Social-ecological dynamics of ecosystem services

This working group is exploring ecosystem services dynamics within social-ecological units across different landscapes and seascapes.

The working group met for the first time in 2015, at a workshop in Sweden (see photo above), and is composed of researchers representing regional case studies that have investigated ecosystem service trade-offs and synergies (i.e. ecosystem service bundles) within social-ecological units across different landscapes and seascapes. Working group participants have contributed with data from 18 different case studies. A follow up workshop was held in Sweden in October 2016. Some of the focal research questions of the working group are:

• Are there shared types of bundles of ecosystem services found across case studies? Are these signatures of social-ecological systems?
• What are the key ecological, social, and geographic drivers to explain patterns of ecosystem services and ecosystem service bundles across cases?
• What methods are used to identify ecosystem services, trade offs, bundles, and drivers? How much methodological commonality is there, and how much is required to cope with differences in social-ecological context and data availability? Should we do things differently in different contexts?
• How do social relationships across spatial scales matter in the analysis of ecosystem services bundles

One publication has been generated by this working group, and several more are in preparation.