The YESS Journal & Research Club is an active and engaging forum dedicated to discussing cutting-edge research on ecosystem services. It provides a collaborative space for members to explore key publications, exchange insights, and engage with leading researchers. From 2025, the Training and Education WG and Meet-the-Author webinars have been incorporated into the club.
Objectives
- Facilitate discussions with authors of influential publications in an informal online setting.
- Showcase members’ research by featuring newly published work on YESS social media channels.
- Organize webinars on research methodologies used in published studies to enhance knowledge-sharing and skill development.
We welcome all YESS members to propose discussion topics or research papers for future sessions. If you come across an interesting publication or pressing issue, feel free to reach out—we are always excited to welcome new members and fresh ideas!
Journal & Research Club team
- The team is not active – Please contact [email protected] to coordinate the activities
Research Contributions by YESS Members
YESS serves as a catalyst for collaboration, transforming research ideas into impactful publications. Many research efforts and scientific contributions have emerged from YESS members’ participation in various events and initiatives. We take pride in the following achievements:
- An early career researchers’ perspective on inequality in ecosystem services research in Asia
- Engaging at the science-policy interface as an early-career researcher: experiences and perceptions in biodiversity and ecosystem services research
- The voices of youth in envisioning positive futures for nature and people
- Meaningfully engaging the next generation of ecosystem services specialists
- Disentangling‘ecosystem services’and‘nature’s contributions to people
- Strengths, Weaknesses, Opportunities and Threats: A SWOT analysis of the ecosystem services framework
Meet author event
With our interactive online “meet-the-author” format (60 min), we want to create an opportunity to talk with authors of key publications in our research field in an informal setting. The invited speaker briefly presents the story behind the paper and its reception, then it is time for us to ask questions and start the conversation.
So far, we have had the following conversations:
- May 2018: Gary Peterson (SRC, Sweden) – Welcoming different perspectives in IPBES: “Nature’s contributions to people” and “Ecosystem Services” (2018, Ecology & Society)
- March 2018: Nadia Sitas (CSIR, South Africa) – African Assessment for IPBES (e.g. Multiscale scenarios for nature futures, 2017, nature ecology & evolution)
- January 2018: Mark Reed (NCL, UK) – The Productive Researcher (2017)
- November 2017: Marta Berbés-Blázquez (ASU, USA) – Towards an ecosystem services approach that addresses social power relations (2016, Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability)
- September 2017: Matthias Schröter (UFZ, Germany) – Ecosystem services as a contested concept: a synthesis of critique and counter-arguments (2014, Conservation Letters)
A selection of the papers that we discussed thus far were very widespread on issues surrounding ecosystem services. We are always looking for new ideas, so why not suggest a paper for the next Journal Club? Please have a look at the earlier discussions:
Alexander et al. (2012). Interactive marine spatial planning: siting tidal energy arrays around the Mull of Kintyre.
Bulte & van Kooten (1999). Marginal valuation of charismatic species: implications for conservation.
Carpenter et al. (2009). Science for managing ecosystem services: beyond the Millenium Ecosystem Assessment
Heal (1999). Valuing ecosystem services.
Mace et al. (2012). Biodiversity and ecosystem services: a multilayered relationship.
Metz & Weigel (2010). Key Findings from recent national opinion research on “Ecosystem Services”.
Seppelt et al. (2011). Form follows function? Proposing a blueprint for ecosystem service assessments based on reviews and case studies.
Seppelt et al. (2011). A quanitative review of ecosystem services studies: approaches, shortcomings and the road ahead.
Spash et al. (2002). Informing and forming preferences in environmental valuation: Coral reef biodiversity.
Townsend et al. (2011). Ecosystem principles approach.
Wallace (2007). Classification of ecosystem services: Problems and solutions.
White et al. (2011). Ecosystem service tradeoff analysis reveals the value of marine spatial planning for multiple ocean uses.
Zucca et al. (2008). Application of spatial multi-criteria analysis to site selection for a local park: A case study in the Bergamo Province, Italy.