Ecosystem Services

Ecosystem services are the multitude of benefits that people obtain from well-functioning ecosystems, encompassing the provision of food, materials and water; regulation of climate, air quality and water flow; support for nutrient cycling and soil formation; and cultural values such as recreation and spiritual enrichment. These services arise from the structure, processes and biodiversity of natural and semi-natural systems, yet they often go unpriced in markets. Recognising, mapping and valuing ecosystem services provides a framework for reconciling human development with ecological conservation. It highlights trade-offs—for example, between agricultural expansion and carbon storage—and synergies, such as how restoring wetlands can enhance flood regulation, water purification and habitat diversity simultaneously. Integrative approaches span biophysical modelling of services, participatory methods that capture cultural values, and economic techniques that quantify both market and non-market values. By embedding this knowledge into planning, policy and corporate decision-making, societies can make more informed choices to safeguard natural capital, promote resilience to global change and sustain human well-being.

Research from Nature Portfolio

Recent work has demonstrated that nutrient-driven soil acidification, rather than direct nutrient enrichment, underpins declines in microbial and faunal diversity and weakens their collective contribution to carbon and nutrient cycling in grassland and cropland soils. Over a 13-year experiment, acidification cascaded through microbial networks, reducing multifunctionality even where total nutrient loads remained high. Another study assessed how urban nature-based solutions contribute to city-scale carbon neutrality. By modelling both direct sequestration and indirect pathways—such as behavioural change and avoided emissions—across ninety major European cities, researchers found that prioritised green infrastructure and complementary measures could cut urban emissions by up to a quarter, with combined actions nearing a 60 % reduction by 2030 under high-ambition scenarios. These findings emphasise the need to integrate ecosystem service assessments into climate mitigation strategies at both rural and urban scales.

Research from all publishers

Advances in remote-sensing and machine-learning have enabled near real-time, high-resolution monitoring of soil-plant systems via digital twins. By fusing satellite observations, process-based modelling and physics-informed artificial intelligence, this framework tracks soil moisture, plant hydraulics and microbial activity, offering early warning of soil degradation and guiding sustainable management. Complementary meta-analysis of 166 studies across diverse climates showed that soil microbial indicators—microbial biomass, phospholipid fatty acids and enzyme activities—respond more rapidly to cover cropping, organic amendments and reduced tillage than do bulk soil carbon or nitrogen, marking them as sensitive early-warning metrics. In agroecosystems, long-term experiments reveal that plant-diverse perennial bioenergy cropping systems markedly boost invertebrate diversity compared with monocultures, suggesting that diversifying energy crops can reconcile biomass production with biodiversity conservation.

Ecosystem Services publication trend

The graph below shows the total number of articles in ecosystem services across all publications each year (not limited to Nature Index journals).

Technical terms

Ecosystem services: The provisioning, regulating, supporting and cultural benefits that humans derive from ecosystems.

Natural capital: The stock of living and non-living environmental assets—soil, water, biodiversity—that yields ecosystem services.

Provisioning services: Goods produced by ecosystems, such as food, fibre, fuel and freshwater.

Regulating services: Benefits obtained from ecosystem processes that moderate natural phenomena, including climate regulation, flood control and water purification.

Supporting services: Fundamental ecosystem functions—nutrient cycling, soil formation, primary production—that underpin all other services.

Cultural services: Non-material benefits from ecosystems, including recreation, aesthetic experiences and spiritual enrichment.

Ecosystem multifunctionality: The ability of an ecosystem to sustain multiple functions and services simultaneously.

Digital twin: A virtual representation that integrates observational data and mechanistic models to simulate the behaviour of soil-plant systems over space and time.

References

1. Contrasting effects of bioenergy crops on biodiversity. Science Advances (2023).
2. Nutrient-induced acidification modulates soil biodiversity-function relationships. Nature Communications (2024).
3. Contribution of prioritized urban nature-based solutions allocation to carbon neutrality. Nature Climate Change (2023).
4. Monitoring and Modeling the Soil‐Plant System Toward Understanding Soil Health. Reviews of Geophysics (2025).
5. Which soil microbial indicators should be included in routine laboratory tests to support the transition to sustainable management of arable farming systems? A meta-analysis. Ecological Indicators (2024).