Application of land-use simulation to protected area selection for efficient avoidance of biodiversity loss in Canada’s western boreal region

To reframe the imperfect review processes of nation-scale actions on area-based conservation through protected area (PA) networks, we first created novel infrastructure to visualize nation-level biodiversity information in Japan. We then assessed the performance of the existing PA network relative to land exploitation pressure and evaluated conservation effectiveness of PA expansion for the post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework. The Zonation algorithm was used to spatially prioritize conservation areas to minimize biodiversity loss and the extinction risk for 8,500 Japanese vascular plant and vertebrate species under constraints of the existing PA network and land use. The spatial pattern of the identified priority areas, which were considered candidate areas for expansion of the current PA network, was influenced by land-use types according to the mask layers of non-PAs, and low-, middle-, and high-ranked PAs. The current PA network reduced the aggregate extinction risk of multiple species by 36.6%. Indeed, the percentage of built-up areas in the existing PAs was in general smaller than that in the areas surrounding PAs. Notably, high-ranked PAs fully restrained built-up pressure (0.037% per 10 years), whereas low-ranked PAs in the national park and wild-life protection areas did not (1.845% per 10 years). Conservation effects were predicted to substantially improve by expansion of high-ranked (legally strict) PAs into remote non-PAs without population/socio-economic activities, or expansion of medium-ranked PAs into agriculture forestry satoyama and urban areas. A 30% land conservation target was predicted to decrease extinction risk by 74.1% when PA expansion was implemented across remote areas, satoyama, and urban areas; moreover, PA connectivity almost doubled compared with the existing PA network. In contrast, a conventional scenario showed that placing national parks in state-owned and non-populated areas would reduce extinction risk by only 4.0%. The conservation prioritization analyses demonstrated an effectiveness of using a comprehensive conservation approach that reconciles land-sparing protection and land-sharing conservation in other effective area-based conservation measures (OECM) in satoyama and urban green spaces. Our results revealed that complementary inclusion of various PAs interventions related to their governance and land-use planning plays a critical role in effectively preventing biodiversity loss and makes it more feasible to achieve ambitious conservation targets.

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Twenty-Three Years of Land-Use Changes Induced Considerable Threats to the Main Wetlands of Sardinia and Sicily (Italy) along the Mediterranean Bird Flyways

Diversity ◽

10.3390/d13060240 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (6) ◽

pp. 240

Author(s):

Alessandro Ferrarini ◽

Marco Gustin ◽

Claudio Celada

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Habitat Degradation ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Natura 2000 ◽

Global Level ◽

Natura 2000 Network ◽

Stopover Sites ◽

The Mediterranean ◽

Agricultural Areas

Biodiversity loss has multiple causes, but habitat degradation through land-use change is the predominant driver. We investigated the effectiveness of the Natura 2000 network in preserving the main wetlands of the two largest islands of the Mediterranean region, whose conservation is critical for many avian species at European and global level, in a 23-year period (1990–2012). In Sardinia, the surroundings of 22 wetlands were affected by an increase in artificial areas (+64 ha/year) and decrease in agricultural (−54 ha/year) and natural (−17 ha/year) ones. In Sicily, the surroundings of 16 wetlands were impacted by an increase in agricultural areas (+50 ha/year) and decrease in natural and semi-natural ones (−62 ha/year). Results show that the Natura 2000 policies were effective in preserving wetlands (no shrinkages detected in both regions), but their surroundings experienced intense processes of degradation and artificialization in all the sub-periods considered (1990–2000, 2000–2006, 2006–2012), whose effects are now threatening waterbirds and wetland integrity. The enlargement of the existing Natura 2000 sites, the creation of new ones and the speedup of the application of the rules of the Habitats and Birds Directives seem necessary to counteract the rapid land-use changes around these important stopover sites.

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Assessing Habitat Vulnerability and Loss of Naturalness: Applying the GLOBIO3 Model in the Czech Republic

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su13105355 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 13 (10) ◽

pp. 5355

Author(s):

Vilém Pechanec ◽

Ondřej Cudlín ◽

Miloš Zapletal ◽

Jan Purkyt ◽

Lenka Štěrbová ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Czech Republic ◽

Habitat Quality ◽

Species Abundance ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Infrastructure Development ◽

Natural Habitats ◽

The Czech Republic ◽

New Equation ◽

The Impact

Global and regional biodiversity loss is caused by several drivers including urban development, land use intensification, overexploitation of natural resources, environmental pollution, and climate change. The main aim of our study was to adapt the GLOBIO3 model to the conditions of the Czech Republic (CR) to assess loss of naturalness and biodiversity vulnerability at the habitat level on a detailed scale across the entire CR. An additional aim was to assess the main drivers affecting the biodiversity of habitat types. The GLOBIO3 model was adapted to CZ-GLOBIO by adapting global to local scales and using habitat quality and naturalness data instead of species occurrence data. The total mean species abundance (MSA) index of habitat quality, calculated from the spatial overlay of the four MSA indicators by our new equation, reached the value 0.62. The total value of MSA for natural and near-natural habitats was found to be affected mainly by infrastructure development and fragmentation. Simultaneously, intensity of land use change and atmospheric nitrogen deposition contributed primarily to the low total value of MSA for distant natural habitats. The CZ-GLOBIO model can be an important tool in political decision making to reduce the impact of the main drivers on habitat biodiversity in the CR.

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Extinction Risk Assessment of the Greek Endemic Flora

Biology ◽

10.3390/biology10030195 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 10 (3) ◽

pp. 195 ◽

Cited By ~ 2

Author(s):

Konstantinos Kougioumoutzis ◽

Ioannis P. Kokkoris ◽

Maria Panitsa ◽

Arne Strid ◽

Panayotis Dimopoulos

Keyword(s):

Risk Assessment ◽

Land Use ◽

Protected Area ◽

Extinction Risk ◽

Endemic Plant ◽

The Past ◽

Extinction Risk Assessment ◽

Endemic Flora ◽

Biodiversity Decline ◽

Iucn Criteria

Human-induced biodiversity decline has been on the rise for the past 250 years, due to various causes. What is equally troubling, is that we are unaware which plants are threatened and where they occur. Thus, we are far from reaching Aichi Biodiversity Target 2, i.e., assessing the extinction risk of most species. To that end, based on an extensive occurrence dataset, we performed an extinction risk assessment according to the IUCN Criteria A and B for all the endemic plant taxa occurring in Greece, one of the most biodiverse countries in Europe, in a phylogenetically-informed framework and identified the areas needing conservation prioritization. Several of the Greek endemics are threatened with extinction and fourteen endemics need to be prioritized, as they are evolutionary distinct and globally endangered. Mt. Gramos is identified as the most important conservation hotspot in Greece. However, a significant portion of the identified conservation hotspots is not included in any designated Greek protected area, meaning that the Greek protected areas network might need to be at least partially redesigned. In the Anthropocene era, where climate and land-use change are projected to alter biodiversity patterns and may force many species to extinction, our assessment provides the baseline for future conservation research, ecosystem services maintenance, and might prove crucial for the timely, systematic and effective aversion of plant extinctions in Greece.

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Mistletoes in a changing world: a premonition of a non-analog future?

Botany ◽

10.1139/cjb-2019-0195 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 98 (9) ◽

pp. 479-488

Author(s):

Francisco E. Fontúrbel

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Global Scale ◽

Ecological Interactions ◽

Human Disturbances ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Long Run ◽

Plant Animal Interactions ◽

Changing World

Mistletoes are a group of flowering plants that have developed a parasitic lifeform through complex eco-evolutionary processes. Despite being considered a pest, mistletoes represent a keystone forest resource and are involved in complex plant–plant and plant–animal interactions. Their parasitic lifeform and specialized ecological interactions make mistletoes an ideal model with which to understand the effects of anthropogenic disturbances in a changing world. The accelerated growth of the human population has altered all ecosystems on Earth, leading to biodiversity loss. Land-use changes (involving habitat loss, fragmentation, degradation, and transformation processes) can alter the ecological scenario for mistletoe by altering hosts, mutualists, and nutrient cycling. Those changes may have large consequences at the community level, changing the spatial structure of mistletoes, as well as interaction effectiveness, facilitation process, interaction disruption, and novel interactions with invasive species, leading to non-analog communities in the long run. Furthermore, climate change effects operate on a global scale, enhancing the effects of land-use changes. As temperatures increase, many species would alter their distribution and phenology, potentially causing spatial and temporal mismatches. But more critical is the fact that water stress is likely to disrupt key ecological interactions. Thus, mistletoes can provide valuable insights for what we can expect in the future, as a result of human disturbances.

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Contrasting responses of above- and belowground diversity to multiple components of land-use intensity

Nature Communications ◽

10.1038/s41467-021-23931-1 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (1) ◽

Author(s):

Gaëtane Le Provost ◽

Jan Thiele ◽

Catrin Westphal ◽

Caterina Penone ◽

Eric Allan ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Forest Cover ◽

Spatial Scales ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Trophic Levels ◽

Land Use Intensity ◽

Trophic Groups ◽

Multiple Components ◽

Belowground Diversity ◽

Landscape Level

AbstractLand-use intensification is a major driver of biodiversity loss. However, understanding how different components of land use drive biodiversity loss requires the investigation of multiple trophic levels across spatial scales. Using data from 150 agricultural grasslands in central Europe, we assess the influence of multiple components of local- and landscape-level land use on more than 4,000 above- and belowground taxa, spanning 20 trophic groups. Plot-level land-use intensity is strongly and negatively associated with aboveground trophic groups, but positively or not associated with belowground trophic groups. Meanwhile, both above- and belowground trophic groups respond to landscape-level land use, but to different drivers: aboveground diversity of grasslands is promoted by diverse surrounding land-cover, while belowground diversity is positively related to a high permanent forest cover in the surrounding landscape. These results highlight a role of landscape-level land use in shaping belowground communities, and suggest that revised agroecosystem management strategies are needed to conserve whole-ecosystem biodiversity.

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Terrestrial Vertebrate Biodiversity Loss under Future Global Land Use Change Scenarios

Sustainability ◽

10.3390/su10082764 ◽

2018 ◽

Vol 10 (8) ◽

pp. 2764 ◽

Cited By ~ 17

Author(s):

Abhishek Chaudhary ◽

Arne Mooers

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Low Income ◽

National Development ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Mitigation Measures ◽

Climate Mitigation ◽

Meat Production ◽

Diversity Loss ◽

Global Biodiversity

Efficient forward-looking mitigation measures are needed to halt the global biodiversity decline. These require spatially explicit scenarios of expected changes in multiple indicators of biodiversity under future socio-economic and environmental conditions. Here, we link six future (2050 and 2100) global gridded maps (0.25° × 0.25° resolution) available from the land use harmonization (LUH) database, representing alternative concentration pathways (RCP) and shared socio-economic pathways (SSPs), with the countryside species–area relationship model to project the future land use change driven rates of species extinctions and phylogenetic diversity loss (in million years) for mammals, birds, and amphibians in each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregions and 176 countries and compare them with the current (1900–2015) and past (850–1900) rates of biodiversity loss. Future land-use changes are projected to commit an additional 209–818 endemic species and 1190–4402 million years of evolutionary history to extinction by 2100 depending upon the scenario. These estimates are driven by land use change only and would likely be higher once the direct effects of climate change on species are included. Among the three taxa, highest diversity loss is projected for amphibians. We found that the most aggressive climate mitigation scenario (RCP2.6 SSP-1), representing a world shifting towards a radically more sustainable path, including increasing crop yields, reduced meat production, and reduced tropical deforestation coupled with high trade, projects the lowest land use change driven global biodiversity loss. The results show that hotspots of future biodiversity loss differ depending upon the scenario, taxon, and metric considered. Future extinctions could potentially be reduced if habitat preservation is incorporated into national development plans, especially for biodiverse, low-income countries such as Indonesia, Madagascar, Tanzania, Philippines, and The Democratic Republic of Congo that are otherwise projected to suffer a high number of land use change driven extinctions under all scenarios.

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Biodiversity loss under existing land use and climate change: an illustration using northern South America

Global Ecology and Biogeography ◽

10.1111/j.1466-8238.2006.00278.x ◽

2007 ◽

Vol 16 (2) ◽

pp. 197-204 ◽

Cited By ~ 25

Author(s):

Paul A. T. Higgins

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

South America ◽

Biodiversity Loss ◽

Northern South America

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Pola Perubahan Penggunaan Lahan Sub Sub Daerah Aliran Sungai (DAS) Cikujang

Rona Teknik Pertanian ◽

10.17969/rtp.v9i2.5651 ◽

2016 ◽

Vol 9 (2) ◽

pp. 147-156

Author(s):

Devianti Devianti

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Protected Area ◽

Catchment Area ◽

Rice Field ◽

Secondary Forest ◽

Forest Area ◽

Primary Forest ◽

Change Pattern ◽

Changing Rate

Abstrak. Sub Sub DAS Cikujang merupakan salah satu bagian dari Sub DAS Cimanuk hulu yang dapat menyumbang sedimen ke waduk Jatigede yang berasal dari erosi sebagai akibat perubahan penggunaan lahan yang tidak sesuai dengan kondisi fisik lahan. Hasil kajian memperlihatkan pola perubahan penggunaan lahan di Sub Sub DAS Cikujang periode 1994-2009, terjadi perubahan penggunaan lahan dari kawasan lindung menjadi kawasan budidaya seluas 742,20 ha. Kawasan lindung pada tahun 1994 seluas 3.213,03 ha menurun menjadi 2.470,83 ha pada tahun 2009 dan kawasan budidaya pada tahun 1994 seluas 9.532,41 ha meningkat menjadi 10.274,61 ha pada tahun 2009 dengan laju perubahan 185,55 ha/tahun. Laju penurunan luasan hutan primer mencapai 54,45 ha/tahun, dan pada tahun 2009 tidak terdapat lagi lahan dengan fungsi sebagai hutan primer. Laju penurunan luasan hutan sekunder mencapai 135,90 ha/tahun dari 2.995,25 ha pada tahun 1994 menjadi 2.451,65 ha pada tahun 2009. Pola perubahan penggunaan lahan di Sub Sub DAS Cikujang sebagian besar dipengaruhi dengan pola perubahan hutan primer dan hutan sekunder pada kawasan lindung. Sedangkan pola perubahan penggunaan lahan pada kawasan budidaya dipengaruhi pola perubahan lahan kebun campuran, tegalan/ladang, perkebunan, dan sawah Land-Use Change Pattern in Cikujang Catchment Area Abstract. Cikujang catchment area is one part of the subzone Cimanuk that can contribute sediment upstream reservoirs to Jatigede derived from erosion as a result of changes in land use that is not in accordance with the physical condition of the land. Based on analysis result of land-use change pattern in Cikujang catchment area in 1994 – 2009 period, land-use had changed 742,20ha from protected areas to cultivated areas, where protected area had decreased from 3.213,03ha in 1994 to 2.470,83ha in 2009 and cultivated area had increased from 10.274,61 ha in 1994 to10.274,61 ha in 2009 with changing rate ha/year. The rate of decreasing primary forest area was 54.45ha/year, as a result there was no land function as primary forest in 2009. The rate of decreasing secondary forest area was 135,90ha/year ranging from 2.995,25ha in 1994 to 2.451,65ha in 2009. Land-use change pattern in Cikujang catchment area dominantly was influenced by changing pattern of protected forest and secondary forest in protected area, but in cultivated area land-use change pattern was influenced by changing pattern of farm, grassland, and rice field.

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