Linking Nature's services to ecosystems: some general ecological concepts

I present a selected review of ecological concepts that are important for understanding how nature's services are linked to their support system, the ecosystem. The paper is mainly aimed at an audience of non-biologists to facilitate cooperation among disciplines. A list of services compiled from the literature is classified according to ecological criteria that relate to the properties of the services. These criteria are: (1) if the goods or services are produced and maintained within the ecosystem or shared with other ecosystems; (2) if the goods or object of the service are living or inorganic material; and (3) what biological unit is associated with production and maintenance, i.e. an individual, a species, a group of species, an entire community, the ecosystem, the landscape or on a global scale. Using these criteria I have identified and selected three major groups of ecosystem services for which some common ecological concepts apply. These are: (1) the maintenance of populations; (2) the use of ecosystems as filters of externally imposed compounds; and (3) the property of biological units to create organization through selective processes. These three categories are examined and exemplified in detail. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science B.V. All rights reserved.