Impact of land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Chilean temperate forests
Authors: James Rodríguez-Echeverry, Cristian Echeverría, Carlos Oyarzún Luis Morales
This paper by Rodríguez-Echeverry et al. was published in 2018 in the journal of Landscape Ecology.
Some of the questions the authors hope to answer are:
- How does land use change impact the spatial patterns of diversity in native forest habitat?
- What is the influence of land use change impacts on the supply of ecosystem services?
Study Area
- Rio Cruces watershed in the Valdivian temperate forest in southern Chile
- Between the Andes and coast mountain ranges
- Area of 3,640 km2 with 242 sub watersheds within
- Temperate climate and a human population of 206,000
Main ecosystem services that were investigated:
1. Water supply – described as the volume of water produced per sub watershed that is potentially available to humans
2. Erosion control services – described as the ability of natural vegetation to curb erosion by holding onto soil, measured in tonnes per hectare of sediment exported from each sub watershed
3. Organic matter accumulation – described as the accumulation of organic matter in soil
*all spatial data was obtained at a 30 by 30 meter spatial resolution
Methodology
2. N-Spect Model
• Using ArcGIS – Spatial Analyst Extension
3. Generalized Linear Models (GLMs)
• An area loss of 12% of all native forest habitat from 1986 – 2011
• A decrease in diversity from 1986 – 2011
• Decreases in all ecosystem services over the time period
Biodiversity of the Rio Cruces watershed, by sub watershed.
Patterns of land use change.
Conclusions
- the loss of diversity of native forest habitat is associated with loss of supply of the ecosystem services
Rating: 7/10
- they cited an unpublished source that had huge contribution to their work – which as a reader limited my ability to understand where the data had been obtained from
- their land-use map is black and white it makes differentiating the coverages challenging
Rodríguez-Echeverry, J., Echeverría, C., Oyarzún, C., & Morales, L. (2018). Impact of land-use change on biodiversity and ecosystem services in the Chilean temperate forests. Landscape Ecology, 33(3), 439-453. doi:10.1007/s10980-018-0612-5