. Biodiversity: variety of life, variation in species and functional traits. Ecosystem functions: the amount of ecological processes within an ecosystem (e. g. they may control the flux of energy, presence of nutrients, organic matter through an environment) and what they specifically do. Ecosystem services: the benefits of an ecosystem, there are two types; Provisioning: production of renewable resources (e. g. provision of fresh water) Biodiversity loss reduce the ability for ecological communities to capture essential resources, produce biomass, decompose and recycle biologically essential nutrients. Biodiversity increases the stability of ecosystem functions through time --> generally more stable in diverse communities.
