This paper discusses the construction of an ecosystem services index (ESI) and the respective roles of ecology and economics in that effort. It extends the concept of an ESI, analogous to Gross Domestic Product, to other analogous indices, including an ecosystem price or value index, and a net ESI that accounts for interactions between ecosystem stocks and service flows. A central aim of this p...

Forest Isbell,* David Tilman, Stephen Polasky and Michel Loreau Abstract Habitat destruction is driving biodiversity loss in remaining ecosystems, and ecosystem functioning and services often directly depend on biodiversity. Thus, biodiversity loss is likely creating an ecosystem service debt: a gradual loss of biodiversity-dependent benefits that people obtain from remaining fragments of natur...

The millions of species on our planet, including humans, interact with one another in many ways. These interactions among and between species are what define ecosystems. Ecosystems, in turn, provide many environmental benefits or “services” that support human life and well-being. Ecosystem services are the transformation of a set of natural resources (for example, plants and animals, air and wa...

Ecosystem services have been identified as a central link between society, or human systems, and the structure and function of natural systems (e.g., U.S. LTER 2007, MEA 2005). A fundamental economic problem is that while almost everyone—environmental groups, policy makers, and broad segments of the general public—seems to believe ecosystem services are valuable, the available public policy too...

Groundwater overdraft has consequences in the long-run for the economic and ecological sustainability of an agricultural landscape. In response to aquifer depletion, we examine the tradeoff of non-market ecosystem service benefits (e.g., groundwater supply, greenhouse gases, and surface water quality) and market returns from crops in the Lower Mississippi River Delta. Farmers may turn to conjun...

We evaluate the return on investment (ROI) from public land conservation in the state of Minnesota, USA. We use a spatially-explicit modeling tool, the Integrated Valuation of Ecosystem Services and Tradeoffs (InVEST), to estimate how changes in land use and land cover (LULC), including public land acquisitions for conservation, influence the joint provision and value of multiple ecosystem serv...