Future effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate community diversity under different scenarios

Land-use and climate change are among the greatest threats facing biodiversity, but understanding their combined effects has been hampered by modelling and data limitations, resulting in part from the very different scales at which land-use and climate processes operate. I combine two different modelling paradigms to predict the separate and combined (additive) effects of climate and land-use change on terrestrial vertebrate communities under four different scenarios. I predict that climate-change effects are likely to become a major pressure on biodiversity in the coming decades, probably matching or exceeding the effects of land-use change by 2070. The combined effects of both pressures are predicted to lead to an average cumulative loss of 37.9% of species from vertebrate communities under ‘business as usual’ (uncertainty ranging from 15.7% to 54.2%). Areas that are predicted to experience the effects of both pressures are concentrated in tropical grasslands and savannahs. The results have important implications for the conservation of biodiversity in future, and for the ability of biodiversity to support important ecosystem functions, upon which humans rely.

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CLIMATE CHANGE AND FUTURE LAND USE IN THE UNITED STATES: AN ECONOMIC APPROACH

Climate Change Economics ◽

10.1142/s2010007811000218 ◽

2011 ◽

Vol 02 (01) ◽

pp. 27-51 ◽

Cited By ~ 26

Author(s):

DAVID HAIM ◽

RALPH J. ALIG ◽

ANDREW J. PLANTINGA ◽

BRENT SOHNGEN

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

United States ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Land Use Changes ◽

The United States ◽

Land Use Patterns ◽

Cropland Area ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Net Returns

An econometric land-use model is used to project regional and national land-use changes in the United States under two IPCC emissions scenarios. The key driver of land-use change in the model is county-level measures of net returns to five major land uses. The net returns are modified for the IPCC scenarios according to assumed trends in population and income and projections from integrated assessment models of agricultural prices and agricultural and forestry yields. For both scenarios, we project large increases in urban land by the middle of the century, while the largest declines are in cropland area. Significant differences among regions in the projected patterns of land-use change are evident, including an expansion of forests in the Mountain and Plains regions with declines elsewhere. Comparisons to projections with no climate change effects on prices and yields reveal relatively small differences. Thus, our findings suggest that future land-use patterns in the U.S. will be shaped largely by urbanization, with climate change having a relatively small influence.

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Comprehensive Assessment of the Effect of Urban Built-Up Land Expansion and Climate Change on Net Primary Productivity

Complexity ◽

10.1155/2020/8489025 ◽

2020 ◽

Vol 2020 ◽

pp. 1-12 ◽

Cited By ~ 5

Author(s):

Pengyan Zhang ◽

Yanyan Li ◽

Wenlong Jing ◽

Dan Yang ◽

Yu Zhang ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Primary Productivity ◽

Net Primary Productivity ◽

Urban Expansion ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Rapid Urbanization ◽

Important Indicator ◽

The Impact

Urbanization is causing profound changes in ecosystem functions at local and regional scales. The net primary productivity (NPP) is an important indicator of global change, rapid urbanization and climate change will have a significant impact on NPP, and urban expansion and climate change in different regions have different impacts on NPP, especially in densely populated areas. However, to date, efforts to quantify urban expansion and climate change have been limited, and the impact of long-term continuous changes in NPP has not been well understood. Based on land use data, night light data, NPP data, climate data, and a series of social and economic data, we performed a comprehensive analysis of land use change in terms of type and intensity and explored the pattern of urban expansion and its relationship with NPP and climate change for the period of 2000–2015, taking Zhengzhou, China, as an example. The results show that the major form of land use change was cropland to built-up land during the 2000–2015 period, with a total area of 367.51 km2 converted. The NPP exhibited a generally increasing trend in the study area except for built-up land and water area. The average correlation coefficients between temperature and NPP and precipitation and NPP were 0.267 and 0.020, respectively, indicating that an increase in temperature and precipitation can promote NPP despite significant spatial differences. During the examined period, most expansion areas exhibited an increasing NPP trend, indicating that the influence of urban expansion on NPP is mainly characterized by an evident influence of the expansion area. The study can provide a reference for Zhengzhou and even the world's practical research to improve land use efficiency, increase agricultural productivity and natural carbon sinks, and maintain low-carbon development.

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A global overview of studies about land management, land‐use change, and climate change effects on soil organic carbon

Global Change Biology ◽

10.1111/gcb.15998 ◽

2021 ◽

Author(s):

Damien Beillouin ◽

Rémi Cardinael ◽

David Berre ◽

Annie Boyer ◽

Marc Corbeels ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Organic Carbon ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Soil Organic Carbon ◽

Land Management ◽

Climate Change Effects

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Understanding and predicting the combined effects of climate change and land-use change on freshwater macroinvertebrates and fish

Journal of Applied Ecology ◽

10.1111/1365-2664.12236 ◽

2014 ◽

Vol 51 (3) ◽

pp. 572-581 ◽

Cited By ~ 91

Author(s):

Chrystal S. Mantyka-Pringle ◽

Tara G. Martin ◽

David B. Moffatt ◽

Simon Linke ◽

Jonathan R. Rhodes

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Combined Effects ◽

Freshwater Macroinvertebrates

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Exploring interaction effects from mechanisms between climate and land-use changes and the projected consequences on biodiversity

Biodiversity and Conservation ◽

10.1007/s10531-021-02271-y ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 30 (12) ◽

pp. 3685-3696

Author(s):

Sarahi Nunez ◽

Rob Alkemade

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Temperature Increase ◽

Meta Analysis ◽

Interaction Effects ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Global Mean Temperature ◽

Mean Temperature ◽

Global Mean

AbstractChanges in climate and land use are major drivers of biodiversity loss. These drivers likely interact and their mutual effects alter biodiversity. These interaction mechanisms are rarely considered in biodiversity assessments, as only the combined individual effects are reported. In this study, we explored interaction effects from mechanisms that potentially affect biodiversity under climate change. These mechanisms entail that climate-change effects on, for example, species abundance and species’ range shifts depend on land-use change. Similarly, land-use change impacts are contingent on climate change. We explored interaction effects from four mechanisms and projected their consequences on biodiversity. These interactions arise if species adapted to modified landscapes (e.g. cropland) differ in their sensitivity to climate change from species adapted to natural landscapes. We verified these interaction effects by performing a systematic literature review and meta-analysis of 42 bioclimatic studies (with different increases in global mean temperature) on species distributions in landscapes with varying cropland levels. We used the Fraction of Remaining Species as the effect-size metric in this meta-analysis. The influence of global mean temperature increase on FRS did not significantly change with different cropland levels. This finding excluded interaction effects between climate and landscapes that are modified by other land uses than cropping. Although we only assessed coarse climate and land-use patterns, global mean temperature increase was a good, significant model predictor for biodiversity decline. This emphasizes the need to analyse interactions between land-use and climate-change effects on biodiversity simultaneously in other modified landscapes. Such analyses should also integrate other conditions, such as spatial location, adaptive capacity and time lags. Understanding all these interaction mechanisms and other conditions will help to better project future biodiversity trends and to develop coping strategies for biodiversity conservation.

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Evidence of Microbial Regulation of Biogeochemical Cycles from a Study on Methane Flux and Land Use Change

Applied and Environmental Microbiology ◽

10.1128/aem.00095-13 ◽

2013 ◽

Vol 79 (13) ◽

pp. 4031-4040 ◽

Cited By ~ 52

Author(s):

Loïc Nazaries ◽

Yao Pan ◽

Levente Bodrossy ◽

Elizabeth M. Baggs ◽

Peter Millard ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Microbial Communities ◽

Climate Models ◽

Methane Flux ◽

Biogeochemical Cycles ◽

Stable Isotope Probing ◽

Community Diversity ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Atmospheric Methane

ABSTRACTMicrobes play an essential role in ecosystem functions, including carrying out biogeochemical cycles, but are currently considered a black box in predictive models and all global biodiversity debates. This is due to (i) perceived temporal and spatial variations in microbial communities and (ii) lack of ecological theory explaining how microbes regulate ecosystem functions. Providing evidence of the microbial regulation of biogeochemical cycles is key for predicting ecosystem functions, including greenhouse gas fluxes, under current and future climate scenarios. Using functional measures, stable-isotope probing, and molecular methods, we show that microbial (community diversity and function) response to land use change is stable over time. We investigated the change in net methane flux and associated microbial communities due to afforestation of bog, grassland, and moorland. Afforestation resulted in the stable and consistent enhancement in sink of atmospheric methane at all sites. This change in function was linked to a niche-specific separation of microbial communities (methanotrophs). The results suggest that ecological theories developed for macroecology may explain the microbial regulation of the methane cycle. Our findings provide support for the explicit consideration of microbial data in ecosystem/climate models to improve predictions of biogeochemical cycles.

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Climate change and intensive land use reduce soil animal biomass through dissimilar pathways

10.1101/2020.01.26.920330 ◽

2020 ◽

Author(s):

Rui Yin ◽

Julia Siebert ◽

Nico Eisenhauer ◽

Martin Schädler

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Body Size ◽

Global Change ◽

Ecosystem Functions ◽

Soil Animal ◽

Climate Change Effects ◽

Independent Effects ◽

Density And Biomass ◽

Intensive Land Use

AbstractGlobal change drivers, such as climate and land use, may profoundly influence body size, density, and biomass of organisms. It is still poorly understood how these concurrent drivers interact in affecting ecological communities. We present results of an experimental field study assessing the interactive effects of climate change and land-use intensification on body size, density, and biomass of soil microarthropods. We found that both climate change and intensive land use decreased their total biomass. Strikingly, this reduction was realized via two dissimilar pathways: climate change reduced mean body size, while intensive land use decreased population size. These findings highlight that two of the most pervasive global change drivers operate via different pathways when decreasing soil animal biomass. These shifts in soil communities may threaten essential ecosystem functions like organic matter turnover and nutrient cycling in future ecosystems.SignificanceMany important ecosystem functions are determined by the biomass of soil animal, however, how their biomass may respond to climate change and land-use intensification still remains unknown. We conducted a large field study to investigate the potential interaction between these two pervasive global change drivers, and disentangle the pathways where they contribute to the changes in soil animal biomass. Our findings are exceptionally novel by showing detrimental, but largely independent, effects of climate change and land-use intensity on soil animal biomass, and that these independent effects can be explained by two dissimilar pathways: climate change reduced mean body size, while intensive land use decreased population size. Notably, consistent climate change effects under different land-use regimes suggest that (1) the identified pathways may apply to a wide range of environmental conditions, and (2) current extensive land-use regimes do not mitigate detrimental climate change effects on ecosystems.

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