Details on Ecosystem Services

An ecosystem is made up of plants, animals, and other species, as well as weather and geography. Biotic and abiotic elements, or living and nonliving components, are found in ecosystems. Biotic factors include plants, animals, and other species. Abiotic variables include rocks, temperature, and humidity.

Every factor of an ecosystem is dependent on every other factor, either directly or indirectly. A change in an ecosystem’s temperature, for example, can affect the plants that grow there. Animals that rely on plants for food and shelter will either have to adjust to the changes or migrate to a different ecosystem.

Examples of Ecosystem

The following are some examples of ecosystems discussed here:

1. Deciduous forest ecosystem- A deciduous forest is characterised by trees that shed their leaves annually and renew them at the beginning of the next growing season. They shed leaves as an adaptation to the cold season in temperate climates or the dry seasons in subtropical and tropical climates.
2. Savannah ecosystem- Savannah ecosystems combine woodland and grassland elements. Light can penetrate and reach the ground thanks to the widely spaced, scattered canopy trees. As a result, grass-dominated shrubs and herbaceous strata are able to develop abundantly as well.
3. Coral reef ecosystem- The coral reef is an ecosystem formed by corals that build reefs. Coral reefs are groups of coral polyps, such as stony corals, that live together in colonies. They are one of the world’s most diversified ecosystems. As a result, they’re known as the sea’s rainforests.
4. Hot spring ecosystem- A hot spring is one with water temperatures that are higher than the ambient temperature. The water from the spring is geothermally heated, meaning it is heated by the earth’s mantle.
5. Micro-ecosystems- Micro-ecosystems are ecosystems that are confined to small or microscopic spaces yet are determined by unique environmental conditions. Consider the environment of a tree. A tree produces a miniature ecosystem that is home to a variety of species. Lichens and other epiphytes, for example, may be found on a tree (arboreal plant).

Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are natural system outputs, conditions, or activities that benefit humans or promote social well being directly or indirectly. Ecosystem services can benefit people in a variety of ways, either directly or as inputs towards the production of other goods and services. Bees and other species pollinate crops, which contributes to food production and is thus considered as an ecosystem service. Riparian buffers and wetlands are another example of flood mitigation in residential areas.

As ecosystem services are rarely bought and sold directly in marketplaces, market activities do not completely represent the benefits they provide. As a result, unregulated markets promote the depletion of natural capital (for example, ecosystem biotic and abiotic components) and ecosystem services. According to the United Nations Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005), which examined the effects of ecosystem change, humans have harmed the ability of Earth’s ecosystems to preserve social wellbeing.

As a result of ecosystem services research, policymakers are encouraged to evaluate the whole range of benefits and costs associated with actions that affect those services. The majority of formal assessments of ecosystem services focus on the consequences of changes to specific services in specific geographic locations on specific recipient groups; very few research examines ecosystem services as a whole (e.g., all the services provided by wetlands across the planet).

Types of Ecosystem Services

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA), a major United Nations-sponsored project to assess the impact of human activity on ecosystems and human well-being, identified four key types of ecosystem services: provisioning, regulatory, cultural, and sustaining services.

1. Provisioning Services
   Most people think of food when asked to describe a service provided by nature. We have access to fruits, vegetables, trees, fish, and livestock as direct products of ecosystems. A provisioning service is any type of benefit to people that can be obtained from nature. Provisioning services include drinking water, timber, wood fuel, natural gas, oils, plants that can be used to produce clothes and other textiles, and therapeutic benefits.
2. Regulating Services
   Many of the basic functions that individuals require are provided by ecosystems. Plants purify the air and water, microbes degrade trash, bees pollinate flowers, and tree roots keep soil in place to avoid erosion. All of these mechanisms interact to keep ecosystems clean, functional, and resistant to change. A regulating service is a benefit provided by ecological processes that temper natural disasters. Regulatory services include pollination, decomposition, water purification, erosion and flood management, as well as carbon storage and climate regulation.
3. Cultural Services
   As we interact with and influence the natural world, we have transformed. By being a permanent presence in our lives, it has steered our cultural, intellectual, and social growth. The value of ecosystems to the human mind may be traced all the way back to the dawn of civilization, when ancient civilizations drew drawings of animals, plants, and weather patterns on cave walls. A cultural service is a non-material benefit that contributes to people’s cultural development and advancement, such as how ecosystems play a role in local, national, and global cultures; knowledge building and dissemination; creativity arising from interactions with nature (music, art, architecture); and recreation.
4. Supporting Services
   Since the natural world provides so many amenities, we often ignore the most basic. Without the regularity of underlying natural processes including photosynthesis, nitrogen cycling, soil formation, and the water cycle, ecosystems could not be sustained. These mechanisms enable the Earth to support basic living forms, much alone entire ecosystems and human populations. Provisional, regulating, and cultural services would not exist without supporting services.

Conclusion

Ecosystem services can supply a variety of values, some of which are tied to human use and others that are not; these are referred to as use values and non-use values, respectively, by economists. People directly or indirectly utilise or enjoy ecosystem services, and their use values are tied to observable behaviours. Values generated by the awareness that something in nature exists, that it can be handed on to future generations, or that it is available to benefit other people are known as non-use values (i.e., existence, bequest, and altruistic values).