Page - 133 - in Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change

133© The Author(s) 2019 M. R. Marselle et al. (eds.), Biodiversity and Health in the Face of Climate Change, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-02318-8_7 Chapter 7 Theoretical Foundations of  Biodiversity and  Mental Well-being Relationships Melissa  R.  Marselle Abstract This chapter briefly describes six frameworks that offer perspective on the relationships between biodiverse natural environments and mental well-being. The aim of this chapter is to provide an overview of these frameworks to enable theoretical grounding of future biodiversity and mental well-being studies. The frameworks are largely from the field of environmental psychology and represent the majority of theories used in biodiversity and health research (The Preference Matrix; fractal geometry; the Biophilia Hypothesis; Stress Reduction Theory; Attention Restoration Theory; and Ecosystem Service Cascade Model). A general overview of each framework discusses its conceptualisation of biodiversity and mental well-being outcomes, with supporting empirical research. The chapter then summarises the six frameworks with regard to their hypotheses for biodiversity and mental well-being. Keywords Mental well-being · Biodiversity · Theory · Ecosystem services · Attention restoration theory · Stress reduction theory Highlights • Six frameworks provide perspective into biodiversity and mental well-being relationships. • There is no single framework to describe biodiversity and mental well-being relationships. • Further research is needed to test these frameworks using biodiverse environ- ments or stimuli. M. R. Marselle (*) Department of Ecosystem Services, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research  – UFZ, Leipzig, Germany German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research (iDiv) Halle-Jena-Leipzig, Leipzig, Germany e-mail: melissa.marselle@ufz.de