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Alternative pathways to a sustainable future lead to contrasting biodiversity responses
- Source :
- Global Ecology and Conservation, Vol 22, Iss, Pp-(2020)
- Publication Year :
- 2020
- Publisher :
- Elsevier, 2020.
-
Abstract
- Land-use change is currently the main driver of biodiversity loss. Projections of land-use change are often used to estimate potential impacts on biodiversity of future pathways of human development. However, such analyses frequently neglect that species can persist in human-modified habitats. Our aim was to estimate changes in biodiversity, considering affinities for multiple habitats, for three different land-use scenarios. Two scenarios focused on more sustainable trajectories of land-use change, based on either technological improvements (Pathway A) or societal changes (Pathway B), and the third reflected the historical or business-as-usual trends (Pathway 0). Using Portugal as a case study, we produced spatially-explicit projections of land-use change based on these pathways, and then we assessed the resulting changes in bird species richness and composition projected to occur by 2050 in each of the scenarios. By 2050, alpha and gamma diversity were projected to decrease, relative to 2010, in Pathway 0 and increase in Pathways A and B. However, different pathways favored different species groups, and presented strong regional differences. In the technological improvement pathway, loss of extensive agricultural areas led to an increase in both natural and extensive forest areas. In this pathway, forest species increase at the expense of farmland species, while in the societal change pathway the reverse occurs, as extensive agricultural areas were projected to increase. We show that while multiple positive pathways (A and B) for biodiversity can be envisioned, they will lead to differential impacts on biodiversity depending on the transformational changes in place and the regional socio-economic context. Our results suggest that considering compositional aspects of biodiversity can be critical in choosing the appropriate regional land-use policies.
- Subjects :
- 0106 biological sciences
Species groups
Gamma diversity
Natural resource economics
Biodiversity
Land-use change
010603 evolutionary biology
01 natural sciences
Scenarios
lcsh:QH540-549.5
Ecology, Evolution, Behavior and Systematics
Nature and Landscape Conservation
2. Zero hunger
Biodiversity change
Ecology
Portugal
business.industry
010604 marine biology & hydrobiology
15. Life on land
Geography
Bird diversity
Habitat
13. Climate action
Agriculture
Biodiversity modeling
Species richness
sense organs
lcsh:Ecology
business
Regional differences
Subjects
Details
- Language :
- English
- ISSN :
- 23519894
- Volume :
- 22
- Database :
- OpenAIRE
- Journal :
- Global Ecology and Conservation
- Accession number :
- edsair.doi.dedup.....fc777dd584f42cb26cf1a87227c104b7