Lake Sediment Evidences Historical Patterns of Lake Ecosystem Services and Their Tradeoff/Synergy Mechanism: Progress, Case Studies and Prospective

Understanding the spatio-temporal process and tradeoff/synergy mechanism of ecosystem services (ES) has been a research hotspot, given its important role in enhancing the overall ecological benefits and human welfares. The methodology for establishing the pattern, process and drivers of such ES tradeoff/synergy over large spatio-temporal scale and current research status has been reviewed. It took Taibai Lake (29°56'-30°01' N, 115°46'-115°51' E) in Hubei Province, China, as an example, to illustrate how to combine historical and paleolimnological records to quantify the process and reveal the tradeoff/synergy pattern of various ES. It clearly illustrated that primary production and biodiversity (supporting services) have increased (synergies), whereas climate and water purification (regulating services) have significantly decreased (tradeoffs) since the 1950s when attempts were made by the local population to reach a higher land/food ES level. The advantage of paleolimnological approach in understanding the long-term pattern of ES is highlighted. Finally, current limitation is indicated and following future research directions on this issue are proposed:to minimize the uncertainty of paleolimnological proxies; to make more effort on modelling the dynamic process between the ecosystem and service deliverary under multiple scenarios; to conduct more research on the lake ES tradeoff/synergy process across various spatio-temporal scales.