Abstract

The concept of ecosystem services (ES) has recently received increasing attention because its capacity to connect natural ecosystems and human society. Several studies agree that biodiversity loss can endanger ES provision and human well-being. Understanding biodiversity-ES relationship and the possible effects of biodiversity loss on ES delivery is needed to propose new management alternatives in managed landscapes. The objectives were to determine the importance of biodiversity to ES provision, and the relationships between different ES types. The applied data set spanned the central area of Tierra del Fuego (Argentina), where silvopastoral uses are the main productive activity. We used raster data of supply with provisioning (cattle stocking rate), regulating (CO2 sequestration) and cultural (geo-tagged digital images) ES, and analysed them through univariate and multivariate methods. High biodiversity levels were significantly related to low provisioning ES, but biodiversity was not related with regulating and cultural ES across landscape (north-south and west-centre-east gradients). Results showed clear relationships of biodiversity and ES types (provisioning, regulating, cultural) across the landscape. The agroforestry production conducted in the area, which maintains original ecosystems with low disturbance, helps to support ES and contributes to maintaining biodiversity. Managed ecosystems were considered incompatible with conservation, and often have been excluded from prioritization strategies. However, our results suggest that management conducted in Tierra del Fuego, which maintains original ecosystems with low disturbance, helps to support ES and contributes to maintain biodiversity with few trade-offs. Incorporating traditional conservation strategies within the broader context of social-ecological systems and ES delivery can lead to added benefits for biodiversity through closer integration of conservation policy with other policies. For this, to develop these new management practices is essential to quantify the synergies and trade-offs between biodiversity and ES provision.