Physical Sciences and Mathematics Commons^™

Estimating Watershed Biodiversity: An Empirical Study Of The Chesapeake Bay In Maryland, Usa, Junko Morimoto, Helena Voinov, Matthew A. Wilson, Robert Costanza

Institute for Sustainable Solutions Publications and Presentations

There has been increasing demand for rigorous methods for evaluating biodiversity, one of the ecosystem services that sustains and fulfills human life. After carefully examining the literature, we found three key points that should be taken into account when we evaluate biodiversity. The first point is that any "indicator species" tends to be a leaky target of biodiversity. The second point is that "buffering" that is useful for representing the ecological concept of boundaries should have scientific meanings. The third point is that a "watershed" that integrates most natural processes is advantageous as the spatial range for evaluation. Based on …