Mapping spatial and temporal dynamics of ecosystem services interactions

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***Ecosystem services (ES), the benefits that humans obtain from nature, are an increasingly important tool for environmental decision-making. ES science can lead to better management by enabling communities to undertake multifunctional planning with models that can forecast how changes in land use or management will affect the provision of multiple ES. But the promise of ES science has not been fully realized, in part due to limited empirical studies of ES interactions. In particular, current science on ES interactions tends to focus on one temporal and spatial scale at a time, an approach that overlooks the system dynamics that could elucidate the mechanisms behind ES interactions. A better understanding of the mechanisms behind ES interactions could help mangers enhance synergies and avoid tradeoffs. Thus, scientists have called for increased attention to multiple ES, and especially to studies across multiple temporal and spatial scales that can elucidate the mechanisms behind ES interactions. Research in my lab is centered on understanding the ecological mechanisms that underlie the provision of multiple ES and their interactions, primarily in agricultural landscapes. My research program focuses especially on enhancing methods for mapping and modelling ES interactions to ensure that they better reflect the nonlinearities, feedbacks, and legacies that are key features of the complex systems that provide ES. Over the next five years, my team and I will explore how ES can be better understood as the products of systems that are dynamic in both space and time, how models can be improved to reflect this knowledge, and what these more dynamic models of ES can tell us about planning for the long-term the resilience and sustainability of ecosystems. We will do this through three interlocking initiatives: (1) a global analysis of common ES interactions in the anthropogenic biomes of the world, (2) a multi-scale analysis of ES interactions in the Montérégie, a local system well-known to our lab; (3) an exploration of the role of temporal dynamics, time lags, and legacies in the provision of ES over 100 years of land use and management change in the Montérégie. ******Communities across Canada and around the world are struggling with resource management questions, especially in working landscapes such agricultural regions. Unfortunately, we are making key decisions in the absence of the information we need to effectively maintain provision of multiple, highly desirable ES across space and through time. The work that I am proposing to undertake in my research program has the potential help answer fundamental questions about management of natural resources now and in the future. Together, time, space, and feedbacks among system components are the unexplored areas of ES research; they hold the key to managing ecosystems for sustainability. ***********