Stakeholder priorities determine the impact of an alien tree invasion on ecosystem multifunctionality

Linders, Theo E. W.; Schaffner, Urs; Alamirew, Tena; Allan, Eric; Choge, Simon; Eschen, René; Shiferaw, Hailu; Manning, Peter

doi:10.1002/pan3.10197

Cited by 28 publications

(24 citation statements)

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“…The stakeholder groups prioritised the same ES in each region, thus indicating common, possibly universal, patterns of prioritisation across Germany, at least within high biodiversity cultural landscapes such as these. The patterns of priority observed here differ from those in most previous studies (Linders et al, 2021;Martin-Lopez et al, 2012;Quintas-Soriano et al, 2018;Washbourne et al, 2020) in that stakeholders are less specialised and less polarised (e.g. each group exclusively prioritising just a few favoured ES).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 95%

Cultural worldviews consistently explain bundles of ecosystem service prioritisation across rural Germany

et al. 2021

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 95%

Cultural worldviews consistently explain bundles of ecosystem service prioritisation across rural Germany

et al. 2021

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“…In the French Alps, for example, surveys identified that aesthetic value of mountain grasslands was essential to local farmers and tourists, and related not only to flower diversity, but also to the absence of a build-up of plant litter 82 . As another example, the cover of woody species can be used as an indicator of the vital regulating service of shade provision in East African grasslands 83 . Visually estimable indicators can also be employed in such assessments to ensure both relevance and cost-effectiveness.…”

Section: Standardised Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The creation of such indices can be achieved by adapting approaches developed for measuring the co-delivery of multiple ecosystem services based on stakeholder preferences 74,84 , and other participatory multi-criteria analyses of ecosystem services 85 . Both approaches can also be used to weigh the measures included in the calculation of the index, for example by encouraging representatives of different stakeholder groups to assign scores to the ecosystem services considered 83 . In the final step, we suggest that conclusions from this standardised approach are used to inform management decisions regarding which restoration options should be employed and where.…”

Section: Standardised Assessmentmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The second example is taken from arid and semi-arid Eastern Africa (Figure 4), where nomadic pastoralists favour provisioning services of forage production and natural products from grasslands, while charcoal producers derive their livelihoods from native woody vegetation and, increasingly, from invasive woody species such as Prosopis juliflora. Because the invasion of P. juliflora transforms grasslands into scrubland with bare soil 91 , the supply of most ecosystem services demanded by stakeholders is greatly reduced, but fuel wood and charcoal production are promoted 83 . The supply of other services, such as soil carbon storage, is context-dependent; soil conditions are improved when P. juliflora invades grasslands degraded by overgrazing and other forms of mismanagement.…”

Section: Shared Understanding and Trade-offsmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Combatting global grassland degradation

Bardgett

Bullock

Lavorel

et al. 2021

Nat Rev Earth Environ

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The World's grasslands are under severe threat from on-going degradation, yet they are largely ignored in sustainable development agendas. This degradation is undermining the capacity of grasslands to support biodiversity, ecosystem services, and human wellbeing. In this Perspective, we examine the current state of grasslands worldwide and explore the extent and dominant drivers of global grassland degradation. We identify actions that are critical to the development of socio-ecological solutions to combat degradation and promote restoration of global grasslands. Specifically, we argue that progress can be made by: increasing recognition of grasslands in global policy, developing standardised indicators of grassland degradation, using scientific innovation for effective restoration at regional and landscape scales, and enhancing knowledge transfer and data sharing on restoration experiences. The integration of these strategies into sustainability policy should help to halt grassland degradation and enhance restoration success, and protect the socio-economic, cultural and ecological benefits that grasslands provide.Grasslands, comprising open grassland, grassy shrublands and savannah, cover about 40% of the Earth's surface and some 69% of the world's agricultural land area 1-3 . Not only do they serve as an important global reservoir of biodiversity, including many iconic and endemic species, but also, they provide a wide range of material and non-material benefits to humans and our quality of life. These benefits include a wide range of ecosystem services, such as food production, water supply and regulation, carbon storage and climate mitigation, pollination, and a host of cultural services 1-3 . Despite its importance, grassland degradation is widespread and accelerating in many parts of the world 4-6 with as much as 49% of grassland area worldwide having been degraded to some extent 5,7,8 .Grassland degradation poses an enormous threat to the hundreds of millions of people who rely on grasslands worldwide for food, fuel, fibre and medicinal products, as well as their multiple cultural values 9,10 . In terms of livestock production, the global cost of grassland degradation has been estimated at $6.8 billion 11 , with the impact on human welfare being particularly severe in regions where most the population is below the poverty line Grassland degradation also creates major environmental problems, given that grasslands play a critical role in biodiversity conservation, climate and water regulation, and global biogeochemical cycles 2,4 . For example, the conversion of tropical grassy biomes to arable cropland poses a significant threat to biodiversity given that they have a vertebrate species richness comparable to forests 12 , while the recent expansion of croplands in United States has caused widespread conversion of prairie grasslands, with considerable cost to wildlife 6 . Moreover, the conversion of grasslands to arable cropland and disturbance through overgrazing, fire and invasive species can lead to signif...

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“…For instance, at very low intensity fodder production might not be profitable enough for farmers, resulting in no benefit despite some supply, and with a risk of pasture abandonment. While tailored supply-benefit relationships have been rarely used in multifunctionality metrics due to the difficulty in defining their shape, their integration could greatly improve model predictions (Manning et al 2018, Linders et al 2021). Both the prioritisation of services by stakeholders, and supply-benefit relationships, are also likely to change in time and space (Boesing et al 2020), e.g.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing the impact of grassland management on landscape multifunctionality

Neyret

Fischer

Allan

et al. 2020

Preprint

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Land-use intensification has contrasting effects on different ecosystem services, often leading to land-use conflicts. Multiple studies, especially within the 'land-sharing versus land-sparing' debate, have demonstrated how landscape-scale strategies can minimise the trade-off between agricultural production and biodiversity conservation. However, little is known about which land-use strategies maximise the landscape-level supply of multiple ecosystem services (landscape multifunctionality), a common goal of stakeholder communities. Here, we combine data collected from 150 grassland sites with a simulation approach to identify landscape compositions, with differing proportions of low-, medium-, and high-intensity grasslands, that minimise trade-offs between the four main grassland ecosystem services demanded by stakeholders: biodiversity conservation, aesthetic value, productivity and carbon storage. We show that optimisation becomes increasingly difficult as more services are considered, due to varying responses of individual services to land-use intensity and the confounding effects of other environmental drivers. Thus, our results show that simple land-use strategies cannot deliver high levels of all services, making hard choices inevitable when there are trade-offs between multiple services. However, if moderate service levels are deemed acceptable, then strategies similar to the 'land-sparing' approach can deliver landscape multifunctionality. Given the sensitivity of our results on these factors we provide an online tool that identifies strategies based on user-defined demand for each service (https://neyret.shinyapps.io/landscape_composition_for_multifunctionality/). Such a tool can aid informed decision making and allow for the roles of stakeholder demands and biophysical trade-offs to be understood by scientists and practitioners alike.

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Stakeholder priorities determine the impact of an alien tree invasion on ecosystem multifunctionality

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 28 publications

References 68 publications

Cultural worldviews consistently explain bundles of ecosystem service prioritisation across rural Germany

Cultural worldviews consistently explain bundles of ecosystem service prioritisation across rural Germany

Combatting global grassland degradation

Assessing the impact of grassland management on landscape multifunctionality

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