Quantifying the Interplay of Plants, Carbon, and Bees in Ecosystems

Bees, plants and carbon: they are all related to the environment. But is it possible to quantify their relationship? Samara Martins Silva, PhD from the Escola Superior de Agricultura Luiz de Queiroz (Esalq) at USP in Piracicaba, and professor ( in memorian) Hilton Zarate do Couto, also from Esalq, developed the patent Method for Determining Carbon and Ecosystem Services Biodiversity and the Programming for Quantifying and Relating Carbon and Biodiversity Ecosystem Services  registry . 

Development

The patent refers to a method for determining joint carbon and biodiversity ecosystem services through, preferably, analysis of biomass and diversity of plant and bee species. The registry defines the schedules used to quantify and relate the ecosystem services studied in the research.

The research also had obstacles. “It was a very new idea emerging through concepts such as services and allometric equations used to calculate biomass and carbon stock, both having emerged since the 1960s, as the environmental conservation debate advanced throughout the international scene. In addition to these obstacles regarding innovation in concepts, the difficulty of analysis also arose, since there was a lot of data to be analyzed in a short period of time during the master’s degree”, says the specialist.

However, USP helped — a lot — in this process, both through the Innovation Agency and through the figure of professor Hilton Zarate do Couto, adds Samara: “They helped with the quick response, they always answered our doubts and, finally, they gave also a strength in the spirit to make everything happen in the best way. The support of my advisor, believing that it could become a patent, was fundamental. He was the base, the means and the end of the entire process. He loved programming, this activity made him very happy. I’m sorry he’s no longer alive to be able to give this interview and share what this experience was like for him.”

For the professor, Samara remembers that prioritizing areas for conservation was the main thing. He encouraged her to seek solutions in ways of quantifying these relationships and making them practical in studies and activities with prioritization of areas with potential with economic recognition for their large quantity of ecosystem services provided, functioning as a “financial bonus” for the environmental area. and services maintained.

“There were already programs that carried out this mapping and helped with economic valuation, but on this relationship between ecosystem services, indicating the increase of one service as the increase of the other service — in our case carbon sequestration and pollination or increase in carbon sequestration and greater amount of biodiversity — there were no data and studies capable of demonstrating this relationship”, she adds. 

The patent, inspired by Samara’s master’s thesis, also carried out at Esalq, was based on the development of a system for analyzing carbon and biodiversity ecosystem services with data from the Environmental Analysis Program of the Belo Monte Hydroelectric Plant, located in Rio Xingu, in the State of Pará. She analyzed plots in the region that contained more than 14 thousand trees and 6 thousand bees, making it possible to verify the relationship between carbon and biodiversity of plants, carbon and bees.

Importance

But how important is it to quantify these ecosystem relationships? Currently, the world is experiencing extreme warming caused by increased emissions of gases responsible for the greenhouse effect — which is a beneficial climate phenomenon, but extremely harmful when extrapolated. According to the World Meteorological Organization, global temperatures are expected to reach record rates in the next five years because of these gases and the El Niño phenomenon.

Therefore, knowing how to identify and quantify ecosystem relationships between different environmental components is important. Having numerical parameters and tools that can calculate, for example, the proportionality of biodiversity and carbon presence is relevant when planning actions with the objective of environmental conservation.

“Companies, governments and NGOs must use the area of ​​high values ​​for conservation in their ESG practices — in Portuguese Environmental, Social and Corporate Governance — and this is where the theory developed by this patent application meets practice: in analysis, quantification and list of these provisions of different ecosystem services capable of comparing ecosystems and their different capacities for providing these services”, explains Samara.

But, as in all science, more studies are still needed to verify how these relationships occur in other ecosystems, since the patent application was based on the study carried out in the Amazon of Pará and not all ecosystems appear to behave the same. In any case, as Samara highlights, “it is through these studies and initiatives like this that greater information about ecosystems is being constructed so that we can better manage them in scenarios of extreme human degradation and climate challenges”.