Linking biodiversity and ecosystem services to conservation

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In the context of the unprecedented loss of biodiversity, effective conservation assessment approaches are critical for preserving both species diversity and ecosystem processes. Since ecosystem processes also provide services that benefit society directly, for example, storm attenuation and water filtration, integrating delivery of ecosystem services into conservation assessments would increase social acceptance of conservation. To date, the degree of spatial congruence between ecosystem services and species diversity has only begun to be explored. This has been done mainly through the identification of hot spots of maximal production of ES and species, which generally do not overlap spatially. Integrating ES into the process of systematic site selection should improve not only the protection of species diversity but also functional diversity. Indeed, functional diversity, as defined by the value, range and relative abundance of biological attributes (traits) in a community, is believed to be more strongly associated with ecosystem processes than species diversity per se. It may therefore become an important component of conservation assessments when integrating ecosystem services.