Homework.
Consider the case of a commodity (e.g. fish, timber) needing ecosystem services
Identify two ways that this commodity depends on ecosystem services? That is, what do you need from the environment or an intact ecosystem to produce this good?
Describe how you could measure the value of the ecosystem services to the production of the commodity.
How might you measure the value of ecosystem services such as flood control or pollination?
Suppose you are in charge of reducing flooding in a local area. Suggest two changes you could make that would reduce flooding in a local area and explain how each works to reduce floods.
Lyme disease in northeastern forests shows an especially strong dilution effect.
Explain why the Lyme disease system shows the dilution effect relationship.
Suppose you are working on a project to re-introduce a small mammal to a forest from which it had gone locally extinct. This small mammal invests a lot of energy in a strong immune system. What effect do you predict that this mammal will have on local Lyme disease risk, and why?
Briefly describe 2 ways that biodiversity might be useful for human health.
Suppose you are a city planner adding a park to a local city. What effect might the park have on local temperatures, and why does that work?
Pest control has some of the most equivocal evidence for the ecosystem services. Why might there be less evidence for pest control than for other types of ecosystem services?
We discussed several possible relationships between supply of an ecosystem service and benefit of the ecosystem service that might not be linear: cases where there is a threshold or cases where there is a maximum benefit (saturation). Describe one example of an ecosystem service which you expect would not have a linear relationship with supply. Please say:
What the ecosystem service is.
The shape of the relationship you expect (e.g. threshold, saturation, S shape with both saturation and threshold)
Why you predict this type of relationship between supply and benefit for this service. What is likely going on biologically and ecologically that would make the relationship nonlinear?
Suppose you are a city planner adding a park to a local city. What effect might the park have on local temperatures, and why does that work?
Why are pollination ecosystem services so important? Which two traits make a crop especially dependent on pollination ecosystem services?