Spatial associations among avian diversity, regulating and provisioning ecosystem services in Italy

Aim: An in-depth assessment of the spatial distribution of environmental resources and the condition of ecosystems is a key challenge in the management of ecosystems to support the provision of multiple ecosystem services. The main objective of this work was to investigate the spatial covariance of different aspects of avian diversity across gradients of provisioning and regulating ecosystem services in Italy at a high spatial resolution. Location: Entire country of Italy. Methods: Regulating and provisioning ecosystem services proxies were mapped and standardised at a fixed spatial scale across Italy. We assessed taxonomic diversity, community evolutionary distinctiveness, functional evenness, functional dispersion, and phylogenetic species variability as proxies for biodiversity. Finally, mixed models were used to compare the spatial covariance between each ecosystem service and component of biodiversity. Results: We found different associations between ecosystem services and each biodiversity component. Bird species richness was higher at moderate levels of agricultural production. When the levels of agricultural production were lower, phylogenetic relatedness index and functional dispersion decreased while evolutionary uniqueness and functional evenness were increased. Moderate levels of potential pollination services were spatially correlated with high values of bird species richness. In addition, taxonomic diversity of birds increased at moderate levels of timber production of deciduous forests, while community evolutionary distinctiveness decreased at lower timber production. Conversely, phylogenetic relatedness, functional dispersion, and functional evenness increased at lower levels of timber production. Similar patterns were found for carbon sequestration and bird diversity spatial associations. Finally, functional evenness wasn’t spatially related to any level of potential pollination and carbon sequestration provision. Main conclusions: This work demonstrates that large-scale associations between ecosystem services and biodiversity vary spatially in Italy. Our findings were achieved at a large spatial scale and high-spatial resolution, providing information about the complex interactions among avian communities and the provision of ecosystem services.