Ecosystem Service Providers Users List

An Ecosystem Service Provider (ESP) is a species, a food web, habitat or system that facilitates and supports the provision of Ecosystem Services (ES) (Kremen, 2005). For example, an ESP can be a strip of flowering buckwheat, Fagopyrum esculentum Moench that supports different natural enemies (see SPU in the main diagram) (Scarratt et al. 2008). In this example, buckwheat does not directly reduce a pest population. Both ESP and SPU work together to provide or enhance the ES of biological control of insect pests in this example. Therefore, a SPU is the unit that directly delivers the ES, while an ESP facilitates and supports the ES. However, an ESP might also be a SPU for a different ES, eg., a defined strip/area of buckwheat is an ESP for biological control using parasitoids but may also be a SPU for soil water retention.