Ecosystem services in connected catchment to coast ecosystems: Monitoring to detect emerging trends

Area of Science:

• Ecology
• Environmental Science
• Resource Management

Background:

• Effective ecosystem management necessitates long-term monitoring of interconnected ecosystems and their services.
• Water resource development poses a threat to river flows, impacting vegetation and coastal fisheries.

Purpose of the Study:

• To test the performance of ecosystem service indicators and determine the time scales over which they respond to change.
• To assess the suitability of ecological indicators for informing management decisions.

Main Methods:

• Developed a novel performance testing approach using state-space modeling for ecological dynamics and structural equation modeling for indicator covariation.
• Quantified covariation among pasture biomass, vegetation greenness, and barramundi catch per unit effort time-series data.
• Predicted indicator emergence times, defined as the time for a trend to appear above natural variation.

Main Results:

• All three ecological indicators (pasture biomass, vegetation greenness, barramundi catch) showed higher values in years with greater river flow.
• Emergence times for all indicators exceeded 10 years, with high confidence levels (≥80%).
• Ecological indicators are suitable for assessing historical performance over decadal timescales but not for short-term change detection.

Conclusions:

• Ecological indicators for ecosystem services exhibit long response times, exceeding a decade.
• Current indicators are not effective for informing near-term management actions based on recent ecological changes.
• The developed performance testing approach can quantify ecosystem response timescales, particularly in systems with cross-ecosystem connections.