A practical approach to measuring the biodiversity impacts of land conversion

Durán, América Paz; Green, Jonathan M.H.; West, Chris; Visconti, Piero; Burgess, Neil D.; Virah‐Sawmy, Malika; Balmford, Andrew

doi:10.1111/2041-210x.13427

Cited by 44 publications

(27 citation statements)

References 35 publications

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“…The region's fauna depends on the maintenance of its wide range of habitat types (Pacheco and Vasconcelos 2012;de Mello et al 2015). While the model does not differentiate among the more local and specialized habitats, our results suggest that attention to the less-forested Cerrado ecosystems may be warranted, as has been highlighted by other recent studies (Brandão et al 2020;Durán et al 2020). The case of the Caatinga is particularly worrisome as little conservation action has so far targeted this biome (Santos et al 2011).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Implementing Brazil’s Forest Code: a vital contribution to securing forests and conserving biodiversity

et al. 2021

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Meeting Brazil’s ambitious national commitments on both climate change mitigation and biodiversity conservation depends on securing its reserves of forest carbon and biodiversity. Brazil’s ‘Forest Code’ is a key tool to reconcile environmental preservation and agricultural production; it limits deforestation and requires forest restoration in illegally deforested areas. However, not all provisions of the law’s 2012 revision have yet been implemented and some are facing new challenges. Using modelled land use change projections for the whole of the country, we show that full implementation and enforcement of the law has the potential to contribute to conserving biodiversity. Biodiversity outcomes will be especially positive if (i) deforested areas are restored in ways that support recolonization by native species and (ii) additional measures are implemented to protect native vegetation in areas like Caatinga dry forests and Cerrado savannas, which may experience added pressure displaced from other regions by Forest Code implementation.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 60%

Implementing Brazil’s Forest Code: a vital contribution to securing forests and conserving biodiversity

et al. 2021

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“…Moreover, despite the constantly growing availability of resources and methods for SDMs (Peterson et al, 2022), modeling and predicting spatial variation in abundances remains a challenging task, and extrapolated abundance predictions under changing environmental scenarios often have high uncertainty (Waldock et al, 2022). New methodological frameworks linking changes in area of habitat to species persistence have recently been developed (Dur an et al, 2020). Such tools could be applied to our results to estimate the biodiversity impacts of future land-use changes.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Landscape‐level heterogeneity of agri‐environment measures improves habitat suitability for farmland birds

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Engler

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et al. 2022

Ecological Applications

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Agri‐environment schemes (AESs), ecological focus areas (EFAs), and organic farming are the main tools of the common agricultural policy (CAP) to counteract the dramatic decline of farmland biodiversity in Europe. However, their effectiveness is repeatedly doubted because it seems to vary when measured at the field‐versus‐landscape level and to depend on the regional environmental and land‐use context. Understanding the heterogeneity of their effectiveness is thus crucial to developing management recommendations that maximize their efficacy. Using ensemble species distribution models and spatially explicit field‐level information on crops grown, farming practice (organic/conventional), and applied AES/EFA from the Integrated Administration and Control System, we investigated the contributions of five groups of measures (buffer areas, cover crops, extensive grassland management, fallow land, and organic farming) to habitat suitability for 15 farmland bird species in the Mulde River Basin, Germany. We used a multiscale approach to identify the scale of effect of the selected measures. Using simulated land‐use scenarios, we further examined how breeding habitat suitability would change if the measures were completely removed and if their adoption by farmers increased to meet conservation‐informed targets. Buffer areas, fallow land, and extensive grassland were beneficial measures for most species, but cover crops and organic farming had contrasting effects across species. While different measures acted at different spatial scales, our results highlight the importance of land‐use management at the landscape level—at which most measures had the strongest effect. We found that the current level of adoption of the measures delivers only modest gains in breeding habitat suitability. However, habitat suitability improved for the majority of species when the implementation of the measures was increased, suggesting that they could be effective conservation tools if higher adoption levels were reached. The heterogeneity of responses across species and spatial scales indicated that a mix of different measures, applied widely across the agricultural landscape, would likely maximize the benefits for biodiversity. This can only be achieved if the measures in the future CAP will be cooperatively designed in a regionally targeted way to improve their attractiveness for farmers and widen their uptake.

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“…While habitat loss is one of the main causes of farmland bird decline, we encourage future research to investigate the relationship between habitat availability and population size of different species, to estimate what is the minimum habitat area needed for species subsistence in the region. This can be done by modeling bird abundances (Finch et al 2021), rather than occurrences as in our study, or by developing metrics to link area of habitat to likelihood of local population persistence (Durán et al 2020).…”

Section: Future Research Directionsmentioning

confidence: 99%

Response of endangered bird species to land-use changes in an agricultural landscape in Germany

et al. 2022

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Land-use intensification in agroecosystems has led to population declines in many taxonomic groups, especially farmland birds. Two contrasting conservation strategies have therefore been proposed: land sharing (the integration of biodiversity conservation in low-intensity agriculture) and land sparing (the spatial separation of high-yielding agriculture and areas for conservation). Despite the large academic interest in this field, only few studies have taken into account stakeholders’ perspectives of these strategies when assessing conservation implications. We modeled the effects of three land-use scenarios (a business-as-usual, a land-sharing, and a land-sparing scenario), developed together with regional stakeholders, on the habitat area of 13 regionally endangered bird species in the Middle Mulde River Basin (Saxony, Germany). We used random forest models based on environmental variables relating to land-use/cover, climate and soil characteristics, occurrence of linear landscape elements (hedges and tree rows), and distance to water and major roads. Responses to the three land-use scenarios were species-specific, but extensively managed permanent grassland and the density of forest edges were positively associated with the occurrence of most bird species. Overall, the land-sharing scenario provided the largest breeding habitat area: 76% of the species had a significant (p < 0.05) increase in breeding habitat, and none showed a significant decrease. Our findings confirm that balancing the different, often contrasting habitat requirements of multiple species is a key challenge in conservation and landscape management. Land sharing, which local stakeholders identified as the most desirable scenario, is a promising strategy for the conservation of endangered birds in agricultural landscapes like our study region.

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A practical approach to measuring the biodiversity impacts of land conversion

Abstract: This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.

Cited by 44 publications

References 35 publications

Implementing Brazil’s Forest Code: a vital contribution to securing forests and conserving biodiversity

Implementing Brazil’s Forest Code: a vital contribution to securing forests and conserving biodiversity

Landscape‐level heterogeneity of agri‐environment measures improves habitat suitability for farmland birds

Response of endangered bird species to land-use changes in an agricultural landscape in Germany

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