Sensitivity and future exposure of ecosystem services to climate change on the Tibetan Plateau of China

Context

Climate change has imposed tremendous impacts on ecosystem services. Recent attempts to quantify such impacts mainly focused on a basin or larger scale, or used limited time periods that largely ignore observations of long-term trends at a fine resolution, thereby affecting the recognition of climate change’s effect on ecosystem services.

Objectives

This study conducts a detailed and spatially explicit recognition of climate change’s effect on ecosystem services and provides an intuitive map for decision-making and climate change adaptation planning.

Methods

We used long-term time series of ecosystem service assessments and various future climate scenarios to quantify the sensitivity and future exposure of ecosystem services to climate change on the Tibetan Plateau.

Results

Carbon sequestration (CS) and habitat quality experience significant growth, while water retention did not show any trend. Sensitivity patterns of these ecosystem services vary largely. For CS, more than half of the pixels showed a positive sensitivity to climate change, even though the degree of sensitivity is not high. There is substantial spatial heterogeneity in the exposure of ecosystem services to future climate changes, and high levels of future climate change increase the intensity of exposure.

Conclusions

This study illustrates the complex spatial association between ecosystem services and climatic drivers, and these findings can help optimize local response strategies in the context of global warming. For example, the existing protected areas have notable conservation gaps for disturbance of future climate change on ecosystem services, especially in the southeastern part of the study area.

     

Perceived ecosystem services synergies,trade-offs,and bundles in European high nature value farming landscapes

Context

Around 30% of European agricultural landscapes are classified as high nature value (HNV) farmlands. Current policies emphasize the multifunctionality of these landscapes, but little is known about the positive and negative associations of multiple ecosystem services within HNV farmland.

Objectives

This study aims to identify perceived ecosystem services synergies, trade-offs, and bundles in agricultural landscapes of HNV from a socio-cultural perspective.

Methods

We performed a participatory mapping survey of 10 ecosystem services categories among 2301 rural residents in 13 European sites. We analyzed bivariate synergies and trade-offs between perceived ecosystem services through nonparametric correlation analyses. Spatial bundles of perceived ecosystem services were identified through hierarchical cluster analysis. Multinomial logit models were used to assess the influence of land cover on generating associations of ecosystem services.

Results

We find two strong and 16 moderate synergies of perceived ecosystem services (out of 46 possible ecosystem services pairs), mainly among different cultural ecosystem services. We do not reveal moderate or strong trade-offs. We identify five spatial bundles of ecosystem services, termed “Ecosystem services coldspots”, “Wild harvesting ranges”, “Nature areas”, “Recreational spaces”, and “Ecosystem services hotspots”. Of all land-cover co-variates, natural areas, urban areas, and roads have the strongest explanatory power.

Conclusions

Our study complements prevailing biophysical and economic analyses of ecosystem services synergies, trade-offs and bundles by a spatially explicit, socio-cultural perspective. We conclude that socio-cultural mapping of ecosystem services is useful for understanding the perceived multifunctionality of a landscape.

     

Exploring sense of place across cultivated lands through public participatory mapping

Context

Cultivated lands have undergone a shift towards intensification and increased productivity, favoring provisioning services at the expense of regulating and cultural services. Cultivated lands have rarely been researched as a provider of cultural services.

Objectives

The overarching goal of this study is to assess sense of place across cultivated lands. To do so, we used participatory mapping to elicit public knowledge of the past and present coverage of agricultural areas, as well as to reveal the public sense of place attached to cultivated lands and perceptions about future land-use pathways.

Methods

This study was conducted in an agrarian and rural region of SE Madrid (Spain), where we did ecosystem service participatory mapping workshops with key stakeholders related to the agrarian sector: farming professionals, land-use decision-makers and planners and other local actors.

Results

We identified linkages between cultivated lands and sense of place as a key cultural service. The locations most pinpointed for its sense of place overlapped with cultivated lands. The future land-use pathways that showed the highest agreement between the likelihood and interest in their promotion were the increases in green and/or protected areas and orchards. Extensive crops and urban areas the land-use pathways with the highest dissonance.

Conclusions

The results encourage land planners and researchers to approach landscape values in relation to the sense of place. We concluded that cultivated lands present a sense of place, and this link has the possible to root society in agricultural landscape through the establishment of belongingness, stewardship and care connections.

     

Ecosystem services as the products of land system dynamics: lessons from a longitudinal study of coupled human–environment systems

Context

We address understanding of whole-system and landscape-based approaches to the ecosystem services framework by considering the supply of provisioning services and the dynamics of agricultural land use in Scotland between 1940 and 2016.

Objectives

To characterise and understand the dynamics of change in provisioning services from agriculture in Scotland over the period 1940–2016. To identify ways in which funds of capitals and flows of inputs and output ecosystem goods are linked to land management practices and policies at a national scale.

Methods

Data describing agricultural land use, production, financial and energy inputs and outputs, and drivers of change in land use in Scotland are analysed with an accounting framework that links funds of natural, human, physical and financial capital, with flows of goods and services. Flow–fund ratios are used as benchmarks of system performance and dynamics.

Results

Scotland’s agriculture has modernised since 1940 and become more efficient in conversion of resources, with a consequent increase in delivery of provisioning goods and services. Although the energy ratio, and flow of goods per unit hectare and per unit labour have increased, the inputs necessary to maintain those flows of ecosystem goods are also increasing, even as their relative economic costs decrease. Increases in use of fertiliser suggests that production from the soil, as a natural capital fund, is not being conserved without a large, and increasing, input. Analysis of the complexity of the coupled agricultural land system also suggests that land management rather than biodiversity is a necessary subject for evaluation of provisioning services from agriculture. Understanding of ecosystem services based on accounts that integrate inputs, outputs and flows from funds of natural, human, social, financial and physical capitals, provides a process-based foundation for improved understanding of ecosystem services and human–environmental relationships.

Conclusions

Adopting an accounting approach for understanding the role of agricultural land use for supply of provisioning services, and particularly examining a long time-series of accounts, enables understanding of land changes and underlying drivers, as well as the contribution of cultural and other aspects of human systems coupled with environment systems. Accounting for ecosystem services using costs as well as benefits, and use of metrics beyond financial benefit, supports debate and evaluation of trade-offs between services and has direct relevance for decision- and policy-making.

     

Application of a dynamic model using agronomic and economic data to evaluate the sustainability of the olive grove landscape of Estepa (Andalusia,Spain)

Context

In the Andalusia region (Spain), olive grove agro-systems cover a wide area, forming social-ecological landscapes. Recent socioeconomic changes have increased the vulnerability of these landscapes, resulting in the abandonment and intensification of farms. The provision of the main ecosystem services of these landscapes have thus been degraded.

Objectives

To analyse the sustainability of an olive grove social-ecological landscape in Andalusia. Specifically, to develop a quantitative model proposing land planning and management scenarios, considering abandonment, production and economic benefits of olive crops in different conditions of erosion and management.

Methods

We applied a dynamic model using agronomic and economic data, to evaluate different types of olive management. We considered different levels of erosion, the loss of production related to this erosion, and useful life spans for each type of management. We simulated scenarios for the long-term assessment of dynamics of crops, abandonment rate, production and benefits.

Results

(a) There was a loss of productive lands and benefits in the medium term in the more intensive crops. (b) Scenarios that partially incorporated ecological management proved to be more sustainable without economic subsidies. (c) The spatial combination of integrated, intensive and ecological plots was sustainable, and was well balanced from an economic, productive and ecological point of view.

Conclusions

Scenarios that partially incorporate ecological management allowed the best economic and environmental balance. However, to ensure the sustainability of olive landscapes, farmers should be financially rewarded for their role in the conservation of ecosystem services through landscape stewardship and direct environmental payments.

     

Land cover and climate changes drive regionally heterogeneous increases in US insecticide use

Context

Global environmental change is expected to dramatically affect agricultural crop production through a myriad of pathways. One important and thus far poorly understood impact is the effect of land cover and climate change on agricultural insect pests and insecticides.

Objectives

Here we address the following three questions: (1) how do landscape complexity and weather influence present-day insecticide use, (2) how will changing landscape characteristics and changing climate influence future insecticide use, and how do these effects manifest for different climate and land cover projections? and (3) what are the most important drivers of changing insecticide use?

Methods

We use panel models applied to county-level agriculture, land cover, and weather data in the US to understand how landscape composition and configuration, weather, and farm characteristics impact present-day insecticide use. We then leverage forecasted changes in land cover and climate under different future scenarios to predict insecticide use in 2050.

Results

We find different future scenarios—through modifications in both landscape and climate conditions—increase the amount of area treated by ~ 4–20% relative to 2017, with regionally heterogeneous impacts. Of note, we report large farms are more influential than large crop patches and increased winter minimum temperature is more influential than increased summer maximum temperature. However, our results suggest the most important determinants of future insecticide use are crop composition and farm size, variables for which future forecasts are sparse.

Conclusions

Both landscape and climate change are expected to increase future insecticide use. Yet, crop composition and farm size are highly influential, data-poor variables. Better understanding of future crop composition and farm economics is necessary to effectively predict and mitigate increases in pesticide use.

     

On the importance of non-linear relationships between landscape patterns and the sustainable provision of ecosystem services

Marginal land use changes can abruptly result in non-marginal and irreversible changes in ecosystem functioning and the economic values that the ecosystem generates. This challenges the traditional ecosystem services (ESS) mapping approach, which has often made the assumption that ESS can be mapped uniquely to land use and land cover data. Using a functional fragmentation measure, we show how landscape pattern changes might lead to changes in the delivery of ESS. We map changes in ESS of dry calcareous grasslands under different land use change scenarios in a case study region in Switzerland. We selected three ESS known to be related to species diversity including carbon sequestration and pollination as regulating values and recreational experience as cultural value, and compared them to the value of two production services including food and timber production. Results show that the current unceasing fragmentation is particularly critical for the value of ESS provided by species-rich habitats. The article concludes that assessing landscape patterns is key for maintaining valuable ESS in the face of human use and fluctuating environment.     

Towards sustainable forest management in the European Union through polycentric forest governance and an integrated landscape approach

Context

Achieving sustainable development as an inclusive societal process, and securing sustainability and resilience of human societies as well as the natural environment are wicked problems. Realising sustainable forest management (SFM) policy in local landscapes is one example.

Objectives

Using the European Union as a case study for the implementation of SFM policy across multiple governance levels in different contexts, we discuss the benefits of adopting an integrated landscape approach with place and space, partnership and sustainability as three pillars.

Methods

We map the institutional frameworks for implementing SFM policy within all EU member states. Next, we analyse whether or not there is EU-level forest governance, and how power is distributed among EU, member state and operational levels.

Results

Mechanisms to steer a centralized forest governance approach towards SFM in the EU are marginal. Instead, there is a polycentric forest governance with 90 national and sub-national governments, which create and implement own and EU-wide SFM-related policies. Additionally, both among and within regional governance units there is a large variation in governance arrangements linked to land ownership at the operational level.

Conclusions

To effectively translate EU-wide SFM and SFM-related policies into action in local landscapes, it is crucial to acknowledge that there are different land ownership structures, landscape histories and alternative value chains based on multiple ecosystem services. Therefore regionally adapted landscape approaches engaging multiple stakeholders and actors through evidence-based landscape governance and stewardship towards sustainable forest landscape management are needed. Model Forest, Long-Term Socio-Ecological Research platform and Biosphere Reserve are three of many examples.

     

Is landscape sustainability a useful concept in a changing world?

The world is changing rapidly, challenging the sustainability of landscapes and the resources and ecosystem services they provide to people and to plants and animals. Changes in land use and climate will alter the structure and composition of landscapes, and landscape functions may also be disrupted if the changes drive systems past thresholds into novel, no-analog configurations. Although landscapes will persist in some form, it is unlikely that they will provide the same values to people or habitat for wildlife that are the focus of current sustainability efforts. Tradeoffs among services to people or resources for wildlife will be inevitable. For the concept of sustainability to be relevant under these conditions, we must ask, “Sustainability of what, for whom?” Landscapes cannot be all things to all people (or organisms). Decisions about how to balance competing needs and goals and set priorities requires an understanding of landscape structure, function, and change—the foundation elements of landscape ecology.     

Integrating supply and demand in ecosystem service bundles characterization across Mediterranean transformed landscapes

Context

Humans continually transform landscapes, affecting the ecosystem services (ES) they provide. Thus, the spatial relationships among services vary across landscapes. Managers and decision makers have access to a variety of tools for mapping landscapes and analyzing their capacity to provide multiple ES.

Objectives

This paper characterizes and maps ES bundles across transformed landscapes in southeast Spain incorporating both the ecological and social perspectives. Our specific goals were to: (1) quantify ES biophysical supply, (2) identify public awareness, (3) map ES bundles, and (4) characterize types of ES bundles based on their social-ecological dimensions.

Methods

Biophysical models and face-to-face social surveys were used to quantify and map ES bundles and explore the public awareness in a highly transformed Mediterranean region. Then, we classified ES bundles into four types using a matrix crossing the degree of biophysical ES supply and the degree of social awareness.

Results

Results mapped seven ES bundles types representing diverse social-ecological dynamics. ES bundles mapped at the municipality level showed mismatches between their biophysical provision and the public awareness, which has important implications for operationalizing the bundles concept for landscape planning and management. ES bundles characterization identified four types of bundles scenarios.

Conclusions

We propose an ES bundles classification that incorporates both their social and ecological dimensions. Our findings can be used by land managers to identify areas in which ES are declining as well as priority areas for maximizing ES provision and can help to identify conflicts associated with new management and planning practices.

     

The value of linking paleoecological and neoecological perspectives to understand spatially-explicit ecosystem resilience

Context

Predicting ecosystem resilience is a challenge, especially as climate change alters disturbance regimes and conditions for recovery. Recent research has highlighted the importance of spatially-explicit disturbance and resilience processes to long-term ecosystem dynamics. “Neoecological” approaches characterize resilience mechanisms at relatively fine spatio-temporal resolutions, but results are difficult to extrapolate across broad temporal scales or climatic ranges. Paleoecological methodologies can consider the effects of climates that differ from today. However, they are often limited to coarse-grained spatio-temporal resolutions.

Methods

In this synthesis, we describe implicit and explicit examples of studies that incorporate both neo- and paleoecological approaches. We propose ways to build on the strengths of both approaches in an explicit and proactive fashion.

Results

Linking the two approaches is a powerful way to surpass their respective limitations. Aligning spatial scales is critical: Paleoecological sampling design should incorporate knowledge of the spatial characteristics of the disturbance process, and neoecological studies benefit from a longer-term context to their conclusions. In some cases, modeling can incorporate non-spatial data from paleoecological records or emerging spatial paleo-data networks with mechanistic disturbance/recovery processes that operate at fine spatiotemporal scales.

Conclusions

Linking these two complementary approaches is a powerful way to build a complete understanding of ecosystem disturbance and resilience.

     

Spatial patterns of cultural ecosystem services provision in Southern Patagonia

Context

Although there is a need to develop a spatially explicit methodological approach that addresses the social importance of cultural ecosystem services for regional planning, few studies have analysed the spatial distribution on the cultural ecosystem services based on social perceptions.

Objective

The main objective of this study was to identify cultural ecosystem service hot-spots, and factors that characterize such hot-spots and define the spatial associations between cultural ecosystem services in Southern Patagonia (Argentina).

Methods

The study was carried out in Southern Patagonia (243.9 thousand km²) located between 46° and 55° SL with the Andes mountains on the western fringe and the Atlantic Ocean on the eastern fringe of the study area. The study region has a range of different vegetation types (grasslands, shrub-lands, peat-lands and forests) though the cold arid steppe is the main vegetation type. We used geo-tagged digital images that local people and visitors posted in the Panoramio web platform to identify hot-spots of four cultural ecosystem services (aesthetic value, existence value, recreation and local identity) and relate these hot-spots with social and biophysical landscape features.

Results

Aesthetic value was the main cultural service tagged by people, followed by the existence value for biodiversity conservation, followed by local identity and then recreational activity. The spatial distribution of these cultural ecosystem services are associated with different social and biophysical characteristics, such as the presence of water bodies, vegetation types, marine and terrestrial fauna, protected areas, urbanization, accessibility and tourism offer. The most important factors are the presence of water in Santa Cruz and tourism offer in Tierra del Fuego.

Conclusions

Our results demonstrate that this methodology is useful for assessing cultural ecosystem services at the regional scale, especially in areas with low data availability and field accessibility, such as Southern Patagonia. We also identify new research challenges that can be addressed in cultural ecosystem services research through the use of this method.

     

Ecologies as a complement to ecosystem services? Exploring how landscape planners might advance understanding about human–nature relationships in changing landscapes

Context

One of the key challenges for landscape planners is to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services. In this context, alternative concepts such as ecologies have potential to complement ecosystem services when applied to human–nature relationships in changing landscapes.

Objectives

The objectives of this article are: (1) to review how landscape planners use major critical approaches to translate the meaning of ecosystem services and (2) to introduce why ecologies provides helpful insights to complement ecosystem services.

Methods

A conceptual framework examines how landscape planners use critique to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services. This framework is then revised as a scenario to reframe the meanings of ecologies and ecosystem services.

Results

Landscape planners use three critical approaches to reframe the meaning of ecosystem services to advance the understanding of human–nature relationships in changing landscapes. Yet, they identify some important issues and gaps that emerge when it is applied. These issues and gaps are part of the rationale for why landscape planning is at a crossroads with ecosystem services. This rationale is then extended to create a scenario for why a revised conceptual framework is needed for landscape planners to reframe the meanings of ecologies and ecosystem services.

Conclusion

The translational challenge of ecologies and ecosystem services is an example of the key role that landscape planners play in developing a deeper understanding of human–nature relationships.

     

Residents’ preferences for cultural services of the landscape along the urban–rural gradient

Cultural services of the landscape contribute to a higher quality of life. The provision of these services differs along the urban–rural gradient, as does their appreciation by local residents. This paper investigates residents’ preferences for cultural services along the urban–rural gradient through a map-based survey in and around the Dutch city of Maastricht. We focus on the importance of location in explaining these preferences, distinguishing the location of residents (relative to the preferred landscape units) and the location of landscape units (relative to their positions on the urban–rural gradient). The study shows that residents prefer nearby locations for all distinguished cultural services. Locations’ valuation along the urban–rural gradient, however, differs by service type: for cultural heritage locations near the city centre are preferred, while outdoor recreation and sports and passive enjoyment of green landscapes are enjoyed more in rural areas. When considering the spatial distribution of the land-use types that provide these services, we further find that people prefer green areas closer to the city for outdoor recreation and sports and passive enjoyment of green landscapes. The results illustrate the heterogeneity of people’s preferences for cultural services along the urban–rural gradient beyond the distance from their residences. We recommend policy makers to take the urban–rural gradient into account when valuating landscape units, and in particularly the importance of green landscape units close to the city for different cultural services.     

Urban forest usage and perception of ecosystem services – A comparison between teenagers and adults

Urban forests provide multiple ecosystem services for a range of user groups. However, teenagers are commonly underrepresented in studies about forest recreation and cultural ecosystem services. This paper examines teenagers' forest use and perception of ecosystem services compared to adult populations. We used an online panel survey to elicit motives for forest visits, frequency of visits, forest activities and constraints for visitation, and what ecosystem services participants expect from forests more generally. We then elicited perceived cultural ecosystem services of different forests by showing participants photographs of forest inventory plots for which we had detailed measures of physical forest characteristics to statistically assess the influence of forest characteristics and other parameters on perceived cultural ecosystem services. Results show that teenagers visit forests less often and also differ from adults in their preferences and activities, their motives for forest visits and reasons for not visiting forests. Teenagers exhibit more social and active forms of forest use, whereas adults use forests in more contemplative ways. Perception of cultural ecosystem services on forest photos was influenced by individual factors such as motives for forest visits, preferences, importance of forest during childhood and socio-demographic factors. Environment- and forest-related factors such as forest type, stand structure and single elements such as root plates and stumps had an influence on ecosystem service perception. We conclude that teenagers have different needs than adults concerning the provision of cultural ecosystem services from forests and therefore should be considered as a user group of its own in the management of recreational forests.     

Informing landscape planning and design for sustaining ecosystem services from existing spatial patterns and knowledge

Over the last decade we have seen an increased emphasis in environmental management and policies aimed at maintaining and restoring multiple ecosystem services at landscape scales. This emphasis has resulted from the recognition that management of specific environmental targets and ecosystem services requires an understanding of landscape processes and the spatial scales that maintain those targets and services. Moreover, we have become increasingly aware of the influence of broad-scale drivers such as climate change on landscape processes and the ecosystem services they support. Studies and assessments on the relative success of environmental policies and landscape designs in maintaining landscape processes and ecosystem services is mostly lacking. This likely reflects the relatively high cost of maintaining a commitment to implement and maintain monitoring programs that document responses of landscape processes and ecosystem services to different landscape policies and designs. However, we argue that there is considerable variation in natural and human-caused landscape pattern at local to continental scales and that this variation may facilitate analyses of how environmental targets and ecosystem services have responded to such patterns. Moreover, wall-to-wall spatial data on land cover and land use at national scales may permit characterization and mapping of different landscape pattern gradients. We discuss four broad and interrelated focus areas that should enhance our understanding of how landscape pattern influences ecosystem services: (1) characterizing and mapping landscape pattern gradients; (2) quantifying relationships between landscape patterns and environmental targets and ecosystem services, (3) evaluating landscape patterns with regards to multiple ecosystem services, and (4) applying adaptive management concepts to improve the effectiveness of specific landscape designs in sustaining ecosystem services. We discuss opportunities as well as challenges in each of these four areas. We believe that this agenda could lead to spatially explicit solutions in managing a range of environmental targets and ecosystem services. Spatially explicit options are critical in managing and protecting landscapes, especially given that communities and organizations are often limited in their capacity to make changes at landscape scales. The issues and potential solutions discussed in this paper expand upon the call by Nassauer and Opdam (Landscape Ecol 23:633–644, 2008) to include design as a fundamental element in landscape ecology research by evaluating natural and human-caused (planned or designed) landscape patterns and their influence on ecosystem services. It also expands upon the idea of “learning by doing” to include “learning from what has already been done.”     

Integrating landscape ecology into landscape practice in Central African Rainforests

Context

We describe how large landscape-scale conservation initiatives involving local communities, NGOs and resource managers have engaged with landscape scientists with the goal of achieving landscape sustainability. We focus on two landscapes where local people, practitioners and landscape ecologists have co-produced knowledge to design conservation interventions.

Objective

We seek to understand how landscape ecology can engage with practical landscape management to contribute to managing landscapes sustainably.

Methods

We focus on two large tropical landscapes: the Sangha Tri-National landscape (Cameroon, Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic) and the Batéké-Léfini Landscape (Gabon and Republic of Congo). We evaluate (1) a participatory method used in the Sangha Tri-National landscape that embeds interdisciplinary researchers and practitioners within a landscape to apply transdisciplinary learning to landscape conservation and (2) a participatory landscape zoning method where interdisciplinary teams of conservation practitioners analyse local land and resource use in the Batéké-Léfini landscape.

Results

We find that landscape ecology’s tradition of understanding the historical context of resource use can inform landscape conservation practice and natural resource mapping. We also find that the Sangha Group provides an example for landscape ecology on how to integrate local people and their knowledge to better understand and influence landscape processes.

Conclusions

Place-based engagement as well as the uptake of co-produced knowledge by policy makers are key in enabling sustainable landscapes. Success occurs when researchers, local communities and resource managers engage directly with landscape processes.

     

Forest proximity rather than local forest cover affects bee diversity and coffee pollination services

Context

As agricultural demands for land continues to expand, strategies are urgently needed to balance agricultural production with biodiversity conservation and ecosystem service provision in agricultural landscapes.

Objectives

We used a factorial landscape design to assess the relative contributions of forest proximity and local forest cover to bee diversity and the provision of coffee pollination services.

Methods

We quantified bee diversity and fruit set in 24 sun-grown coffee fields in Southeast Region of Brazil that were selected following a factorial sampling design to test the independent effects of local forest cover (in a radius of 400 m) and proximity to forest fragments. To assess the impact of landscape simplification, we also evaluated local coffee cover.

Results

Bee richness and abundance were higher in the proximity of forest fragments, but only bee abundance decreased when the coffee cover dominated the surrounding landscapes. Coffee fruit set was 16% higher overall with bee visitations compared with bee exclusion and increased to 20% when coffee bushes were near forest fragments, and the coffee cover was low. Surprisingly, local forest cover did not affect the bee community or coffee fruit set.

Conclusion

Our results provide clear evidence that the proximity of coffee crops to forest fragments can affect the abundance and richness of bees visiting the coffee flowers and thereby facilitate the provision of pollination services. The positive association between forest proximity and fruit set reinforces the importance of natural vegetation in enhancing bee diversity and, therefore, in the provision of pollination services. The negative effect of coffee cover on fruit set at the local scale suggests that the service demand can surpass the capacity of pollinators to provide it. These effects were independent of the local forest cover, although all studied landscapes had more than 20% remaining forest cover (within a 2 km radius), which is considered the extinction threshold for Atlantic Forest species. Interspersion of forest fragments and coffee plantations in regions with more than 20% of forest cover left could thus be a useful landscape management target for facilitating pollinator flows to coffee crops and thus for increasing coffee yields.