Availability and proximity of natural habitat influence cropland biodiversity in forest biomes globally

Outhwaite, Charlotte L.; Ortiz, Andrea Monica D.; Spooner, Fiona; Dalin, Carole; Newbold, Tim

doi:10.1111/geb.13532

Cited by 10 publications

(9 citation statements)

References 58 publications

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“…Previous research has shown the importance of natural habitat in buffering the effects of human activity on biodiversity (Macchi et al 2020;Outhwaite et al 2022) but our results suggest nuanced effects depending on crop. In landscapes with wheat cultivation, areas with higher percentage of natural habitat experience steeper decreases in species richness and abundance with yield, likely from higher initial biodiversity as natural habitat is positively related to species richness and abundance in wheat landscapes (Table S20).…”

Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 68%

“…However, primary vegetation in modi ed landscapes likely represents an important source of biodiversity and ecosystem services for the surrounding farmland (Karp et al 2013;Outhwaite et al 2022).…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…We included percentage of natural habitat in our models because of previous studies indicating the importance of this landscape characteristic on its own (Outhwaite et al 2022) and in interaction with yield (Macchi et al 2020) for determining biodiversity patterns. We extracted for each data point the percentage of natural habitat at that location by using a modi ed version of the land-use estimates from Hoskins et al (2016).…”

Section: Percentage Of Natural Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…For the yield-biodiversity models, we used percentage of natural habitat as a continuous variable and interaction term with yield, land use, biome type and subsistence yield, to account for potentially different biodiversity responses to these variables at different levels of natural habitat (Macchi et al 2020;Outhwaite et al 2022). For the land-conversion models, we used percentage of natural habitat to select sites that were located in pixels with less than 30% natural vegetation ('human-modi ed landscapes'), and pixels with more than 70% natural vegetation ('natural landscapes') (Table S4).…”

Section: Percentage Of Natural Habitatmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…To capture potential differences in the impact of yield increases on cropland and primary vegetation within the same landscape, we included the PREDICTS land-use classi cation as a variable in the models. For the yield-biodiversity models, we used the original land-use classi cation from the PREDICTS database and interaction terms between land use, and yield and percentage of natural vegetation as we expect that these effects will differ depending on local land use (Outhwaite et al 2022). For the land-conversion models, we used the land-use classi cation in combination with percentage of natural habitat, as detailed above.…”

Section: Land Usementioning

confidence: 99%

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Biome type and availability of natural vegetation dictate whether farmland intensification or expansion is worse for biodiversity

Ceausu,

Leclère,

Newbold

2024

Preprint

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To reduce the biodiversity impact of agriculture, increasing yields on existing farmland has been proposed as an alternative to farmland expansion. However, the relative effects of yield increases versus agricultural expansion have mostly been examined regionally, and measured in terms of species persistence—a metric relevant to extinction risk but limited in describing ecological communities and their support for ecosystem services. Without a thorough analysis, the lower biodiversity impacts of agricultural intensification remain largely speculative. This study provides a global assessment of biodiversity responses to land conversion and yield increases, including closing yield gaps. We also compare the biodiversity impacts of expanding farmland versus intensifying yields in agricultural landscapes to achieve a 1% increase in total production. Utilizing a large biodiversity database, natural vegetation data, and agricultural yield estimates at the landscape scale, we assess three biodiversity metrics: species richness, total abundance, and relative community abundance-weighted average range-size (RCAR), which provides a proxy for biotic homogenisation. Our models highlight that land conversion is associated with significant biodiversity loss at both local and landscape scales, emphasizing the importance of avoiding farmland expansion into new landscapes. However, yield also lead to significant biodiversity loss; closing yield gaps is associated with a median species loss of nearly 11%, and median abundance loss of almost 13%, with some agricultural landscapes losing almost 90% of species and more than 90% in abundance. Additionally, 30% of global agricultural landscapes, predominantly in the tropics, are likely to experience increased biotic homogenization. Neither expansion nor intensification is consistently better for biodiversity, with biome type, crop, biodiversity metric, and percentage of natural vegetation influencing which approach is less harmful. Our results suggest that minimising the biodiversity cost of agriculture requires a context-dependent balance between intensification and expansion in agricultural landscapes.

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Section: Discussioncontrasting

confidence: 68%

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%