Defining and classifying ecosystem services for decision making

TL;DR: In this article, the authors provide an overview of the challenges involved in applying ecosystem service assessment and valuation to environmental management and discuss some solutions to come to a comprehensive and practical framework.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors present an easy-to-apply concept based on a matrix linking spatially explicit biophysical landscape units to ecological integrity, ecosystem service supply and demand, which reveals patterns of human activities over time and space as well as the capacities of different ecosystems to provide ecosystem services under changing land use.

TL;DR: Research efforts and investments are particularly needed to reduce existing yield gaps by integrating context-appropriate bundles of ecosystem services into crop production systems.

TL;DR: This paper reviewed the historic development of the conceptualization of ecosystem services and examined critical landmarks in economic theory and practice with regard to the incorporation of ecosystem service into markets and payment schemes, concluding that the trend towards monetization and commodification of ecosystems is partly the result of a slow move from the original economic conception of nature's benefits as use values in Classical economics to their conceptualization in terms of exchange values in Neoclassical economics.

TL;DR: Understanding this complexity, while taking strong steps to minimize current losses of species, is necessary for responsible management of Earth's ecosystems and the diverse biota they contain.

TL;DR: Nature's Services brings together world-renowned scientists from a variety of disciplines to examine the character and value of ecosystem services, the damage that has been done to them, and the consequent implications for human society.

TL;DR: In this paper, a conceptual framework and typology for describing, classifying and valuing ecosystem functions, goods and services in a clear and consistent manner is presented. And a classification is given for the fullest possible range of 23 ecosystem functions.

TL;DR: In this paper, the authors examine the circumstances that allowed Western civilizations to dominate much of the world and what can we learn from their fates using a vast historical and geographical perspective ranging from Easter Island and the Maya to Viking Greenland and modern Montana.