Over the past 25 years, the concept of biodiversity has changed from purely biological to multidimensional. This is partly because the maintenance, restoration and sustainable management of biodiversity goes far beyond the biological into the social and political realms. The role of biodiversity as an active driver of change, affecting ecosystem processes and services, has also received increasing attention. However, species number, the most common metric of biodiversity, is often not a meaningful indicator of many ecosystem processes in real socio-ecosystems. Stating that biodiversity is important is not enough. We need to understand what aspects of biodiversity matter for what ecosystem properties and societal benefits, and for what social actors. We also need to understand how in turn specific social actors, in procuring ecosystem benefits, manipulate the biota and its capacity to produce benefits for all stakeholders. The concept of functional diversity can provide insight into all these relationships. It comprises at least three major components, whose role in determining ecosystem properties and services is expected to vary according to the local context, and can be determined in real field situations by using a set of recently developed interdisciplinary tools.

As ecosystem services (ES) are positioned on the agendas of conservation and development, there has been a variety of indicators, mainly of ES supply and value. However, there has been little attention to measures like vulnerability, which truly reflect the complex and interconnected nature of social-ecological systems (SES) and the consequences of changes in ES on human welbeing. In an interdisciplinary and collaborative work, we have developed a conceptual framework linking the approaches of SES and ES, and where vulnerability (socio-ecological) is expressed as the interaction between the sensitivity of the SES and its ability to adapt to stress factors (e.g. land-use change). Based on this framework, we developed a methodology for vulnerability assessment with three objectives: (1) describe the spatial patterns of ES flow, social benefits capture, and vulnerability, and spatial congruence between them using existing data; (2) integrate this information to relevant scales and in a coordinated manner; and (3) generate a practical assessment tool (ECOSER 2.0) to serve as a tool for decision making. The methodology and tools have been applied in case studies in Chile and Argentina. The results highlight the differences in vulnerability depending on the consideration or not of different types of beneficiaries and the low spatial correlation between ES flow and vulnerability. Further, there is evidence that the adaptive capacity may or may not reduce vulnerability, depending on the possibility of replacing the ES affected and the magnitude of the sensitivity of the SES to the stress factor, which in turn is given by the strength of the connection between welbeing and the ES. It is hoped that this approach and tools help increase the effectiveness of management interventions beyond the conventional indicators of ES, allowing to focus, for example, on which areas of provision should be maintained or in which areas we should invest to build adaptive capacity and reduce vulnerability.

The Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (MA) states one of its intents is to be used ‘as a framework and source of tools for assessment, planning and management’. Since its release, however, there has been exponential growth in ecosystem services framework development by stakeholders from different sectors, with different disciplines, from different cultures, to address specific issues, for application at different scales and by different end-users. Without analysing these initiatives, particularly the ‘drivers’ underpinning the choice of different ‘processes’ to develop the frameworks (e.g. collaborative, in-house, expertise involved, resources invested) and the different ‘information’ (e.g. on biodiversity’s role in service provision, ecosystem process and service definitions, valuation methods) and ‘tools’ (e.g. conceptual frameworks, maps, models, reporting mediums) supporting them, researchers are adopting and adapting these frameworks presupposing they are right to suit their purpose. This presentation presents the results of analysing methodologies developed in different contexts so to determine a) what an appropriate methodology (process, information and tools) is for assessing ecosystem services?; and b) the implications of applying different frameworks in ecosystem services assessments. It provides examples of Guiding Principles that have been developed to assist researchers in making more informed decisions on an appropriate framework for use in single or multi-scale ecosystem services assessments; or from which researchers can assess their currently applied framework to determine its appropriateness. The Principles were developed by analysing frameworks developed since the MA’s release in 2005. Documents and literature were reviewed to assess a wide range of frameworks and their components, including the MA, TEEB, UN SEEA and CICES to name a few. Applied research was conducted to develop an actual framework at the regional scale in South-East Queensland, Australia, capturing and creating an understanding of the constraints and opportunities that might arise in everyday practice when developing a framework. Multiple case study analysis was applied to analyse in depth two frameworks developed, one at the national scale (the US EPA’s Ecosystem Services Research Program) the other at the multi-national scale (the UK National Ecosystem Assessment). Thirty-three interviews were conducted with program Leads. Constraints and opportunities provided by drivers underpinning the programs were identified and how these influenced the processes applied and the information and tools developed.

Often agriculture -in the broadest sense- is seen as a polluting activity, leading to the degradation of natural resources and biodiversity loss, and in many cases as socially exclusive. On the other hand, where cattle and agro-forestry activities share the space with the human and many other species habitat, agricultural landscapes have been proposed as key areas for the generation of ecosystem services of global and regional importance. Examples of such services include the collection and availability of drinking water, reception and adaptation of wastewater for further treatment, the control of slopes and watersheds, the sequestration of atmospheric carbon dioxide, the preservation of habitats and biological corridors, etc. For this reason it is often spoken of multifunctional landscapes. However, beyond the role that agriculture can meet in the provision of ecosystem services, there is huge potential for the use of locally generated ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes. Such services of regulation and support of key ecological processes for agricultural activities are underutilized by the current dominant production models based on large energy inputs and an approach that aims to ´control´ -rather than manage- the processes of the agroecosystem. The efficient use of these services for the production requires a rational design of the agricultural landscape, with scientific basis, and the involvement of the various actors in the territory. It is intended to fully capitalize the ecological processes to replace and/or reduce the need for external inputs, increase regulation capacity and recovery of the system to disturbances and adapt to changes caused by exogenous drivers. Is this what I call ecological intensification of agriculture. Examples illustrating specific cases of ecological intensification and their potential will be presented and discussed during this session of the Congress.