Ecosystem Services

7. Discussion
The aim of the report has been to give an overview of the available information on the
benefits and values of kelp forests, eelgrass meadows, blue mussel beds, and shallow
bays and inlets, which all are ecosystems of great importance for the condition and
management of key ecological functions in the Nordic countries and together cover
large parts of the Nordic countries’ coastal areas.
7.1 Conclusions
This section sums up the services provided by the different ecosystems described in
Chapters 3–6. In order to make the results more comparable, the relative importance
of the different ecosystem services of each ecosystem is attempted to be evaluated in
Table 7.1. It is important to note that the results in this table, despite being based on a
long range of literature, merely are the result of the subjective perception of the authors
involved, and that these results might have been different if other groups of scientists
or persons had performed the assessment.
Many of the service types were categorized as “High” or “Medium” for a majority
of the ecosystems. This is reasonable since the four ecosystems actually were selected
based on their importance and the fact that they are relatively widely distributed along
the Nordic coasts. Further, the term “Low” in this setting, does not necessarily mean
that they are not important, rather that they are less important than the others.
Since kelp forests have a more widespread distribution, at least compared to eelgrass
meadows and blue mussel beds, their total contribution will often exceed that of
the other ecosystems. The total biomass and extent of the ecosystem are thus taken in
to consideration in the evaluation.
The ecosystem which have a three dimensional structure, i.e. kelp forests, eelgrass
meadows and bays and inlets, score high on their supporting services due to their abilities
of housing a high diversity of species.
When it comes to provisioning services, kelp and mussels are particularly interesting
due to their potentials within harvesting and cultivation, whereas eelgrass is important
due to its more documented provision of nursing grounds for commercial fish species.