'From Planetary Boundaries to Ecosystem Services: Guiding Development on a Changing Planet'

Thursday, Feb. 22, 2018
Elena Bennett, Associate Professor at McGill University, presented, "From Planetary Boundaries to Ecosystem Services: Guiding Development on a Changing Planet," at 12:30 p.m. Thursday, Feb. 22, in Guyot Hall, Room 10. This event was the third in PEI's Challenges in Environmental Sciences Seminar (CHESS) Series, and also part of the EEB 522 Seminar Series.

Summary: The current scale, rate and intensity of anthropogenic change has evoked broad discussion about how these changes will affect the future of the planet. Ecosystem services can be an effective organizing principle for meeting the needs of a growing global population, while maintaining resilient provision of other services across landscapes. Bennett will present a novel framework to quantitatively link landscape planning, biodiversity, the provision of multiple ecosystem services, and human well-being. This framework shows how landscape configuration, and especially the connectivity of forest patches in the agricultural and peri-urban milieu, affects biodiversity and the provision of several ecosystem services.