Spatial interactions among multiple ecosystem services in an urbanizing agricultural landscape in the Upper Midwest

Spatially explicit understanding of the delivery of multiple ecosystem services is essential to inform landscape management that attempts to sustain the benefits people derive from ecosystems. Despite increasing attention to ecosystem services, understanding of their spatial patterns and key interactions (i.e., ecological tradeoffs and synergies among different services) is limited. In this study, we investigated the kind, amount and spatial distribution of the production of individual ecosystem services in the Yahara Watershed (Wisconsin, USA) for the year 2006. Our goal was to understand how multiple ecosystem services related to each other, and where in the landscape the strongest tradeoffs and synergies might occur. Results demonstrated that all ecosystem services showed distinct spatial patterns and were spatially aggregated across the landscape (Moran’s I, p<0.001). When multiple ecosystem services were overlain, “hot spots” (locations where production of a given service was in the upper 20^th percentile) occupied less of the landscape than “cool spots” (e.g., 5.8% vs. 8.6%, respectively). Spatially, "hot spots" of ecosystem services, primarily dominated by agricultural and wetland covers, were more fragmented than "cool spots", which were clumped in areas where human activities are highly concentrated. Surprisingly, fewer tradeoffs than synergies were identified among multiple services. Tradeoffs (negative correlations) occurred mostly between provisioning and regulating services (e.g., crop production and groundwater quality), and the strongest synergies (positive correlations) were found among regulating services. Ecosystem services bundles (sets of ecosystem services that appear together repeatedly) were further identified, along with the spatial locations where tradeoffs and synergies were most pronounced. Knowledge of the spatial interactions among multiple services can help to identify areas where conflicts over different ecosystem services are likely and areas that are critical for the sustained provision of multiple services.