Ecosystem services provided by agricultural areas. Evaluation and characterisation approaches

Ecosystem services can be defined as the components of ecosystems from which humans derive benefits, such as crop pollination and climate regulation. The estimation of the current contribution of ecosystem services to agricultural production and the representation of interactions between these services provide the knowledge needed to design production systems that consume fewer artificial inputs (synthetic fertilisers, pesticides) and respond to societal challenges such as conserving biodiversity and limiting environmental impacts.