Global erosion of ecosystem services

Global Erosion of Ecosystem Services
Corey J. A. Bradshaw1,2
1THE ENVIRONMENT INSTITUTE, University of Adelaide, Australia
2South Australian Research & Development Institute

What is biodiversity?
What are ‘ecosystem services’
Pollination
Mangroves
Fisheries
Carbon sequestration
Fire & insect disturbance
Role of predators
Forests and flooding
Human health
Principal drivers
Economics

> 4 million protists
16600 protozoa
75000-300000helminth parasites
1.5million fungi
320000 plants
4-6 million arthropods
> 6500 amphibians
> 30000 fishes
10000 birds
> 5000 mammals

Bradshaw et al. 2009 Trends Ecol Evol24:541-548
Bradshaw et al. 2009 Front Ecol Environ 7:79-87
1,011,000 km2 lost 2000-2005 (3.1 %; 0.6 %/year)
highest in boreal biome (60 %)
humid tropics next (Brazil, Indonesia, Malaysia)
dry tropics next highest (Australia, Brazil, Argentina)
N.A. greatest proportional lost by continent
Nationally, Brazil, Canada, Indonesia, DR Congo
Hansen et al. 2010 PNAS
doi:10.1073/pnas.0912668107
Barson et al. 2000 Land Cover
Change in Australia, Bur RurSci

Halpern et al. 2008 Science 319:948-952
u

Connell et al. (2008) Mar Ecol Prog Ser 360:60-72

Diaz & Rosenberg (2008) Science 321:926-929

corrosive

Brook et al. 2008 Trends Ecol Evol25:453-460

99 % of ALL species that have ever existed...
EXTINCT
species lifespan = 1-10 M years
Ordovician (490-443 MYA)
Devonian (417-354 MYA)
Permian (299-250 MYA)
Triassic (251-200 MYA)
Cretaceous (146-64 MYA)
Anthropocene
extinction rate 100-10000× background
© Tiantian Zhang, Good50x70.org
Crutzen 2002 Nature 415:23; Bradshaw & Brook 2009 J Cosmol2:221-229

IUCN RED LIST OF THREATENED SPECIES www.iucnredlist.org
21 % of all known mammals
30 % of all known amphibians
12 % of all known birds
35 % of conifers & cycads
17 % of sharks
27 % of reef-building corals
threatened with extinction

intact biological communities and functioning species interactions provide humanity with a host of ‘services’ that support or improve our quality of life

~ 80 % of all wild plant species require insect pollinators for fruit & seed set
~ 75 % of all human crops require pollination by insects (mostly bees)
domestic honey bees declined in USA by 59 % since 1947 & in Europe by 25 % since 1985
Potts et al. 2010 Trends EcolEvol25:345-353

bees (& other pollinators) require more than just crops to complete life cycle
decline mostly from habitat loss, fragmentation & degradation
other insects, birds, bats also in decline
Potts et al. 2010 Trends EcolEvol25:345-353

protect inland human communities from damage caused by coastal erosion and storms
provide critical habitat for variety of terrestrial, estuarine & marine species
~80 % of fish catches globally depend on mangroves
source & sink for nutrients & sediments for other inshore marine habitats (seagrass beds, coral reefs)
Polidoro et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10095

protect coasts from floods?
process nutrient & organic matter
control sediment
provide at least US$1.6 B/yrin ecosystem services worldwide
sequester 25.5 M t C/yr
provide > 10% of essential organic carbon to global oceans
occupy only 0.12% of world’s total land area
Polidoro et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10095

average trophic level has declined by 0.2 units
(position in food web relative to autotrophs – primary producers such as phytoplankton)
trophic unit varies from 1 (phytoplankton) to 4.6 (e.g., snappers)
Paulyet al. 1998 Science 279:860 - 863

Field et al. 2009 Fish & Fisheries 10:323-328

Marine Parks
do they work?
Increase fisheries yields?
total mass catches, mean fish size, # fish species caught decline with distance away from park edge (Kenyan coral reefs) McClanahan & Mangi2000 EcolAppl10:1792-1805
fish species within park recover after fisher exclusion from park (Kenyan coral reefs) McClanahan & Kaunda-Arara 2002 ConservBiol10:1187–1199
spiny lobster 11 ×more abundant & biomass 25× higher in no-take marine park following establishment; no change in partially protected park (New Zealand) Shears et al. 2006 BiolConserv 132:222-231
total fish, common pandora, red mullet increased close to reserve (Mediterranean) Stelzenmüller et al. 2007 BiolConserv 136:571-583

Spill-over Effect
species richness increases linearly with time since reserve establishment, outside of the reserve as well as inside
change is not (primarily) due to habitat change
effect tapers off with distance from reserve
large, predatory fish more common inside and just outside reserves than farther away
community composition outside the reserves becomes more like that inside over time
Russ & Alcala 2010 EcolApplic doi:10.1890/09-1197.1

~ 33 % of extant forests on Earth
~ 50 % remaining large tracts intact forest (31 % world’s primary forest in CAN & RUS
WWF Ecoregion map
22 % in Russia (78 % in Siberia)
Bradshaw, Warkentin & Sodhi 2010 Trends EcolEvol24:541-548

Main threats
logging
urban development
deciduous regrowth
dam construction
peat and other mining
increasing fire frequency
Bradshaw, Warkentin & Sodhi 2010 Trends EcolEvol24:541-548

Mollicone et al. 2006. Nature 440:436-437
Achard et al. 2008 Philos Trans R SocLond B 363:2331-2339
Sukhinin et al. 2004. Remote Sens Environ 93:546-564
7.5 M ha burnt in 2002; 14.5 M ha in 2003
87 % 2002-2005 started by humans
annual average burning rate < 4.5 M ha since 1950s
most fires occur near roads and other transportation networks
8× background rates
humans directly responsible for most ignitions in non-intact Russian forests

~ 30 % of the Earth’s stored terrestrial C
550 Gt C in combined soil and above-ground pools
rate of uptake not be as high as once thought
models predict boreal biome most likely to be altered by climate change
warmer temperatures and longer growing seasons shifting it from net carbon sink to source
fire most important for C flux; changing albedo from  snow
plenty of scope for additional sequestration research

Kurz et al. 2008 Nature 452-987-990

1990-2000
~100,000 people killed
320 million people displaced
total reported damages > US$1151 billion
Bradshaw et al. 2007 Glob Change Biol13:2379-2395

schistosomiasis
malaria
leptospirosis
dysentery
cholera
hepatitis
typhus
increased host habitat availability & displacement of humans to areas where inadequate sanitation and temporary high-density living promote disease
Ohl & Tapsell 2000 Br Med J 321:1167-1168; Ivers & Ryan 2006 Curr Op Infect Dis19:408-414

Mesopredator Release
ecosystems unbalanced by reduction of higher trophic-level predators exerting ‘top-down’ control on abundance of species occupying lower trophic levels
based on earlier theory (in 1980s)
Soulé et al. 1988 ConservBiol2:75; Soulé & Crooks 1999 Nature 400:563

dingo-cat-marsupial
lynx-fox-hare
shark-ray-scallop
Johnson et al. 2007 Proc R Soc B 274:341; Elmhagen et al. 2010 J Anim Ecol; Myers et al. 2007 Science 315:1846

physician-assessed morbidity declines with more green spaces near Dutch patients
Maas et al. 2009 J EpidemiolComm Health 63:967-973
dioxin-poisoning accident in Milan – increased circulatory disease, lymphoma, pulmonary disease & diabetes 25 years later
Consonni et al. 2008 Am J Epidemiol167:847-858
low water quality, poor sanitation & indoor air pollution from household solid fuels increased child mortality and reduced life expectancy in Mexico
Stevens et al. 2009 Proc NatlAcadSci USA 105:16860-16865
malaria-vector mosquito bite rates 278× higher in deforested sites in Amazon
Vittor et al. 2006 Am J Trop Med Hyg74:3-11
Anopheline mosquito density  after deforestation in 60% of 60 studies over past century; 70 % of cases  incidence of malaria
Yasuoka & Levins 2007 Am J Trop Med Hyg76:450-460

DATA
Human health: World Health Organization Global Burden of Disease database
Environment: - Environmental Combination Index (adapted from Yale Env Performance Index)
- Proportional Environmental Impact rank (Bradshaw et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10440)
- natural habitat conversion proportion (Global Land Cover 2000 dataset)
- air/water quality (Yale Environmental Performance Index)
- NPK fertiliser use/area arable land (FAOSTAT database)
- CO2 emissions (Climate Analysis Indicators tool)
Control: - human population size (United Nations Common Database)
- purchasing-power parity-adjusted GNI (World Resources Institute)
- health expenditure (WHO Statistical Information System)

DATA
Human health: WHO Global Burden of Disease database
Disability-Adjusted Life Years (DALY) - years of life lost due to premature mortality and healthy years of life lost due to disability
Infant Mortality (male) – 2004 mortality per 1000 live births
Life Expectancy at birth (male) – 2004
Diarrhoea deaths among children < 5 years (2000)
Malaria deaths among children < 5 years (2000)
Deaths due to Cardiovascular Disease (2002 age-standardised per 10,000)
Deaths due to Cancers (2002 age-standardised per 10,000)

10 %  ECI   mINFM 7.0/1000 live births
 mLE 1.9 years
http://epi.yale.edu

ALL DISEASE

INFECTIOUS DISEASE

NON-INFECTIOUS DISEASE

10 %  water quality   infant mortality 3.4/1000 live births
 > 946,000 extra infant deaths/year§
  1.6 years life expectancy
10 %  air quality   2.0 cancer deaths/100,000
 > 132,900 extra cancer deaths/year§
10 %  pcCO2 emissions  infant mortality 0.4/1000 live births
 > 11,700 extra infant deaths/year§
§assuming 21.2 births/1000 population & human population 6.5 billion

natural forest loss
2005-1990 D/ha
natural habitat conversion
human-modified landcover/total landcover
marine captures
1990-2005 fish, whales, seals/EEZ km
fertiliser use
NPK/ha arable land
water pollution
biochemical oxygen demand/total renewable water resources
carbon emissions
forestry, land-use change, fossil fuels/km2
biodiversity threat
Red List threatened birds, mammals, amphibians/listed species
Bradshaw et al. 2010 PLoS One 5:e10440

ENVIRONMENTAL
KUZNETS CURVE
environmental damage
per capita prosperity

reduce desertification
maintain soils
crop pollination
seed dispersal
food provision
water purification
fuel provision
fibre provision
climate regulation
flood regulation
disease regulation
waste decomposition/detoxification
nutrient cycling
soil formation
primary production
pharmaceutical sources
cultural appreciation (aesthetic, spiritual, educational, recreational…)
€153 billion/year
fisheries: €50 billion/year
€50 billion lost/year
Land-based ecosystem loss €545 billion by 2010
> €14 trillion/year lost by 2050
Cost of Policy Inaction (COPI):
The case of not meeting the 2010 biodiversity target.
European Commission

corey.bradshaw@adelaide.edu.au
www.adelaide.edu.au/directory/corey.bradshaw
ConservationBytes.com
© Tiantian Zhang, Good50x70.org

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Global erosion of ecosystem services

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