Current research on the spatial mapping of ecosystem services tends to rely on statistical or correlation data of land use or land cover (LULC) characteristics and patterns. While this method captures the current state of services closely linked to LULC, it is unable at present to account for the integrated ecosystem processes that drive the presence, amounts, and flows of many ecosystem services. We propose that utilizing ecosystem process models in combination with traditional methods of ecosystem service mapping can be used to explore the relationship between ecosystem function and services.
Our study site is the exurban landscape of southeast Michigan, which is characterized by a mixture of residential housing, agriculture and natural ecosystems. We use the ecosystem process model BIOME-BGC in the context of a human dominated system. BIOME-BGC uses climatic drivers and vegetation parameters as inputs to calculate productivity and nutrient flows within a given ecosystem. We use these outputs to estimate patterns and flows of ecosystem services in the landscape.
Results/Conclusions
By linking spatially explicit data to an ecosystem process model we have increased our ability map certain ecosystem services over space and time. We have found that the strengths of linking ecosystem processes to ecosystem services with BIOME-BGC are that some regulating and supporting services can be directly calculated such as nitrogen retention, carbon sequestration and soil fertility. BIOME-BGC can also be used to help quantify and map services such as local climate regulation, water quality and harvestable biomass. Our results show the interactions between services due to the ecological processes driving them at different landscape scales. The weaknesses we have found include the inability to improve models of cultural services since these are driven more by human values than ecological processes. However, more detailed research on ecosystem service bundles may allow for ecosystem process models to indirectly inform cultural services in the future.
Linking an ecosystem process model with ecosystem services can improve our current methods of mapping the location and quantity of ecosystem services. This technique can also be used to simulate the ways human management may alter flows of services, the relationships services have to one another, and how feedbacks within ecological systems can affect ecosystem services. This method could also be used to predict the location of ecosystem services in the future under different management, development, and climate scenarios.