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hello everybody and thank you for
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joining in to episode 2 of unit 2.
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today i want to dive a little bit deeper
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into
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why biodiversity is so important and
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we're going to do that by exploring this
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topic
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referred to as ecosystem services we'll
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figure out what they are
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and when we discuss them it will help us
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determine
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a little bit about why we should care
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about biodiversity and what ecosystems
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do for us so as i mentioned before
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biodiversity has
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benefits right and the benefits that we
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humans mostly but other organisms as
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well receive from
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healthy ecosystems functioning
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ecosystems or what are called
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ecosystem services things like
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pollination for example
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so how does that connect to biodiversity
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well the more biodiversity you have
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the healthier your ecosystem is and the
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more ecosystem services you can
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obtain and sometimes there's even a
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direct linkage between biodiversity and
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ecosystem
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services as you might piece together in
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a little bit
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so there are main four main categories
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of ecosystem services that we'll be
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exploring
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uh at the bottom here are supporting
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surfaces these are surfaces that are
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necessary for ecosystems to function on
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a very foundational
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fundamental level and then above that
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are provisioning services which are
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products physical products that we
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obtain from ecosystems
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regulating services which are
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processes that are regulated by
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ecosystems i'll go through
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some examples and you'll see what i mean
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and lastly our cultural services which
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are non-physical benefits that we get
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from
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ecosystems so let's break these down a
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little bit
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let's start with provisioning services
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this is the most tangible and obvious
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one
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these are the physical material benefits
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we get from ecosystems
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examples include things like water we
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get fresh water from aquatic ecosystems
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we get food from ecosystems we get raw
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materials like
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wood for timber and for building fiber
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for
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making clothes and baskets skins from
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animals for making clothes and
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leather purses and stuff like that we
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also get medicinal resources
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oh here's a picture of lumber we get
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medicinal resources aspirin comes from
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the bark of a willow tree
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right and we also get genetic resources
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this is
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regular rice jasmine rice and this is
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golden rice
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golden rice is a genetically modified
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organism
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that when it grows it produces higher
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levels of vitamin a which is an
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important nutrient
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that isn't available to many people in
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developing countries around the world it
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can lead to blindness if you don't have
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enough of it
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so the creation of this golden rice
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is was really important because it
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provides a source of vitamin a for a lot
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of people
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and the gene that was transcribed into
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the genome
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of this rice plant comes from
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there are a couple genes one of them
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comes from another plant and one of them
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comes from bacteria
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so the that is an example of a genetic
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resource that we have obtained and then
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used for our own
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services regulating services are things
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that are going to maintain the health of
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the ecosystem maintain
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the quality these things are kind of
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invisible
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and they kind of keep things up and
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running maintenance so to speak
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and they include things like regulating
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the local climate
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regulating air quality right
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so an example is that evaporation or
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transpiration i should say
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from trees and from grass is going to
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introduce more water in the air water
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that has been purified by the plants
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they're also going to be doing
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photosynthesis and respiration
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which helps purify the air
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pollination is another important
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regulating service i'll talk about in
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more detail in a little bit
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erosion control is huge the roots of
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plants help hold the soil together
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and prevent water and wind from eroding
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away that soil
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that's going to be hugely important for
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ecosystems themselves but also our own
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farms and where we build our houses and
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things like that
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we've talked about how plants store
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carbon we've talked about decomposition
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of waste whether it's your dog's poop or
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dead animals or dead plants
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ecosystems regulate that waste and
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reintroduce it back into
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the matter cycling and they also
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buffer natural disasters i'll show you a
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little gif
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of what i mean by that but right
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intense root structures like i was just
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talking about will help reduce the
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impacts of landslides
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lots of trees and and wetlands can help
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reduce the impacts of flooding
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and can help buffer storms like
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hurricanes
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uh here's an example of how wetlands
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filter water so we've got some soil here
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we've got some grass we've got water
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flowing through
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and as water is going to flow through
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this it's going to hit the plants
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and the plants are going to slow the
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water down which
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that decreases erosion it's also going
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to allow the water to infiltrate into
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the soil
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right to recharge groundwater for
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example
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or just water the soil
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the various pollutants that are in there
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and when i say pollutants i mean things
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like nitrogen and phosphorus those are
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important nutrients right
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for plants but we don't want to be
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drinking those in our water
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right and the water is moving slow
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enough that those
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nutrients can be absorbed by the plants
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more thoroughly and more fully which
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means that there is less of that in the
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water that we might end up drinking
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it's also flowing slow enough that
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particulates likes pieces of soil rot
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rocks silt dust etc that are floating in
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the water
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will be able to settle to the ground so
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the water that's coming
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out is a lot clearer there's a lot less
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sediment in it and there's also a lot
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less
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chemical pollution in it and not just
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things like nitrogen and phosphorous but
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also more anthropogenic
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chemicals as well so that's how wetlands
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can filter water
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wetlands like i said can also protect
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from storms here are some
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like fake trees along the shoreline and
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over here is going to a
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little mechanism that's going to be
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generating some waves watch what happens
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to the intensity and energy of the waves
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once it hits these trees which are
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supposed to be a mangrove biome
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take a look you can see the waves are
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pretty intense and the second they hit
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the mangroves the wave energy dissipates
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dissipates almost completely and the
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shore is experiencing no
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wave stress at all which can have huge
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impacts in buffering from storms
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coastal erosion storm surges and
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flooding
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you name it so wetlands are a great
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example of
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these regulating services uh
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let's see next are supporting services
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sometimes
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um it can get a little confusing to
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distinguish between supporting and a
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regulating services
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service sometimes there's some overlap
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don't lose sleep over that right these
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are man-made categories to define
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uh natural phenomena there are going to
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be flaws in it but i like to think of
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them as the foundational services
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that help the ecosystems be what they
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are
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they are the underlying fundamental
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processes that
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allow ecosystems to exist and
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examples include primary productivity
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right that's how energy gets introduced
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into an ecosystem
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ecosystems create habitat for other
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ecosystems
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they help create soil which in itself is
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a habitat they help cycle nutrients
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cycle water and cycle energy right these
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are sort of like
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fundamental processes that without you
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pull one of these out and the ecosystem
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is going to die it's not going to be
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able to
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exist i'll show you a diagram in a
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little bit that
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actually if i go back to this very
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initial diagram i showed you
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i like it because it puts supporting
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services at the bottom
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right because it's supporting the other
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three right if you pull one of these out
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the rest of it isn't going to collapse
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necessarily but if you pull out a
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supporting service
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like nutrient cycling you can bet the
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whole ecosystem is going to collapse
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okay speeding back through this and the
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last one is cultural services
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these are the non-physical non-material
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benefits that we get from ecosystems and
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includes things like tourism
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science history education recreation
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spirituality
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religion um you know native americans in
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the united states but also
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indigenous people all around the world
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and also uh
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you and me probably find spiritual or uh
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deep
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sort of emotional value in the world
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around us
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you might have a deep emotional or
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spiritual connection to
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an area a sense of home a sense of place
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that's a legitimate ecosystem service
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something that's hard to quantify but it
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is a service that is provided to us by
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nature
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here's that here's that other diagram
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showing the same thing with some
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examples
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we've got provisioning regulating and
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cultural services
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and again supporting services is down at
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the bottom because it's going to help
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provide the support for the ecosystem to
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exist
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and all these other services to take
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place in the for
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uh in the first place
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uh so let's go through an example here
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temperate deciduous forest that's the
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biome that we live in
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try and see if you can come up with some
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examples of each of these ecosystem
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services provisioning regulating
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cultural and supporting
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that a temperate deciduous forest might
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provide to us
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that we live in the area
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okay so provisioning services are pretty
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easy right we're going to get food
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it could be nuts it could be a variety
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of crops it could be animals
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we're going to get lumber from these
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forests by cutting down the trees and we
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might even get some medicine
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from things like willow trees for
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example but also a variety of medicinal
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herbs
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dandelion tea is great for reducing
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fever and nausea
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regulating services is a little bit
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broad right trees are going to regulate
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the climate they're going to help cool
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the air around they're going to provide
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shade they're going to regulate the air
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quality as well by doing photosynthesis
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and cellular respiration
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typo there sorry they're going to store
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carbon they're going to help moderate
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extreme weather events could be extreme
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wind they're going to help block that
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wind and buffer it
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they can filter water through their
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roots but also um
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what if they absorb water and then it
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transpires out of their leaves
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that's going to help filter it as well
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and their roots will also help
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control erosion culturally
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right you can pretty much apply any of
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these
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recreation you might go hiking tourism
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you might go see a national park like
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shenandoah
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there might be spiritual benefits there
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could be educational benefits as well
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i take my students out into forests all
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the time for learning purposes
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and lastly supporting this is probably
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the most straightforward because
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we know that forests cycle various
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nutrients as well as water
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they help introduce energy into the
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ecosystem their roots will help
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soil form and they provide habitat for a
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variety of other species
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from plants to squirrels to humans to
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bears
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moose deer you name it
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another thing i want to distinguish is
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that ecosystem services
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were developed in the 70s as a way to
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get people who didn't like care about
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earth to care about earth for monetary
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reasons because you can quantify
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ecosystem services
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with a dollar value right we've got
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total global value per year in terms of
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trillions of dollars
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trillions and you've got the ecosystem
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service here on the y-axis
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so you can see that things like treating
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waste recreation and controlling erosion
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providing food
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are hugely hugely valuable services
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some of these are not as valuable
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monetary wise but
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some of these if you look are supporting
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services that help
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to make these other ones possible
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here's a another graph that shows a
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similar type of thing
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we've got biomes in different colors
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here okay
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let me orient you so the biomes are in
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different colors and the colors are
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available here and here and then in
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column a
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we've got the size of the area in
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hectares which is a
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metric unit of area and in column b
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we've got the monetary value
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per hectare per year in the united
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states in dollars
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right so take a look at this we've got
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33
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000 hectares of open ocean they estimate
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491
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dollars per hectare per year so do some
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multiplication
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and you can determine that the value of
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the open ocean is pretty high
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some of these take a look at the b
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column you'll see which ecosystems have
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the highest
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ecosystem service in terms of their
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value
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for money right salt marshes and
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mangroves they're going to
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buffet the storms they're going to
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filter water they're going to provide
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habitat for
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nursing birds and fish they're going to
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provide food they're going to do
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primary productivity they're going to
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store carbon so that means that they
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have a very very high
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value per unit area
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an example of this is happened in new
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york a couple years ago and i think
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also in the 90s with the catskill
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watershed for those of you don't know
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new york city's water is unfiltered and
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the reason for that is because they rely
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on the filtration of the watershed
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the lakes the reservoirs the forests and
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the rivers
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and the natural ecosystems to provide
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filtering services
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for new york's population unfortunately
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a couple years ago a couple decades
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maybe sewage and pesticide pollution
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made that very difficult for the
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ecosystem to do it was not able to keep
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up with filtering the waste and
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purifying the water
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so what new york did is they invested
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about a billion dollars into
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fixing that problem uh reducing the
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dumping preserving and protecting that
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land
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um keeping all facilities up to date etc
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that's going to increase or that ended
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up increasing the absorption of
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chemicals into the soil
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chemical filtering and nutrient cycling
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which ultimately led to
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improved water quality like i said this
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was a billion dollar project
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but the alternative was to conduct
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construct a water treatment plant which
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would have cost about 10 billion dollars
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plus 100 million dollars of upkeep
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annually so
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this project of of uh saved the state of
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new york a ton of money
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right i i'm not joking when i say that
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these ecosystems provide
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a lot of financial benefit
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unfortunately there are things that we
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do as humans that can disrupt these
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ecosystem services
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whether it's deforestation whether it's
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pollution and oil spills
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and ultimately they will have both
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economic and environmental consequences
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right
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oil spills damage the oil industry they
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damage the fishing industry in terms of
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money but they also damage
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that ecosystem right here's a great
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example
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of pollination in california about 15 to
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30 percent of
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food production in the united states
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relies on pollination by bees when they
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carry the pollen from one flower to
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another and help those plants reproduce
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plant sex many farmers though are
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importing
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bees from europe the european honey bee
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is a is
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not native to united states and that's
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what you think of when you think of a
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bee it's the european honey bee
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because we're importing it from europe
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because the agricultural practices of
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using pesticides and
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insecticides make it hard for our united
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states bee populations the native
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populations
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to get this job done on their own so
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they've actually had to start
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busting in bees from across the ocean
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and it's such a valuable industry bees
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are so worthwhile
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that they're actually seeing heists
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where people are stealing
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bees out of people's farms and it sounds
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kind of silly
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but i'm talking like there's one farmer
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he had like four hives stolen and he
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estimated it cost like forty five
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thousand dollars
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just for those four hives so bees are
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very very
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important they play a hugely important
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role in our agriculture
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and they're in high demand because of
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our actions
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in terms of pesticide use another
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example with the same thing
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pesticide use in china has led them to
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the point where not only are they
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renting bees in the same way that
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california farmers
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sometimes do but they're actually
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pollinating things by hand
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they're taking these little sticks and
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putting pollen on them and then they're
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touching it to the tip of every flower
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individually
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because it's actually it's relatively
00:16:20
cheap
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and excuse me they can't
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they don't have any native pollinators
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due to pesticide overuse
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so this is a another example of how
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anthropogenic actions are impacting
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ecosystem services
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their food production is is severely
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slowed because of this
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so that's pretty much it for ecosystem
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services we'll do some practice in class
00:16:43
but i want you to come to class thinking
00:16:45
about this question what other
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anthropogenic activities might disrupt
00:16:49
ecosystem services and how might that
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work i talked about
00:16:52
pesticide use and pollination i gave you
00:16:54
these other two here
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right deforestation and on oil spills
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but what else
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might we be doing that is going to
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disrupt ecosystems and also
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ultimately the benefits that we obtain
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from them all right that's all i got for
00:17:07
you this time if you have questions
00:17:08
bring them to class and i will see you
00:17:10
then
