Humans depend upon the world's natural ecosystems for vital goods and services, yet ecosystems are being degraded and destroyed at an unprecedented rate. Although the importance of ecosystem services is widely recognized, there is still considerable debate on how to calculate their true economic value. Resolution of this debate will require input from both ecologists and economists. This project will support collaboration between these two typically disparate fields by helping to fund a special issue of the journal Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, a publication of the Ecological Society of America. Papers in this issue will analyze current schemes involving payments for ecosystem services and discuss concepts and theories about new ways to integrate and evaluate ecosystem services. The primary broader impact of this project will be the very widespread dissemination of the journal, in print to more than 10,000 members of the Ecological Society of America, and in electronic format via the ESA website and with collaboration with The Nature Conservancy.
