MONEC - To manage or not: Assessing the benefit of managing ecosystem disservices

Informations

Funding country

Norway

Acronym

-

URL

-

Start date

1/1/2020

End date

12/31/2023

Budget

1,487,316 EUR

Fundings

Abstract

Can a plant cause more harm than good in an ecosystem? The beautiful crowberry makes green, carpeted heath and tasty berries, and it stores carbon. But for many species in the ecosystem, it is a poor collaborator. The leaves of crowberry contain substances that can prevent other plant species from germinating and growing, and a number of soil organisms give up in the presence of crowberry. Grazing animals avoid crowberry-dominated areas. Crowberry also affect freshwater systems. Fry can be harmed when in rivers where crowberry is abundant along the riverbanks. Hence, when crowberry now seems to benefit from climate change and increases in abundance, the ecosystem consequences can be severe. In MONEC we are documenting how much, and in which habitats, crowberry has changed its distribution over the last two to five decades. With this information we will anticipate where, and at what rate, crowberry will encroach in the future. Next we are testing actions that both limit crowberry and promote local biodiversity and primary production. Biodiversity and primary production are ecosystem services that are not directly harvestable by us. By nevertheless including these services into economic models we can test if actions that limit crowberry and promote biodiversity, also prove to be economically viable. The testing is in collaboration with reindeer herders and sheep farmers in their pastures in Northern Norway. Finally, we will assess if, in the long term, there is ecological and economical benefit from limiting crowberry, or if the ecosystem services that crowberry deliver outperforms its disservices.