The direct drivers of recent global anthropogenic biodiversity loss

Abstract

Effective policies to halt biodiversity loss require knowing which anthropogenic drivers are the most important direct causes. Whereas previous knowledge has been limited in scope and rigor, here we statistically synthesize empirical comparisons of recent driver impacts found through a wide-ranging review. We show that land/sea use change has been the dominant direct driver of recent biodiversity loss worldwide. Direct exploitation of natural resources ranks second and pollution third; climate change and invasive alien species have been significantly less important than the top two drivers. The oceans, where direct exploitation and climate change dominate, have a different driver hierarchy from land and fresh water. It also varies among types of biodiversity indicators. For example, climate change is a more important driver of community composition change than of changes in species populations. Stopping global biodiversity loss requires policies and actions to tackle all the major drivers and their interactions, not some of them in isolation.

Land use and soil characteristics affect soil organisms differently from above-ground assemblages

“…Land use-the recent main driver of biodiversity loss worldwide [1,2]-affects soil assemblages differently from those above ground. As hypothesised, croplandwhere tillage, pesticides and fertilisers disturb soil biodiversity [31,32]-reduces abundance even more in the soil than above ground.…”

“…Author details 1 Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP, and the Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College, London, UK. 2 Natural History Museum, London, UK. 3 United Nations Environment Programme World Conservation Monitoring Centre, Cambridge, UK.…”

“…Terrestrial biodiversity continues to decline globally in the face of increasing human impacts [1], with land-use change and intensification the biggest driver of recent biodiversity loss [2]. Species extinction rates are estimated to be around 10-1000 times higher than the background rate [3], with 1 million plant and animal species threatened with extinction and the Living Planet Index (which reflects trends in vertebrate population size) declined by 69% between 1970 and 2022 [4].…”

“…For example, using land to rear livestock may impact soil structure much less than aboveground habitat structure, while soil organisms may take longer than above-ground taxa to recolonise sites recovering from physical soil disturbance [27][28][29]. (2) Because physical properties of soil, such as pH and soil texture, themselves mediate the impacts of land use microenvironments, we expect these properties to influence assemblage responses to land use. For instance, moisture retention by clay-rich soils may mitigate the warming and drying effects of agriculture.…”

Curtailing the collapse of the living world

“…For example, three decades of global change research has shown that biodiversity conservation can improve the magnitude and resiliency of many ecosystem functions and services, such as providing a large pool for carbon sequestration and storage for climate mitigation. Second, advances in global change biology have pinpointed the primary drivers of biodiversity loss, the most prominent being land/sea use change, overexploitation of marine and natural resources, and pollution, with climate change and invasive species contributing significantly but to a lesser degree ( 1 ). Such findings provide clear guidance for policy development.…”