Pollination and other ecosystem services produced by mobile organisms: a conceptual framework for the effects of land use change

KREMEN, C.; WILLIAMS, N. M.; AIZEN, M. A.; GEMMILL-HERREN, B.; LEBUHN, G.; MINCKLEY, R.; PACKER, L.; POTTS, S. G.; ROULSTON, T.; VÁZQUEZ, D. P.

Ecology Letters

Año: 2007 vol. 10 p. 299 - 314

Many ecosystem services are delivered by organisms that depend on habitats that aresegregated spatially or temporally from the location where services are provided.Management of mobile organisms contributing to ecosystem services requiresconsideration not only of the local scale where services are delivered, but also thedistribution of resources at the landscape scale, and the foraging ranges and dispersalmovements of the mobile agents. We develop a conceptual model for exploring how onesuch mobile-agent-based ecosystem service (MABES), pollination, is affected by land-usechange, and then generalize the model to other MABES. The model includesinteractions and feedbacks among policies affecting land use, market forces and thebiology of the organisms involved. Animal-mediated pollination contributes to theproduction of goods of value to humans such as crops; it also bolsters reproduction ofwild plants on which other services or service-providing organisms depend. About onethirdof crop production depends on animal pollinators, while 60–90% of plant speciesrequire an animal pollinator. The sensitivity of mobile organisms to ecological factorsthat operate across spatial scales makes the services provided by a given community ofmobile agents highly contextual. Services vary, depending on the spatial and temporaldistribution of resources surrounding the site, and on biotic interactions occurringlocally, such as competition among pollinators for resources, and among plants forpollinators. The value of the resulting goods or services may feed back via market-basedforces to influence land-use policies, which in turn influence land management practicesthat alter local habitat conditions and landscape structure.