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Interdisciplinary Frontiers in Ecosystem Services: Drawing on the Past to Shape the Future

Research output: Contribution to conference - Without ISBN/ISSN Conference paperpeer-review

Unpublished
Publication date2017
<mark>Original language</mark>English
EventResilience 2017: Resilience Frontiers for Global Sustainability - Stockholm, Sweden
Duration: 20/08/201723/08/2017

Conference

ConferenceResilience 2017
Country/TerritorySweden
CityStockholm
Period20/08/1723/08/17

Abstract

Ecosystem services are the co-products of human society and ecosystems, thereby through a social-ecological systems lens ecosystem services link human wellbeing with ecosystem functioning. Consequently, the ecosystem services concept is and should be interdisciplinary, serving as a boundary concept linking different fields of research. The field of ecosystem services research has grown exponentially over the past three decades, with over 2,500 publications in 2016 alone, involving many different disciplines. However, for ecosystem services research to be truly interdisciplinary, different fields must work together, to integrate theory and insight, which builds on core concepts from each field, to develop robust and new common understandings. Here we present an ecosystem services citation analysis that a) identifies interdisciplinary networks; b) within each interdisciplinary network, identifies influential authors and seminal pieces; c) examines the emergence and persistence of key concepts through time; and d) shows gaps and opportunities for more interdisciplinary research. We extracted data from 13,586 articles published between 1983 and 2016 with ‘ecosystem services’ mentioned in the title, abstract, or key words to construct a citation network based on disciplinary research field. Though ecosystem services research is interdisciplinary, integration is dominated by certain disciplines; however novel interdisciplinary networks are emerging that a embed a new set of ideas and authors into ecosystem services research. The emergence of key concepts through time evidences novel multidisciplinary methods and describes research frontiers. In doing so, we provide an overview of the current state of, and developments in, interdisciplinary research on ecosystem services, establishing interdisciplinary frontiers in ecosystem services.