Due to the rich biodiversity and other non-living resources existing within the ecosystem found in tropical forests, there are many services that it provides. However, grouping them into functional categories is helpful in managing resources responsible for these services. Thus, this topic presents these categories.
By the end of this topic, you should be able to:
Define ecosystem services;
Enumerate the types of ecosystem services; and
Give examples of tropical forest ecosystem services.
Topic Readings
The required readings will be drawn from open books, which can be freely downloaded by students without having to worry about copyright issues. There will be optional readings that students might want to purchase for digging deeper into the topic, essential information from all readings will be encapsulated in the courses’ Module Notebook.
Required Readings
Aznar-Sanchez, J., Belmonte-Urena, L., Lopez-Serrano, M., and Velasco-Munoz, J. (2018). Forest Ecosystem Services: An Analysis of Worldwide Research (Included in the Notebook)
Click on the information symbol in the tour to listen to some information.
Click on the exit button to end the tour.
Online Discussions
Online Forum 2.1- Classification of Ecosystem Services
Instructions
During the first three days of the week, comment on at least two of your peers’ answers to questions 3.A and 3.B of assignment 1 on their forum post. Only comment on those peers with two comments or less.
During days 4-7, after getting comments from your peers, improve your answers or respond to their comments.
This time, revise the post while organizing the different services according to the four types presented in this topic.
Topic Summary
This topic introduced the concept of forest ecosystems and ecosystem services. It also enumerated the different types of services that an ecosystem provides.
Topic Self-review (Optional)
Use the following self-reflection questions as study guide to conduct your self-review for the topic.
In my own community, what are the provisioning and regulating services that our nearby forest provides?
In my own community, what are the cultural and supporting services that our nearby forest provides?
Are these services being properly managed by the community? Why or why not?
FODE004
Requirements Changed
Module II Introduction Topic 2.2: Values of Forest Ecosystem Services