Linking biodiversity and ecosystem services in silvopastoral managed forests of Tierra del Fuego, Argentina

MARTÍNEZ PASTUR, GUILLERMO; SOLER, ROSINA MATILDE; HUERTAS HERRERA, ALEJANDRO; LENCINAS, MARIA VANESSA; PERI, PABLO LUIS

International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management

Taylor & Francis

Año: 2016

2151-3732

Several studies confirm that biodiversity loss endanger ecosystem services (ES) supply and 20 human well-being. Understanding biodiversity-ES relationships and effects of biodiversity loss on ES supply is needed to develop agroforestry landscape management. The objective was to determine relationships between biodiversity and ES. Study area was central Tierra del Fuego (Argentina) where cattle ranching under silvopastoral use occurred. We used grids of provisioning (cattle stocking rate), regulating (CO2 sequestration) and cultural (geo-tagged digital-images) ES and modelled plant diversity. Plant diversity was negatively related to provisioning, but no significant relations were detected with regulating and cultural. However, such relations strongly depend on each region within distribution of forests. Higher values of regulating were found in southern than northern areas being coincident with high-low biodiversity patterns. Meanwhile, similar but opposite trend (negative relationship with biodiversity) was observed for provisioning in eastern and western regions where provisioning decrease from north-south areas. Results suggest that provisioning do not overlap spatially with priority conservation areas, which is an advantage for planning land use while maintaining original ecosystems with low disturbance. Our results are the first contribution to underpin scientific and institutional efforts in policies to connect biodiversity conservation with ES maintenance and enhancement its provision.