Seminar: Elisabeth Prangel

The provision of ecosystem services in changing landscapes

MSc. Elisabeth Prangel (University of Tartu)

Ecosystem services are nature’s functions and goods that are vital for human well-being. During recent years, the maintenance and safeguarding of these functions has become the key issue in nature conservation. Variety of ecosystem services are related to biodiversity of habitats. Biodiversity, in turn, is highly dependent on landscape composition, land-use change and environmental conditions of habitats. In my presentation I will shed a light on the relationship between ecosystem services, biodiversity and human activity and introduce you to my results on ecosystem service supply in Estonian semi-natural grasslands. I will elaborate on how degradation on one hand and restoration on the other have impacted the services semi-natural grassland potentially provide.