Linking potential biodiversity and three ecosystem services in silvopastoral managed forest landscapes of tierra del fuego, Argentina

Several studies confirm that biodiversity loss endangers ecosystem services (ES) supply and human well-being. A better understanding of biodiversity–ES relationships and effects of biodiversity loss on ES supply is needed. The objective was to determine relationships between potential biodiversity and three ES in Patagonia where cattle ranching under silvopastoral use occurs. We used grids of potential biodiversity (plant species richness) and three ES, provisioning (cattle stocking rate), regulating (CO2 sequestration) and cultural (geo-tagged digital-images). Potential biodiversity was negatively related to provisioning, but no significant relations were detected with regulating and cultural. These relations showed regional differences related to forest landscape distribution. High values of regulating were found in southern areas being coincident with high potential biodiversity. Opposite trends (negative relationship with biodiversity) was observed for provisioning in eastern and western regions where provisioning decrease from N-S. Results suggest that provisioning do not overlap spatially with the higher values of potential biodiversity maps, which is an advantage for land use planning when conservation and management requirements must be combined. Our results are the first contribution for Patagonia to underpin scientific and institutional efforts to connect biodiversity conservation with ES maintenance. However, further studies must be addressed including more ES and regions.

This research was supported by ‘Operationalisation of ecosystem services and natural capital: From concepts to real-world applications’ (OpenNESS) project financed under the European Commission’s Seventh Framework Programme (Project number 308428). This paper was also written with the financial support of MINCYT-BMWF Cooperation Programme (2011-2013) through the project: ‘Impact of variable retention management in Nothofagus pumilio forests of Southern Patagonia: A meta-analysis across 15 years of results for multiple taxa and scales’.