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Biodiversity outcomes of payment for ecosystem services: lessons from páramo grasslands

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Abstract

As payment for ecosystem services (PES) programs grow around the world, so have concerns over whether a focus on ecosystem services will also protect biodiversity. Biodiverse Ecuadorian páramo grasslands have become a hotspot for PES in an effort to protect water supplies, sequester carbon, conserve biodiversity, and improve rural livelihoods. However, the outcomes of PES-incentivized land management, particularly burn exclusion, on plant communities and their associated ecosystem services remain poorly understood. To address this science-policy gap, we evaluated plant richness and number and cover of the ten major páramo growth forms in two study areas with chronosequences of burn exclusion. Both species richness and number of growth forms was highest in sites with intermediate times-since-last burn and the cover of tussock grasses—critical to protecting soils and maintaining hydrologic function—recovered within 3–6 years after fire at both study areas, suggesting that PES programs targeting hydrologic services do not need to exclude burning to ensure adequate vegetation cover over the long-term. However, shrub growth forms were slower to recover, indicating that conserving the plant composition characteristic of less disturbed páramos requires some protection from burning. Findings provide broad lessons for PES programs focused on both biodiversity and ecosystem services and point to the importance of clearly defining PES ecological goals since land-use prescriptions may differ depending on the management objective.

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Acknowledgements

This study would not have been possible without the support of many people. We are grateful for Dr. Stuart White and José Alvear and the community of Zuleta for permission to work on their land and for assistance throughout the fieldwork. We thank Will Anderson and the park guards of Sangay National Park, MWR, and Zuleta for field assistance and Doña Carmen and Don José María Colima and their family for field accommodations. Will Anderson created the maps and aerial photos in this paper. We thank Catherine Schloegel, Fundación Cordillera Tropical, EcoCiencia, and Fulbright Ecuador for institutional support. This work was supported by the Department of Geography at San Diego State University and the University of California, Santa Barbara, a Fulbright Student Grant, and the National Science Foundation, Grant No. 0851532. This is contributed paper # WRRC-CP-2019-14, Water Resources Research Center, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. University of Hawaiʻi Economic Research Organization, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Leah L. Bremer & Nathan DeMaagd

  2. Water Resources Research Center, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, HI, USA

    Leah L. Bremer

  3. Department of Geography, San Diego State University, San Diego, CA, USA

    Kathleen A. Farley

  4. Economics Department, University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa, Honolulu, USA

    Nathan DeMaagd

  5. Colegio de Ciencias Biológicas y Ambientales, Universidad San Francisco de Quito, Quito, Ecuador

    Esteban Suárez

  6. QCA Herbarium, Pontifica Universidad Católica del Ecuador, Quito, Ecuador

    Daisy Cárate Tandalla

  7. Agroecology, Georg-August-University Göttingen, Gottingham, Germany

    Daisy Cárate Tandalla

  8. DSR Biología & Investigación, Cuenca, Ecuador

    Sebastián Vasco Tapia

  9. Water Resources Management Group, Wageningen University, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Patricio Mena Vásconez

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  1. Leah L. Bremer
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  2. Kathleen A. Farley
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  3. Nathan DeMaagd
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  4. Esteban Suárez
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  5. Daisy Cárate Tandalla
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  6. Sebastián Vasco Tapia
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  7. Patricio Mena Vásconez
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Correspondence to Leah L. Bremer.

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Communicated by Astrid van Teeffelen.

This article belongs to the Topical Collection: Biodiversity appreciation and engagement.

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Bremer, L.L., Farley, K.A., DeMaagd, N. et al. Biodiversity outcomes of payment for ecosystem services: lessons from páramo grasslands. Biodivers Conserv 28, 885–908 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-019-01700-3

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