Abstract
Context
Cultural ecosystem services, many of which depend on biodiversity, are recognized as important but seldom quantified biophysically across landscapes. Furthermore, many ecosystem service models are static, and the supply of cultural ecosystem services may be misrepresented if seasonal shifts in biotic communities are ignored.
Objectives
We modeled landscape dynamics of wildflower blooms in a temperate montane landscape to determine (1) how floral resources (wildflower species richness, abundance, timing, and presence of charismatic species) changed over the growing season, (2) how projected wildflower viewing hotspots varied over space and time, and (3) how spatial shifts in floral resources affected potential public access to wildflower viewing.
Methods
Data were collected at 63 sites across a rural-to-urban gradient in the Southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). Generalized linear models were used to identify factors affecting floral resources at two temporal scales. Floral resources were projected across the landscape and hotspots of wildflower viewing were quantified using overlay analysis.
Results
Floral resources were affected by topoedaphic conditions, climate, and surrounding building density and changed seasonally. Seasonal models revealed locational shifts in ecosystem service hotspots, which changed the proportion of hotspots accessible to the public and identified wildflower-viewing opportunities unnoticed by static models.
Conclusion
Relationships between landscape gradients, biodiversity, and ecosystem service supply varied seasonally, and our models identified cultural ecosystem service hotspots otherwise obscured by simple proxies. Landscape models of biodiversity-based cultural ecosystem services should include seasonal dynamics of biotic communities to avoid under- or over-emphasizing the importance of particular locations in ecosystem service assessments.
Similar content being viewed by others
References
Aldridge G, Inouye DW, Forrest JRK, Barr WA, Miller-Rushing AJ (2011) Emergence of a mid-season period of low floral resources in a montane meadow ecosystem associated with climate change. J Ecol 99:905–913
Anderson BJ, Armsworth PR, Eigenbrod F, Thomas CD, Gillings S, Heinemeyer A, Roy DB, Gaston KJ (2009) Spatial covariance between biodiversity and other ecosystem service priorities. J Appl Ecol 46:888–896
Barthel S, Colding J, Elmqvist T, Folke C (2005) History and local management of a biodiversity-rich, urban cultural landscape. Ecol Soc 10(2):10
Bates D, Maechler M, Bolker B, Walker S (2015) lme4: linear mixed-effects models using S4 classes. R package version 1.1-8. R
Bellemare J, Motzkin G, Foster DR (2002) Legacies of the agricultural past in the forested present: an assessment of historical land-use effects on rich mesic forests. J Biogeogr 29:1401–1420
Blumstein M, Thompson JR (2015) Land-use impacts on the quantity and configuration of ecosystem service provisioning in Massachusetts, USA. J Appl Ecol 52:1009–1019
Burnham KP, Anderson DR (2002) Model selection and multimodel inference: a practical information-theoretic approach. Springer, New York
Cade BS (2015) Model averaging and muddled multimodel inferences. Ecology 96:2370–2382
Cardinale BJ, Duffy JE, Gonzalez A, Hooper DU, Perrings C, Venail P, Narwani A, Mace GM, Tilman D, Wardle DA, Kinzig AP, Daily GC, Loreau M, Grace JB, Larigauderie A, Srivastava DS, Naeem S (2012) Biodiversity loss and its impact on humanity. Nature 486:59–67
Chan KM, Shaw MR, Cameron DR, Underwood EC, Daily GC (2006) Conservation planning for ecosystem services. PLoS Biol 4:e379
Cleland EE, Chuine I, Menzel A, Mooney HA, Schwartz MD (2007) Shifting plant phenology in response to global change. Trends Ecol Evol 22:357–365
Cordell HK (2012) Outdoor recreation trends and futures: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA assessment
Crimmins TM, Crimmins MA, Bertelsen D, Balmat J (2008) Relationships between alpha diversity of plant species in bloom and climatic variables across an elevation gradient. Int J Biometeorol 52:353–366
Crimmins TM, Crimmins MA, Bertelsen CD (2013) Spring and summer patterns in flowering onset, duration, and constancy across a water-limited gradient. Am J Bot 100:1137–1147
Daily GC, Matson PA (2008) Ecosystem services: from theory to implementation. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 105:9455–9456
Daily GC, Polasky S, Goldstein J, Kareiva PM, Mooney HA, Pejchar L, Ricketts TH, Salzman J, Shallenberger R (2009) Ecosystem services in decision making: time to deliver. Front Ecol Environ 7:21–28
Daniel TC, Muhar A, Arnberger A, Aznar O, Boyd JW, Chan KMA, Costanza R, Elmqvist T, Flint CG, Gobster PH, Gret-Regamey A, Lave R, Muhar S, Penker M, Ribe RG, Schauppenlehner T, Sikor T, Soloviy I, Spierenburg M, Taczanowska K, Tam J, von der Dunk A (2012) Contributions of cultural services to the ecosystem services agenda. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 109:8812–8819
Day FP, Monk CD (1974) Vegetation patterns on a southern Appalachian watershed. Ecology 55(5):1064–1074
Eigenbrod F, Armsworth PR, Anderson BJ, Heinemeyer A, Gillings S, Roy DB, Thomas CD, Gaston KJ (2010) Error propagation associated with benefits transfer-based mapping of ecosystem services. Biol Conserv 143:2487–2493
Feld CK, da Silva PM, Sousa JP, de Bello F, Bugter R, Grandin U, Hering D, Lavorel S, Mountford O, Pardo I, Paertel M, Roembke J, Sandin L, Jones KB, Harrison P, Martins da Silva P, Paulo Sousa J, PÃrtel M, RÃmbke J, Bruce Jones KB (2009) Indicators of biodiversity and ecosystem services: a synthesis across ecosystems and spatial scales. Oikos 118:1862–1871
Fitter AH, Fitter RSR (2002) Rapid changes in flowering time in British plants. Science 296:1689–1691
Foley JA, Defries R, Asner GP, Barford C, Bonan G, Carpenter SR, Chapin FS, Coe MT, Daily GC, Gibbs HK, Helkowski JH, Holloway T, Howard EA, Kucharik CJ, Monfreda C, Patz JA, Prentice IC, Ramankutty N, Snyder PK (2005) Global consequences of land use. Science 309:570–574
Fontana V, Radtke A, Walde J, Tasser E, Wilhalm T, Zerbe S, Tappeiner U (2014) What plant traits tell us: Consequences of land-use change of a traditional agro-forest system on biodiversity and ecosystem service provision. Agric Ecosyst Environ 186:44–53
Ford WM, Odom RH, Hale PE, Chapman BR (2000) Stand-age, stand characteristics, and landform effects on understory herbaceous communities in southern Appalachian cove-hardwoods. Biol Conserv 93:237–246
Forrest J, Inouye DW, Thomson JD (2010) Flowering phenology in subalpine meadows: does climate variation influence community co-flowering patterns? Ecology 91:431–440
Fuller RA, Irvine KN, Devine-Wright P, Warren PH, Gaston KJ (2007) Psychological benefits of greenspace increase with biodiversity. Biol Lett 3:390–394
Gesch D, Oimoen M, Greenlee S, Nelson C, Steuck M, Tyler D (2002) The National Elevation Dataset. Photogramm Eng Remote Sens 68:5–11
Gilliam FS (2007) The ecological significance of the herbaceous layer in temperate forest ecosystems. BioScience 57:845
Gornish ES, Tylianakis JM (2013) Community shifts under climate change: mechanisms at multiple scales. Am J Bot 100:1422–1434
Gragson TL, Bolstad PV (2006) Land use legacies and the future of Southern Appalachia. Soc Nat Resour 19:175–190
GroWNC (2013) GroWNC regional plan: final report. Asheville
Grueber CE, Nakagawa S, Laws RJ, Jamieson IG (2011) Multimodel inference in ecology and evolution: challenges and solutions. J Evol Biol 24:699–711
Hermy M, Verheyen K (2007) Legacies of the past in the present-day forest biodiversity: a review of past land-use effects on forest plant species composition and diversity. Ecol Res 22:361–371
Hernández-Morcillo M, Plieninger T, Bieling C (2013) An empirical review of cultural ecosystem service indicators. Ecol Indic 29:434–444
Hijmans R, van Etten J (2015) Raster: geographic analysis and modeling with raster data. R Packag. version 2.4-20
Holden ZA, Crimmins MA, Cushman SA, Littell JS (2011) Empirical modeling of spatial and temporal variation in warm season nocturnal air temperatures in two north Idaho mountain ranges, USA. Agric For Meteorol 151:261–269
Holland RA, Eigenbrod F, Armsworth PR, Anderson BJ, Thomas CD, Gaston KJ (2011a) The influence of temporal variation on relationships between ecosystem services. Biodivers Conserv 20:3285–3294
Holland RA, Eigenbrod F, Armsworth PR, Anderson BJ, Thomas CD, Heinemeyer A, Gillings S, Roy DB, Gaston KJ (2011b) Spatial covariation between freshwater and terrestrial ecosystem services. Ecol Appl 21:2034–2048
Homer C, Fry J, Barnes C (2012) The national land cover database. US Geol Surv Fact Sheet 3020(4):1–4
Jackson MM, Turner MG, Pearson SM, Ives AR (2012) Seeing the forest and the trees: multilevel models reveal both species and community patterns. Ecosphere 3:1–16
Junge X, Jacot KA, Bosshard A, Lindemann-Matthies P (2009) Swiss people’s attitudes towards field margins for biodiversity conservation. J Nat Conserv 17:150–159
Kareiva P, Tallis H, Ricketts TH, Daily GC, Polasky S (eds) (2011) Natural capital: theory and practice of mapping ecosystem services. Oxford University Press, Oxford
Knapp S, Dinsmore L, Fissore C, Hobbie SE, Jakobsdottir I, Kattge J, King JY, Klotz S, McFadden JP, Cavender-Bares J (2012) Phylogenetic and functional characteristics of household yard floras and their changes along an urbanization gradient. Ecology 93:S83–S98
Kremen C (2005) Managing ecosystem services: what do we need to know about their ecology? Ecol Lett 8:468–479
Kremen C, Williams NM, Aizen MA, Gemmill-Herren B, LeBuhn G, Minckley R, Packer L, Potts SG, Roulston T, Steffan-Dewenter I, Vazquez DP, Winfree R, Adams L, Crone EE, Greenleaf SS, Keitt TH, Klein A-M, Regetz J, Ricketts TH, Vázquez DP, Winfree R, Adams L, Crone EE, Greenleaf SS, Keitt TH, Klein A-M, Regetz J, Ricketts TH (2007) Pollination and other ecosystem services produced by mobile organisms: a conceptual framework for the effects of land-use change. Ecol Lett 10:299–314
Kuhman TR, Pearson SM, Turner MG (2010) Effects of land-use history and the contemporary landscape on non-native plant invasion at local and regional scales in the forest-dominated southern Appalachians. Landscape Ecol 25:1433–1445
Kuhman TR, Pearson SM, Turner MG (2011) Agricultural land-use history increases non-native plant invasion in a southern Appalachian forest a century after abandonment. Can J For Res 41:920–929
Lambert E, Hunter C, Pierce GJ, MacLeod CD (2010) Sustainable whale-watching tourism and climate change: towards a framework of resilience. J Sustain Tour 18:409–427
Lavorel S, Grigulis K, Lamarque P, Colace MP, Garden D, Girel J, Pellet G, Douzet R (2011) Using plant functional traits to understand the landscape distribution of multiple ecosystem services. J Ecol 99:135–147
Lindemann-Matthies P, Junge X, Matthies D (2010) The influence of plant diversity on people’s perception and aesthetic appreciation of grassland vegetation. Biol Conserv 143:195–202
Lovell ST, Taylor JR (2013) Supplying urban ecosystem services through multifunctional green infrastructure in the United States. Landscape Ecol 28:1447–1463
Luck GW, Harrington R, Harrison PA, Kremen C, Pam M, Bugter ROB, Dawson TP, De Bello F, Díaz S, Feld CK, Haslett JR, Hering D, Kontogianni A, Lavorel S, Rounsevell M, Samways J, Sandin L, Settele J, Sykes MT, Van Den Hove S, Zobel M, Berry PMAMM, de Bello F, Diaz S, Samways MJ, van den Hove S, Vandewalle M (2009) Quantifying the contribution of organisms to the provision of ecosystem services. Bioscience 59:223–235
Mace GM, Norris K, Fitter AH (2012) Biodiversity and ecosystem services: a multilayered relationship. Trends Ecol Evol 27:19–26
Marshall EJP, Moonen AC (2002) Field margins in northern Europe: their functions and interactions with agriculture. Agric Ecosyst Environ 89:5–21
Martin SR (1997) Specialization and differences in setting preferences among wildlife viewers. Hum Dimens Wildl 2:1–18
Matteson KC, Grace JB, Minor ES (2013) Direct and indirect effects of land use on floral resources and flower-visiting insects across an urban landscape. Oikos 122:682–694
Millennium Ecosystem Assessment (2005) Ecosystems and human well-being: multiscale assessments. Island Press, Washington, DC
Naidoo R, Adamowicz WL (2005) Biodiversity and nature-based tourism at forest reserves in Uganda. Environ Dev Econ 10:159–178
Neil KL, Landrum L, Wu J (2010) Effects of urbanization on flowering phenology in the metropolitan phoenix region of USA: findings from herbarium records. J Arid Environ 74:440–444
Nicholson E, Mace GM, Armsworth PR, Atkinson G, Buckle S, Clements T, Ewers RM, Fa JE, Gardner TA, Gibbons J, Grenyer R, Metcalfe R, Mourato S, Muuls M, Osborn D, Reuman DC, Watson C, Milner-Gulland EJ (2009) Priority research areas for ecosystem services in a changing world. J App Ecol 46:1139–1144
Oksanen J, Blanchet FG, Kindt R, Legendre P, Minchin PR, O’Hara RB, Simpson GL, Solymos P, Stevens MHH, Wagner H (2015) Vegan: community ecology package. University of Oulu, Oulu
Qiu J, Turner MG (2013) Spatial interactions among ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural watershed. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 110:12149–12154
Quetier F, Lavorel S, Thuiller W, Davies I (2007) Plant-trait-based modeling assessment of ecosystem-service sensitivity to land-use change. Ecol Appl 17:2377–2386
Quétier F, Rivoal F, Marty P, Chazal J, Thuiller W, Lavorel S (2009) Social representations of an alpine grassland landscape and socio-political discourses on rural development. Reg Environ Chang 10:119–130
Quijas S, Jackson LE, Maass M, Schmid B, Raffaelli D, Balvanera P (2012) Plant diversity and generation of ecosystem services at the landscape scale: expert knowledge assessment. J Appl Ecol 49:929–940
Raudsepp-Hearne C, Peterson GD, Bennett EM (2010) Ecosystem service bundles for analyzing tradeoffs in diverse landscapes. Proc Natl Acad Sci USA 107:5242–5247
Sakurai R, Jacobson SK, Kobori H, Primack R, Oka K, Komatsu N, Machida R (2011) Culture and climate change: Japanese cherry blossom festivals and stakeholders’ knowledge and attitudes about global climate change. Biol Conserv 144:654–658
SAMAB (1996) The Southern Appalachian Assessment. Terrestrial resources technical report 5. Atlanta
Satz D, Gould RK, Chan KMA, Guerry A, Norton B, Satterfield T, Halpern BS, Levine J, Woodside U, Hannahs N, Basurto X, Klain S (2013) The challenges of incorporating cultural ecosystem services into environmental assessment. Ambio 42:675–684
Schaich H, Plieninger T (2013) Land ownership drives stand structure and carbon storage of deciduous temperate forests. For Ecol Manag 305:146–157
Sharp R, Tallis HT, Ricketts T, Guerry AD, Wood SA, Chaplin-Kramer R, Nelson E, Ennaanay D, Wolny S, Olwero N, Vigerstol K, Pennington D, Mendoza G, Aukema J, Foster J, Forrest J, Cameron D, Arkema K, Lonsdorf K, Kennedy EC, Verutes G, Kim CK, Guannel G, Papenfus M, Toft J, Marsik M, Bernhardt J, Griffin R, Glowinski K, Chaumont N, Perelman A, Lacayo M, Mandle L, Hamel P, Vogl AL, Rogers L, Bierbower W (2016) InVEST User Guide. The Natural Capital Project, Stanford University, University of Minnesota, The Nature Conservancy, and World Wildlife Fund, Minneapolis
Soil Survey Staff (2013) Soil survey geographic (SSURGO) database. http://sdmdataaccess.nrcs.usda.gov
Strom E, Kerstein R (2015) Mountains and muses: tourism development in Asheville, North Carolina. Ann Tour Res 52:134–147
TEEB (2009) The economics of ecosystems and biodiversity (TEEB) for National and International Policy Makers. Econ Ecosyst Biodivers 1–47
Thornton P, Thornton M, Mayer B, Wilhelmi N, Wei Y, Coo R (2012) Daymet: daily surface weather on a 1 km grid for North America, 1980–2012. Oak Ridge National Laboratory Distributed Active Archive Center, Oak Ridge. http://daymet.ornl.gov/
Troy A, Wilson MA (2006) Mapping ecosystem services: practical challenges and opportunities in linking GIS and value transfer. Ecol Econ 60:435–449
Tscharntke T, Klein AM, Kruess A, Steffan-Dewenter I, Thies C (2005) Landscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity - Ecosystem service management. Ecol Lett 8:857–874
Turner MG, Pearson SM, Bolstad PV, Wear DN (2003) Effects of land-cover change on spatial pattern of forest communities in the Southern Appalachian Mountains (USA). Landsc Ecol 18:449–464
Turpie J, Joubert A (2004) The value of flower tourism on the Bokkeveld Plateau: a botanical hotspot. Dev South Afr 21:645–662
van Berkel DB, Verburg PH (2014) Spatial quantification and valuation of cultural ecosystem services in an agricultural landscape. Ecol Indic 37:163–174
Vellend M (2005) Land-use history and plant performance in populations of Trillium grandiflorum. Biol Conserv 124:217–224
Villamagna AM, Angermeier PL, Niazi N (2014) Evaluating opportunities to enhance ecosystem services in public use areas. Ecosyst Serv 7:167–176
Vogler JB, Shoemaker DA, Dorning M, Meentemeyer RK (2010) Mapping historical development patterns and forecasting urban growth in Western North Carolina: 1976–2030. Charlotte, NC
Watson A, Williams D, Roggenbuck J, Daigle J (1992) Visitor characteristics and preferences for three national forest wildernesses in the South. Page Research Paper INT-455
Wear DN (2011) Forecasts of county-level land uses under three future scenarios: a technical document supporting the Forest Service 2010 RPA assessment. USDA Forest Service, Asheville
Wear DN, Bolstad P (1998) Land-use changes in Southern Appalachian landscapes: spatial analysis and forecast evaluation. Ecosystems 1:575–594
Williams NM, Winfree R (2013) Local habitat characteristics but not landscape urbanization drive pollinator visitation and native plant pollination in forest remnants. Biol Conserv 160:10–18
Wood SA, Guerry AD, Silver JM, Lacayo M (2013) Using social media to quantify nature-based tourism and recreation. Sci Rep 3:2976
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank the landowners who granted us access to their properties. W. Hansen, J. Qiu, and C. Ziter provided useful advice during the development of this paper. Assistance in the data compilation was provided by G. Lancaster, J. Mackie, and Z. Hane. M. Hopey assisted with data collection. Thank you to E. Damschen, C. Kucharik, V. Radeloff, and B. Zuckerberg for providing comments that improved the study and its interpretation. We appreciate the constructive comments from three anonymous reviews on an earlier version of this manuscript. This study was funded by the National Science Foundation Long-term Ecological Research Program (grants DEB-0823293 and DEB-1440485).
Author information
Authors and Affiliations
Corresponding author
Electronic supplementary material
Below is the link to the electronic supplementary material.
Rights and permissions
About this article
Cite this article
Graves, R.A., Pearson, S.M. & Turner, M.G. Landscape dynamics of floral resources affect the supply of a biodiversity-dependent cultural ecosystem service. Landscape Ecol 32, 415–428 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0452-0
Received:
Accepted:
Published:
Issue Date:
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10980-016-0452-0