Such degradation has had relevant consequences for local populations, landscape functionality, and the maintenance of ecosystem services.
The recent loss of pollinating insects and out-crossing plants in agricultural landscapes has raised concern for the maintenance of ecosystem services.
This can result in the maintenance of ecosystem services of importance to agricultural production at levels of biodiversity below the assumed 'functional threshold'.
These approaches acknowledge that change is inevitable and sometimes irreversible, and that maintenance of ecosystem services depends in part on novel ecosystems, i.e., species combinations with no analog in the past.
Biodiversity, which includes species, ecosystems, and ecological processes, is essential for the long-term maintenance of ecosystem services like photosynthesis, nutrient recycling, soil fertility, provision of fresh water, disaster prevention, and many others.
Mutualistic networks are crucial to the maintenance of ecosystem services.
In February 2009, the European Parliament adopted the Report on Wilderness in Europe (EP 2008, 2009) that calls on the Commission for better protection of wild areas, as a means for climate protection and maintenance of ecosystem services and biodiversity.
In over 25 years of investment, the work of the Mexican government, international donors, the World Bank, and NGOs has led to examples of high levels of community participation in forest management and the production of value-added wood products, resulting in economic benefits and maintenance of ecosystem services (Bray et al. 2005).
The second factor the MIT study modeled was environmental flow requirements, which regulate a minimum flow of water to allow for the maintenance of aquatic ecosystem services, including considerations for floodplain maintenance, fish migration and water quality.
At the plot and farm scales biodiversity is unlikely to be maintained for purposes other than those of direct use or 'utilitarian' benefits and often at levels lower than those necessary for maintenance of many ecosystem services.
