IFEVA   02662
INSTITUTO DE INVESTIGACIONES FISIOLOGICAS Y ECOLOGICAS VINCULADAS A LA AGRICULTURA
Unidad Ejecutora - UE
artículos
Título:
Habitat loss, trophic collapse and the decline of ecosystem services.
Autor/es:
A. DOBSON; D. LODGE; J. ALDER; G. S. CUMMING; J. KEYMER; J. MCGLADE; H. MOONEY; J. A. RUSAK; O. E. SALA; V. WOLTERS; D. H. WALL; R. WINFREE; M. XENOPOULOS
Revista:
ECOLOGY
Referencias:
Año: 2006 vol. 87 p. 1915 - 1924
ISSN:
0012-9658
Resumen:
The provisioning of sustaining goods and services that we obtain from natural
ecosystems is a strong economic justification for the conservation of biological diversity.
Understanding the relationship between these goods and services and changes in the size,
arrangement, and quality of natural habitats is a fundamental challenge of natural resource
management. In this paper, we describe a new approach to assessing the implications of
habitat loss for loss of ecosystem services by examining how the provision of different
ecosystem services is dominated by species from different trophic levels. We then develop a
mathematical model that illustrates how declines in habitat quality and quantity lead to
sequential losses of trophic diversity. The model suggests that declines in the provisioning of
services will initially be slow but will then accelerate as species from higher trophic levels are
lost at faster rates. Comparison of these patterns with empirical examples of ecosystem
collapse (and assembly) suggest similar patterns occur in natural systems impacted by
anthropogenic change. In general, ecosystem goods and services provided by species in the
upper trophic levels will be lost before those provided by species lower in the food chain. The
decrease in terrestrial food chain length predicted by the model parallels that observed in the
oceans following overexploitation. The large area requirements of higher trophic levels make
them as susceptible to extinction as they are in marine systems where they are systematically
exploited. Whereas the traditional speciesarea curve suggests that 50% of species are driven
extinct by an order-of-magnitude decline in habitat abundance, this magnitude of loss may
represent the loss of an entire trophic level and all the ecosystem services performed by the
species on this trophic level% of species are driven
extinct by an order-of-magnitude decline in habitat abundance, this magnitude of loss may
represent the loss of an entire trophic level and all the ecosystem services performed by the
species on this trophic level