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. 2018 Apr 1;68(4):264-272.
doi: 10.1093/biosci/biy005. Epub 2018 Mar 7.

Population Abundance and Ecosystem Service Provision: The Case of Birds

Kevin J Gaston  1 , Daniel T C Cox  1 , Sonia B Canavelli  2 , Daniel García  3 , Baz Hughes  4 , Bea Maas  5 , Daniel Martínez  3 , Darcy Ogada  6 , Richard Inger  1
Affiliations

Population Abundance and Ecosystem Service Provision: The Case of Birds

Kevin J Gaston et al. Bioscience. .

Abstract

Although there is a diversity of concerns about recent persistent declines in the abundances of many species, the implications for the associated delivery of ecosystem services to people are surprisingly poorly understood. In principle, there are a broad range of potential functional relationships between the abundance of a species or group of species and the magnitude of ecosystem-service provision. Here, we identify the forms these relationships are most likely to take. Focusing on the case of birds, we review the empirical evidence for these functional relationships, with examples of supporting, regulating, and cultural services. Positive relationships between abundance and ecosystem-service provision are the norm (although seldom linear), we found no evidence for hump-shaped relationships, and negative ones were limited to cultural services that value rarity. Given the magnitude of abundance declines among many previously common species, it is likely that there have been substantial losses of ecosystem services, providing important implications for the identification of potential tipping points in relation to defaunation resilience, biodiversity conservation, and human well-being.

Keywords: ecosystem benefits; ecosystem disservices; functional relationships.

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Figures

Figure 1.
Figure 1.
Examples of different potential functional relationships between population abundance and ecosystem-service provision. Relationships are categorized as (a) no relationship, (b) linear, (c) curvilinear, (d) asymptotic, (e) sigmoid, (f) quadratic, and (g) negative curvilinear.
Figure 2.
Figure 2.
Case studies of relationships between bird abundance and ecosystem-service provision. From left to right, the top row shows supporting services (nutrient transport for geese and crows; seed dispersal); the middle row shows regulating services (scavenging vultures and crows; pest control); and the bottom row shows cultural services (Welney reserve, lower levels of anxiety and stress). See table 1 for details and supplemental figure S1 for plots of further case studies in table 1.
Figure 3.
Figure 3.
A case study of the relationship between bird abundance and disservice provision (table 1 and supplemental table S1g).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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