ECOSYSTEM

SERVICES
ENVIRONMENT
• Refers to everything that surrounds a
living organism, which includes physical
factors such as air, water, soil, and
biological factors such as living
organisms, flora, and fauna.
• It is a community of organisms
interacting with each other and with the
abiotic or nonliving components of the
environment.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES

• Refers to the direct and indirect

contributions of ecosystems to
human survival and quality of life.
ECOSYSTEM SERVICES
• Support services include the cycling of vital
nutrients such as nitrogen and phosphorus-
minerals that are essential for survival and can
only be derived in their usable forms through
the nitrogen and phosphorus cycles,
respectively.

• Provisioning services provide the basic needs

for survival- air, water, shelter, food, and energy.
The photosynthesis in plants, the water cycle,
the food web, and the presence of different
natural ecosystems, such as forests, rivers, and
seas, provide these basic necessities.
• Regulating services are benefits obtained by
regulating the climate, hazards, and diseases
through processes such as carbon sequestration-
removal of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere and
storage in plants.

• Cultural services include nonmaterial benefits

such as spiritual enrichment, cultural heritage,
recreation, tourism, and aesthetic experience that
nature provides for humans.
Ecosystems are able to provide
these services when they are
healthy and intact. These important
life-giving and sustaining processes
are the result of the dynamic
interaction between the living and
nonliving components of an
ecosystem.
Human activities, such as land use
changes, introduction of invasive
species, resource exploitation, and
pollution, primarily affect the
ecosystems. These activities also
affect the biodiversity, as well as
the quality of soil, water, and air.
• Land use changes involve the conversion of
natural ecosystem to urban, industrial, or
agricultural areas.
Example: mangrove reclaiming, leveling, and
or converted into urban areas.
• The introduction of invasive species, which
pose a threat in an ecosystem may also drive
native species, resulting to their endangerment
or extinction.
• The burning of the fossil fuels to generate
electricity increases the amount of carbon
dioxide and other greenhouse gases in the
atmosphere, and is attributed to global warming.
• Extensive and poorly-managed
agricultural activities employed to
provide food affect soil quality and
create dead zones in bodies of water
due to eutrophication caused by the
discharge of nitrogen and
phosphorus from fertilizers.