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Ecosystem service assessments have increasingly been used to support environmental management policies, mainly based on biophysical and economic indicators. However, few studies have coped with the social-cultural dimension of ecosystem services, despite being considered a research priority. We examined how ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs emerge from diverging social preferences toward ecosystem services delivered by various types of ecosystems in Spain. We conducted 3,379 direct face-to-face questionnaires in eight different case study sites from 2007 to 2011. Overall, 90.5% of the sampled population recognized the ecosystem’s capacity to deliver services. Formal studies, environmental behavior, and gender variables influenced the probability of people recognizing the ecosystem’s capacity to provide services. The ecosystem services most frequently perceived by people were regulating services; of those, air purification held the greatest importance. However, statistical analysis showed that socio-cultural factors and the conservation management strategy of ecosystems (i.e., National Park, Natural Park, or a non-protected area) have an effect on social preferences toward ecosystem services. Ecosystem service trade-offs and bundles were identified by analyzing social preferences through multivariate analysis (redundancy analysis and hierarchical cluster analysis). We found a clear trade-off among provisioning services (and recreational hunting) versus regulating services and almost all cultural services. We identified three ecosystem service bundles associated with the conservation management strategy and the rural-urban gradient. We conclude that socio-cultural preferences toward ecosystem services can serve as a tool to identify relevant services for people, the factors underlying these social preferences, and emerging ecosystem service bundles and trade-offs.

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Research on biological invasions has traditionally focused on the ecological component of invasive alien species, either without considering or by considering in a restringing way, the knowledge of the social component. Understanding the human dimension of invasions is critical to effectively tackling the problems associated with invasive species. We used questionnaires to evaluate the social perceptions and attitudes of different stakeholder groups affected by invasive alien species in the Doñana social-ecological system (SW Spain). Characteristics of respondents regarding their knowledge and attitudes toward biological invasions were categorized using hierarchical cluster and principal component analyses; while their potential support of eradication programs was assessed with a contingent valuation approach. Five stakeholder groups were recognized, differing in their degree of knowledge, perceptions, attitudes and willingness to pay for eradication. The fact that different stakeholders have remarkably different attitudes and perceptions about the impacts and benefits caused by alien invasive species should be considered in any decision-making process regarding their management, particularly for developing appropriate educational and informative programs.Public consultation with different stakeholders should also be encouraged from the beginning to avoid potential misunderstandings and to facilitate the implementation of management practices.

Researchers and conservation managers largely agree on the relevance of traditional ecological knowledge for natural resource management in indigenous communities, but its prevalence and role as societies modernize are contested. We analyzed the transmission of traditional knowledge among rural local people in communities linked to protected areas in Doñana, southwestern Spain. We studied changes in knowledge related to local practices in agriculture and livestock farming among 198 informants from three generations that cover the period in which the area transited from an economy strongly dependent on local ecosystem services to a market economy with intensified production systems. Our results suggest an abrupt loss of traditional agricultural knowledge related to rapid transformations and intensification of agricultural systems, but maintenance of knowledge of traditional livestock farming, an activity allowed in the protected areas that maintains strong links with local cultural identity. Our results demonstrate the potential of protected areas in protecting remaining bodies of traditional ecological knowledge in developed country settings. Nevertheless, we note that strict protection in cultural-landscape-dominated areas can disrupt transmission of traditional knowledge if local resource users and related practices are excluded from ecosystem management.