Ecosystem Services

Question 1

what are the four ecosystem services

Answer 1

• supporting services
• provisioning services
• regulating services
• cultural services

Question 2

what is supporting services and example?

Answer 2

• services necessary for the production of all other services
• ex: nutrients, primary production, & soil formation

Question 3

what is provisioning services and example?

Answer 3

• products obtained from ecosystems

- ex: food, fresh water, and genetic resources

Question 4

what is regulating services and exmaple?

Answer 4

• benefits obtained from regulation of ecosystem services

- ex: climate regulation, pollination, water regulation, water purification

Question 5

what is cultural services and example?

Answer 5

• nonmaterial benefits obtained from ecosystems

- ex: spiritual and religious recreation and ecotourism, educational, cultural heritage

Question 6

ecosystem component interactions and boundaries

Answer 6

-well-defined ecosystem, strong interactions with components and weak interactions with boundaries

Question 7

what is a useful ecosystem boundary and ex?

Answer 7

• the place where a number of discontinuities coincide

- ex: distribution of organisms, soil types, drainage basins, or depth in a water body

Question 8

what are ecosystem services?

Answer 8

-the benefits people obtain from ecosystems

Question 9

biodiversity & ecosystem services

Answer 9

• closely related
• diversity is a structural feature of ecosystems and variability is an element of biodiversity
• biodiversity is a source of ecosystem goods like food and genetic resources
• changes in biodiversity can influence the supply of ecosystem services

Question 10

what is the global status of provision services?

Answer 10

• declining more than improving
• improving related to human food production
• improving under direct human control

Question 11

what is the global status of regulating services?

Answer 11

-almost all declining

Question 12

what is the global status of cultural services?

Answer 12

-declining or neutral

Question 13

3 important characteristics of ecosystem services

Answer 13

• ecosystem variability
• resilience
• thresholds

Question 14

what is variability?

Answer 14

-changes in stock or flows over time due to stochastic,intrinsic, and extrinsic factors

Question 15

what is resilience?

Answer 15

• measure of the ability of a system to return to its original state after perturbation (large fire or severe drought)
• if recovery phase is short its considered more resilient than others

Question 16

what is thresholds? what is it also known as?

Answer 16

-a dramatic, usually sudden (less than a decade) deviations from average system behavior
- Also known as regime shifts, catastrophic change,
or entering alternative stable state
- Often primed by a steady change in internal or
external conditions that increases a system’s
susceptibility to being triggered to enter an
alternative state (tipping point)

Question 17

what is ecosystem intergrity?

Answer 17

-the maintenance of the community structure and function characteristic of a particular locale or deemed satisfactory to society

Question 18

what is a food web?

Answer 18

-A series of organisms related by predator-prey and consumer-resource interactions

• The entirety of interrelated food chains in an
  ecological community.
• Depicts feeding connections (what-eats-what)
  in an ecological community
• limited representation of real ecosystems

Question 19

what is trophic species?

Answer 19

-are functional groups of species that have same predators and prey in a food web