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The KBS LTER Site

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Ecosystem Services from Working Lands Cross-Site LTER Research

April 11-13, 2007, Kellogg Biological Station

LTER sites differ importantly between those where the human imprint is intentional and those where it is not. Ecosystems that are lintentionally managed for human ends are called working landscapes. Managers of these lands may elect to change their behavior as they seek to balance different ecosystem services (ES), such as food production, water quality or wildlife habitat. Behavior tends to be influenced by information, incentives, and resource constraints. Yet human managers may not be fully informed about the ES provided by the ecosystems they manage. Likewise, policy makers and others in a position to influence the manager may lack information. Even when they are fully informed, managers working in the private-sector may ignore ES that generate benefits outside the scope of their current incentives.

Mechanism

The proposed cross-site LTER research activity will gather ecological and social scientists from selected LTER sites that represent privately managed, working lands. In one face-to-face meeting and subsequent virtual ones, they will pursue the following objectives:

  1. Inventory the scope of major ES within a reasonable domain of extrapolation for each site;
  2. Determine which ES could be enhancedd by human managers of similar lands;
  3. Develop a typology of human involvement with ecosystems that shed light on human motives with respect to alternative ecosystem types;
  4. Develop hypotheses about the current factors limiting provision of those ES believed to be inadequately provided, based on the typology in #3;
  5. Propose a cross-site research plan to:
    • Test hypotheses about factors limiting ES provision;
    • and Identify approaches to influence human management these ecosystems for enhanced ES provision.