Modelling the impact of native pastures to examine the relative effects of land use change

Land-use change is a direct driver of biodiversity and carbon storage loss. Projections of future land use often include notable expansion of cropland areas in response to changes in climate and food demand, although there are large uncertainties in results between models and scenarios. This study examines these uncertainties by comparing three different socio-economic scenarios (SSP1–3) across three models (IMAGE, GLOBIOM and PLUMv2). It assesses the impacts on biodiversity metrics and direct carbon loss from biomass and soil as a direct consequence of cropland expansion. Results show substantial variation between models and scenarios, with little overlap across all nine projections. Although SSP1 projects the least impact, there are still significant impacts projected. IMAGE and GLOBIOM project the greatest impact across carbon storage and biodiversity metrics due to both extent and location of cropland expansion. Furthermore, for all the biodiversity and carbon metrics used, there is a greater proportion of variance explained by the model used. This demonstrates the importance of improving the accuracy of land-based models. Incorporating effects of land-use change in biodiversity impact assessments would also help better prioritize future protection of biodiverse and carbon-rich areas. This article is part of the theme issue ‘Climate change and ecosystems: threats, opportunities and solutions’.

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Effects of land-use change and altitudinal variation on the outcome of plant-insect interactions in agricultural systems

10.1603/ice.2016.95284 ◽

2016 ◽

Author(s):

Katja Poveda

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Agricultural Systems ◽

Altitudinal Variation ◽

Plant Insect Interactions ◽

Insect Interactions ◽

Effects Of Land Use

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Dynamics of soil organic carbon in the steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan under past and future climate and land use

Regional Environmental Change ◽

10.1007/s10113-021-01799-7 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 21 (3) ◽

Author(s):

Susanne Rolinski ◽

Alexander V. Prishchepov ◽

Georg Guggenberger ◽

Norbert Bischoff ◽

Irina Kurganova ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Climate Change ◽

Land Use ◽

Organic Carbon ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Soil Organic Carbon ◽

Arable Land ◽

Future Climate ◽

Future Climate Change ◽

Climate Scenarios ◽

The Impact

AbstractChanges in land use and climate are the main drivers of change in soil organic matter contents. We investigated the impact of the largest policy-induced land conversion to arable land, the Virgin Lands Campaign (VLC), from 1954 to 1963, of the massive cropland abandonment after 1990 and of climate change on soil organic carbon (SOC) stocks in steppes of Russia and Kazakhstan. We simulated carbon budgets from the pre-VLC period (1900) until 2100 using a dynamic vegetation model to assess the impacts of observed land-use change as well as future climate and land-use change scenarios. The simulations suggest for the entire VLC region (266 million hectares) that the historic cropland expansion resulted in emissions of 1.6⋅ 1015 g (= 1.6 Pg) carbon between 1950 and 1965 compared to 0.6 Pg in a scenario without the expansion. From 1990 to 2100, climate change alone is projected to cause emissions of about 1.8 (± 1.1) Pg carbon. Hypothetical recultivation of the cropland that has been abandoned after the fall of the Soviet Union until 2050 may cause emissions of 3.5 (± 0.9) Pg carbon until 2100, whereas the abandonment of all cropland until 2050 would lead to sequestration of 1.8 (± 1.2) Pg carbon. For the climate scenarios based on SRES (Special Report on Emission Scenarios) emission pathways, SOC declined only moderately for constant land use but substantially with further cropland expansion. The variation of SOC in response to the climate scenarios was smaller than that in response to the land-use scenarios. This suggests that the effects of land-use change on SOC dynamics may become as relevant as those of future climate change in the Eurasian steppes.

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The impact of land-use change on the soil bacterial community in the Loess Plateau, China

Journal of Arid Environments ◽

10.1016/j.jaridenv.2021.104469 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 188 ◽

pp. 104469

Author(s):

Lei Zhang ◽

Junping Lv

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Bacterial Community ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Loess Plateau ◽

Soil Bacterial Community ◽

The Loess Plateau ◽

Soil Bacterial ◽

The Impact

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Effects of Land-Use Change on the Community Structure of the Dung Beetle (Scarabaeinae) in an Altered Ecosystem in Southern Ecuador

Insects ◽

10.3390/insects12040306 ◽

2021 ◽

Vol 12 (4) ◽

pp. 306

Author(s):

Vinicio Carrión-Paladines ◽

Andreas Fries ◽

Andrés Muñoz ◽

Eddy Castillo ◽

Roberto García-Ruiz ◽

...

Keyword(s):

Land Use ◽

Community Structure ◽

Land Use Change ◽

Dung Beetle ◽

Dry Forest ◽

Farm Animals ◽

P Value ◽

Southern Ecuador ◽

Abundance And Diversity ◽

Effects Of Land Use

This study evaluated the effects of land-use change (L-UCH) on dung beetle community structure (Scarabaeinae) in a disturbed dry ecosystem in southern Ecuador. Five different L-UCH classes were analyzed by capturing the dung beetle species at each site using 120 pitfall traps in total. To determine dung beetle abundance and diversity at each L-UCH, a general linear model (GLM) and a redundancy analysis (RDA) were applied, which correlated environmental and edaphic conditions to the community structure. Furthermore, changes in dung-producing vertebrate fauna were examined, which varied significantly between the different L-UCH classes due to the specific anthropogenic use or level of ecosystem disturbance. The results indicated that soil organic matter, pH, potassium, and phosphorus (RDA: component 1), as well as temperature and altitude (RDA: component 2) significantly affect the abundance of beetles (GLM: p value < 0.001), besides the food availability (dung). The highest abundance and diversity (Simpson’s index > 0.4, Shannon-Wiener index > 1.10) was found in highly disturbed sites, where soils were generally more compacted, but with a greater food supply due to the introduced farm animals. At highly disturbed sites, the species Canthon balteatus, Dichotomius problematicus, and Onthphagus confuses were found specifically, which makes them useful as bio-indicators for disturbed dry forest ecosystems in southern Ecuador.

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