Interdisciplinary studies on ecosystem services

BALVANERA, P.; AVILA, P.; CARPENTER, S.; CASTELLARINI, F.; CASTILLO, A.; COTLER, H. ; FOLKE, C. ; LAZOS, E.; MAASS, M.; MAZARI, M.; MORENO, A.R.; NORSTRÖM, A; DE LA TEJERA, B; SIEBE, C.; VEGA, E.

Bonito

Congreso; ATBC: Ecology, Evolution and Sustainable Use of Tropical Biodiversity; 2012

ATBC

Interdisciplinary approaches are increasingly called for in order in the search for alternatives to understand the dynamics of the ecological and social systems and their interactions through ecosystem management and the delivery of ecosystem services are increasingly important. Such interdisciplinary approaches are needed to assess what are the social and ecological drivers that underpin management decisions, how they change in response to particular biophysical and social context, and how they underpin the delivery of ecosystem services. In this work we address three different aspects associated to such interdisciplinary projects. We first discuss the importance of conceptual frameworks to guide this research and present anad-hocframework developed by a research theme focusing in a watershed of western Mexico. Then we discuss the importance of developing similarly interdisciplinary spatial frameworks to guide decision- making and present one developed for Mexico as well as its application to the exploration of the drivers underpinning service delivery. Finally, we discuss the need to undertake comparative interdisciplinary research on ecosystem services for multiple biophysical and social contexts and present a global initiative that has been created for that purpose. We finalize by discussing how these approaches are contributing to the conservation of tropical systems.