Ecosystem services, biodiversity, and landscape connectivity

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This proposal addresses the research topic "Ecosystem Adaptation, Interventions, and Modeling" within the target area "Healthy Environment and Ecosystems". Communities manage their landscape to provide various ecosystem services including high quality water, food, and recreation. Provision of these services is not only a sensitive indicator of ecosystem health, but is also critical to maintenance of human well-being. To successfully manage ecosystem services, communities need scientific information about how human utilization activities will affect current and future provision of services. We will develop practical decision-support tools based on our new conceptual framework about the interactions between land use, biodiversity and ecosystem services. These tools -- models in which community planners can alter the amount and configuration of forest in the landscape and receive output information about the ecosystem services provided -- will help communities make decisions about environmental management in the face of local, regional, and global change.