Agricultural land use dominates one third of the Earth’s land surface and is the single biggest driver of biodiversity loss. Moreover, with a growing human population and a rising demand for resources, the impact of agricultural land use on biodiversity is projected to escalate. The main goal of this thesis was to gain a deeper understanding of the relationship between agricultural land use and biodiversity on a global scale. In approaching this goal, this thesis aims to bridge three main research gaps. First, while much research has addressed the effect of agricultural expansion on biodiversity, relatively little work has investigated the relationship between the many facets of agricultural intensification and biodiversity. Second, most studies on land use and biodiversity have assessed local to regional scale impacts, whereas few have assessed this relationship on a global scale. This gap is particularly critical in terms of predicting species richness – where environmental factors rather than human driven factors have traditionally been thought to be important in driving and predicting broad-scale patterns of biodiversity. Third, in light of growing future demand for resources, a better understanding is needed regarding the impact of future agricultural land use on biodiversity. This thesis made progress in bridging these research gaps by (i) mapping patterns of multiple metrics of land-use intensity and biodiversity, (ii) improving species- area relationships with the inclusion of land cover and land-use intensity metrics, and (iii) identifying highly biodiverse areas at risk under trajectories of potential future agricultural expansion and intensification. Patterns of land-use intensity metrics were heterogeneously distributed in areas of high biodiversity, suggesting that conservation research should include multiple intensity metrics in order to avoid underestimating biodiversity threat. Furthermore, results show land-use intensity was found to rival biomes in predicting global species richness, thus upgrading one of the most fundamental laws in ecology, and providing an improved understanding of broad-scale species richness patterns. Finally, areas most at-risk under potential future agricultural change were found to be widespread across Latin America and Sub-Saharan America. These results deliver crucial insights in proactively mitigating future potential conflicts in the nexus of biodiversity and land use. Overall, considering the great threat agriculture poses to biodiversity, this thesis highlighted the complexity and importance of land-use intensity in its relationship with biodiversity and uncovered highly biodiverse areas threatened by agricultural land use, both currently and in the future.
THE IMPACT OF URBAN EXPANSION ON AGRICULTURAL LAND USE CHANGES IN ALIGARH, UTTAR PRADESH, INDIA