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The Role Of Ecological Models In Linking Ecological Risk Assessment To Ecosystem Services In Agroecosystems, Nika Galic, Amelie Schmolke, Valery Forbes, Hans Baveco, Paul Van Den Brink

Valery E Forbes

Agricultural practices are essential for sustaining the human population, but at the same time they can directly disrupt ecosystem functioning. Ecological risk assessment (ERA) aims to estimate possible adverse effects of human activities on ecosystems and their parts. Current ERA practices, however, incorporate very little ecology and base the risk estimates on the results of standard tests with several standard species. The main obstacles for a more ecologically relevant ERA are the lack of clear protection goals and the inherent complexity of ecosystems that is hard to approach empirically. In this paper, we argue that the ecosystem services framework offers …