Apr 14 2023 11 mins
A reading of The Value of Biosphere Earth, part 3: "Ecosystem Services" by researcher/author, Chris Searles. From brain formation to oxygen supply, Earth's other life is responsible for just about everything that makes our lives possible. (Scroll down for citations.) Earth's composition of life and living ecosystems is everything to us humans. "Ecosystem services" -- the academic term for Earth's literal, planetary life-support system services, are the products, conditions, bodies, functionalities, services, communities, other companions, and more we typically take for granted, which are generated by the Life before and around us today.
Earth’s global life-support system is composed of a continuous life-interaction of water-based/atmospheric/landscape/and subterranean micro and macro organisms. Please check out the prior two podcasts in this series for more info. Biosphere Earth provides for just about every aspect of human identity and existence. This series seeks to connect people of all backgrounds to a better understanding of what our life-support system is and how its integrity is our #1 economic and shared priority. This episode synopsizes what Earth's complex biosphere does for us.
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Read The Value of Biosphere Earth, part 3: Ecosystem Services
- by Chris Searles, on Google Drive: https://tinyurl.com/VOBE3-ecoservices
- Read Chris' essay on this topic.
- Visit our website for more: https://biointegrity.net/value
About Chris Searles
- director, BioIntegrity.net / exec. editor, AllCreation.org
- other notable research: The Systemic Climate Solution
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Citations
Map of Earth’s vertebrate biodiversity concentrations on land.
• Data: Jenkins, Pimm, Joppa. Global patterns of terrestrial vertebrate diversity and conservation. PNAS 110 (28) E2602-E2610; https://doi.org/10.1073/pnas.1302251110
• Image: Globaia / ESO Supernova. Biodiversity on Earth. European Southern Observatory. https://supernova.eso.org/exhibition/images/0514_F_biodiversity_bearbeitet-CCfinal/ (Retrieved 2021)
1. “Ecosystem Services” is irrelevant to the average human being.
• Thompson, et al. Ecosystem – What? Public Understanding and Trust in Conservation Science and
Ecosystem Services. Front. Commun., 1. (2016) https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fcomm.2016.00003/full
2. Some definitions of Ecosystem Services.
• Intergovernmental Panel on Science Policy and Ecosystem Services. Core Glossary. IPBES. Retrieved
10/7/2021. https://ipbes.net/glossary/ecosystem-services
• Danley, Widmark. Evaluating conceptual definitions of ecosystem services and their implications.
Ecological Economics 126, 132-138. (2016) https://sciencedirect.com/science/article/abs/pii/S0921800915300549
• Antle, et al. Ecosystems and their goods and services. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. AR5
2014: Climate Change impacts, adaptation and vulnerability. (2014)
https://www.ipcc.ch/site/assets/uploads/2018/03/wg2TARchap5.pdf
• Uncredited authors. Ecosystem services for human well-being. The Secretariat of the Convention on
Biological Diversity. (2008) https://www.cbd.int/doc/bioday/2008/ibd-2008-factsheet-01-en.pdf
• Uncredited authors. Ecosystems and their wellbeing, Chapter 02: Ecosystems and their services.
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment. (2005) http://millenniumassessment.org/documents/document.300.aspx.pdf
3. Ecosystem services keep humans alive and make possibility possible.
• Daily, G., editor. Nature's Services: Societal Dependence On Natural Ecosystems. Island Press. ISBN:
1559634766. (1997) https://islandpress.org/books/natures-services
4. “Are these not of the living Earth?”
• Orange, T. There There. Vintage. ISBN: O525520376. (2019) https://penguinrandomhouse.com/books/563403/there-there-by-tommy-orange
5. Ecosystems and their biodiversity have generated the platform for all known physical, emotional, mental, psychological, spiritual, conscious, and subconscious experiences for organisms.
• European Commission. Ecosystem Goods and Services. European Commission Publications Office. (2009)
https://ec.europa.eu/environment/nature/info/pubs/docs/ecosystem.pdf
6. All ecosystems interact to create Earth’s life-support system.
> Ocean life integration
• Friendlingstein, et al. Global Carbon Budget 2020. Earth Syst. Sci. Data, 12, 3269–3340. (2020) https://doi.org/10.5194/essd-12-3269-2020
• Rasher, et al. Keystone predators govern the pathway and pace of climate impacts in a subarctic marine ecosystem. Science Vol. 369, 6509, 1351-1354. (2020) https://science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6509/1351
• Behrenfeld, et al. Global satellite-observed daily vertical migrations of ocean animals. Nature 576, 257–261. (2019) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-019-1796-9
• Basu, Mackey. Phytoplankton as Key Mediators of the Biological Carbon Pump. Sustainability, 10, 869. (2018) https://doi.org/10.3390/su10030869
• Delevaux, et al. Scenario planning with linked land-sea models inform where forest conservation actions will promote coral reef resilience. Sci Rep 8, 12465. (2018) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-018-29951-0
• Graham, et al. Seabirds enhance coral reef productivity and functioning in the absence of invasive rats. Nature 559, 250–253. (2018) https://doi.org/10.1038/s41586-018-0202-3
• Barbier. Marine Ecosystem Services. Current Biology, Vol. 27, Issue 11, R507-R510. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cub.2017.03.020
• Howard, et al. Clarifying the role of coastal and marine systems in climate mitigation. Frontiers in Ecology 15 (1), 42-50. (2017) https://doi.org/10.1002/fee.1451
• Leigh, et al. Seagrass digestion by a notorious carnivore. The Royal Society 285, 1886. (2018) https://doi.org/10.1098/rspb.2018.1583
> Atmospheric life integration
• Hayden. The role of the biosphere in the Earth-atmosphere system. Encyclopedia Britannica online. [Retrieved 1 January 2021] https://www.britannica.com/science/climate-meteorology/The-role-of-the-biosphere-in-the-Earthatmosphere-system
• Green, et al. Regionally strong feedbacks between the atmosphere and terrestrial biosphere. Nature Geoscience 10(6):410-414. (2017) https://nature.com/articles/ngeo2957
• Wilson, et al. A marine biogenic source of atmospheric ice-nucleating particles. Nature 525, 234–238. (2015) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature14986
• Katul, et al. Evapotranspiration: A process driving mass transport and energy exchange in the soil-plant-atmosphere-climate system. Reviews of Geophysics, Vol. 50, Issue 3. (2012) https://doi.org/10.1029/2011RG000366
• Lelieveld, et al. Atmospheric oxidation capacity sustained by a tropical forest. Nature 452, 737–740. (2008) https://doi.org/10.1038/nature06870
> Freshwater life integration
• Migliorini, Romero. Warming and leaf litter functional diversity, not litter quality, drive decomposition in a freshwater ecosystem. Sci Rep 10, 20333. (2020) htt...