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Research papers on Drivers of biodiversity loss

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  1. EFFECTS OF BIODIVERSITY ON ECOSYSTEM FUNCTIONING: A CONSENSUS OF CURRENT KNOWLEDGE

    David U. Hooper, F. Stuart Chapin, John J. Ewel, et al. · 2005 · Ecological Monographs · 8,015 citations

    Humans are altering the composition of biological communities through a variety of activities that increase rates of species invasions and species extinctions, at all scales, from local to global. These changes in components of the Earth's biodiversity cause concern for ethical and aesthetic reasons, but they also have a strong potential to alter ecosystem properties and the goods and services they provide to humanity. Ecological experiments, observations, and theoretical developments show that ecosystem properties depend greatly on biodiversity in terms of the functional characteristics of organisms present in the ecosystem and the distribution and abundance of those organisms over space an

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  3. Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity

    Céline Bellard, Cléo Bertelsmeier, Paul Leadley, et al. · 2012 · Ecology Letters · 4,257 citations

    Many studies in recent years have investigated the effects of climate change on the future of biodiversity. In this review, we first examine the different possible effects of climate change that can operate at individual, population, species, community, ecosystem and biome scales, notably showing that species can respond to climate change challenges by shifting their climatic niche along three non-exclusive axes: time (e.g. phenology), space (e.g. range) and self (e.g. physiology). Then, we present the principal specificities and caveats of the most common approaches used to estimate future biodiversity at global and sub-continental scales and we synthesise their results. Finally, we highlig

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  5. Biodiversity Loss Threatens Human Well-Being

    Sandra Dı́az, Joseph Fargione, F. Stuart Chapin, et al. · 2006 · PLoS Biology · 1,535 citations

    Biodiversity lies at the core of ecosystem processes fueling our planet's vital life-support systems; its degradation--by us--is threatening our own well-being and will disproportionately impact the poor.

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  7. The direct drivers of recent global anthropogenic biodiversity loss

    Pedro Jaureguiberry, N. Titeux, M. Wiemers, et al. · 2022 · Science Advances · 1,087 citations

    Effective policies to halt biodiversity loss require knowing which anthropogenic drivers are the most important direct causes. Whereas previous knowledge has been limited in scope and rigor, here we statistically synthesize empirical comparisons of recent driver impacts found through a wide-ranging review. We show that land/sea use change has been the dominant direct driver of recent biodiversity loss worldwide. Direct exploitation of natural resources ranks second and pollution third; climate change and invasive alien species have been significantly less important than the top two drivers. The oceans, where direct exploitation and climate change dominate, have a different driver hierarchy f

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  8. Bending the curve of terrestrial biodiversity needs an integrated strategy

    David Leclère, Michael Obersteiner, Mike Barrett, et al. · 2020 · Nature · 956 citations

    Increased efforts are required to prevent further losses to terrestrial biodiversity and the ecosystem services that it provides1,2. Ambitious targets have been proposed, such as reversing the declining trends in biodiversity3; however, just feeding the growing human population will make this a challenge4. Here we use an ensemble of land-use and biodiversity models to assess whether—and how—humanity can reverse the declines in terrestrial biodiversity caused by habitat conversion, which is a major threat to biodiversity5. We show that immediate efforts, consistent with the broader sustainability agenda but of unprecedented ambition and coordination, could enable the provision of food for the

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  9. Biodiversity impacts and conservation implications of urban land expansion projected to 2050

    Rohan Simkin, Karen C. Seto, Robert I. McDonald, et al. · 2022 · Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences · 814 citations

    As the global urban population is poised to grow by 2.5 billion over the next 30 y, urban land conversions are expected to be an increasingly prominent driver of habitat and biodiversity loss. Mitigating these impacts urgently requires an improved understanding of where and how these biodiversity losses might occur. Here, we use a recently developed suite of land-use projections to provide an assessment of projected habitat that will be lost to urban land expansion for 30,393 species of terrestrial vertebrates from 2015 to 2050 across three shared socioeconomic pathway (SSP) scenarios. We find that urban land expansion is a contributing driver of habitat loss (≥5% of total loss) for around o

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  10. Abandonment of agricultural land: an overview of drivers and consequences.

    José María Rey Beñayas, Ana Martins, J. M. Nicolau, et al. · 2007 · CABI Reviews · 767 citations

    Abstract Agricultural activities and their complex effects on nature conservation, and the services that ecosystems deliver to humans are controversial. We present an overview of land abandonment, its driving forces and its consequences for landscape, biodiversity and humans. A descriptive metaanalysis of independently published studies highlighted the fact that the abandonment of agricultural land is a phenomenon mostly driven by socio-economic factors such as immigration into areas where new economic opportunities are offered to rural people. Ecological drivers such as elevation and land mismanagement leading to soil erosion are of secondary importance. We identified the major problems rel

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  11. GLOBIO3: A Framework to Investigate Options for Reducing Global Terrestrial Biodiversity Loss

    Rob Alkemade, Mark van Oorschot, Lera Miles, et al. · 2009 · Ecosystems · 607 citations

    The GLOBIO3 model has been developed to assess human-induced changes in biodiversity, in the past, present, and future at regional and global scales. The model is built on simple cause–effect relationships between environmental drivers and biodiversity impacts, based on state-of-the-art knowledge. The mean abundance of original species relative to their abundance in undisturbed ecosystems (MSA) is used as the indicator for biodiversity. Changes in drivers are derived from the IMAGE 2.4 model. Drivers considered are land-cover change, land-use intensity, fragmentation, climate change, atmospheric nitrogen deposition, and infrastructure development. GLOBIO3 addresses (i) the impacts of environ

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  15. The Main Drivers of Biodiversity Loss: A Brief Overview

    Hald-Mortensen, Christian · 2023 · Journal of Ecology & Natural Resources · 71 citations

    This paper provides a comprehensive exploration of the primary drivers leading to global biodiversity loss based on recent scientific research. These drivers are agricultural expansion, climate change, marine exploitation, urbanization and the spread of invasive species. The paper examines the significant role of land use change, responsible for endangering 85% of species at risk, largely through habitat transformation. The impacts of climate change on ecosystems are discussed, including ocean warming, acidification, and altered ocean currents; factors that pose challenges for various species. Marine exploitation contributes to the decline of marine species and habitats. The paper also discu

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  16. Land-Use/Land-Cover Change from Socio-Economic Drivers and Their Impact on Biodiversity in Nan Province, Thailand

    Yongyut Trisurat, Hiroaki Shirakawa, John M. Johnston · 2019 · Sustainability · 69 citations

    The rate of deforestation declined steadily in Thailand since the year 2000 due to economic transformation away from forestry. However, these changes did not occur in Nan Province located in northern Thailand. Deforestation is expected to continue due to high demand for forest products and increased agribusiness. The objectives of this paper are (1) to predict land-use change in the province based on trends, market-based and conservation scenarios, (2) to quantify biodiversity, and (3) to identify biodiversity hotspots at greatest risk for future deforestation. This study used a dynamic land-use change model (Dyna-CLUE) to allocate aggregated land demand for three scenarios and employed FRAG

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  17. Dimensions of biodiversity loss: Spatial mismatch in land‐use impacts on species, functional and phylogenetic diversity of European bees

    Adriana De Palma, M. Kuhlmann, R. Bugter, et al. · 2017 · Diversity & Distributions · 49 citations

    Agricultural intensification and urbanization are important drivers of biodiversity change in Europe. Different aspects of bee community diversity vary in their sensitivity to these pressures, as well as independently influencing ecosystem service provision (pollination). To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of human impacts on bee diversity across Europe, we assess multiple, complementary indices of diversity.

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  18. Modeling the Brazilian Cerrado land use change highlights the need to account for private property sizes for biodiversity conservation

    C. Colman, A. Guerra, André Almagro, et al. · 2024 · Scientific Reports · 37 citations

    Simulating future land use changes can be an important tool to support decision-making, especially in areas that are experiencing rapid anthropogenic pressure, such as the Cerrado–Brazilian savanna. Here we used a spatially-explicit model to identify the main drivers of native vegetation loss in the Cerrado and then extrapolate this loss for 2050 and 2070. We also analyzed the role of property size in complex Brazilian environmental laws in determining different outcomes of these projections. Our results show that distance to rivers, roads, and cities, agricultural potential, permanent and annual crop agriculture, and cattle led to observed/historical loss of vegetation, while protected area

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  20. Long-term wetland biomonitoring highlights the differential impact of land use on macroinvertebrate diversity in Dongting Lake in China

    Yan Zhang, Daizhong Huang, Xiaowei Jin, et al. · 2024 · Communications Earth & Environment · 24 citations

    Freshwater wetlands have experienced disproportionate biodiversity loss due to environmental change. The lack of long-term biological data limits our understanding of wetland biodiversity dynamics and principal drivers. Here, we combine aquatic biomonitoring with satellite-derived imagery and spatial-explicit analysis to assess the changes in macroinvertebrate diversity and driving factors from 1988 to 2017 in Dongting Lake, China. The results revealed declining macroinvertebrate alpha diversity (species richness and functional redundancy) but increased beta diversity (taxonomic and functional dissimilarity). An increase in nutrients due to changes in land-use intensity in the surrounding te

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  22. Land-use spillovers from environmental policy interventions

    Diana Ramírez-Mejía, Y. Zinngrebe, E. Ellis, et al. · 2025 · Global Environmental Change · 15 citations

    Environmental policy interventions are crucial for addressing biodiversity loss and climate change, yet their effectiveness can be compromised by land-use spillovers, where efforts to reduce impacts in one place displace them elsewhere. Despite growing recognition of spillovers, they remain unevenly defined, inconsistently measured, and poorly integrated into policy evaluation and accountability frameworks. This systematic review synthesizes current research on land-use spillovers triggered by environmental policies, including carbon pricing, protected areas, supply chain interventions, and payments for ecosystem services. We identify three dominant pathways: leakage, indirect land use chang

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  24. Biodiversity finance: Sovereign biodiversity loss drivers and financial stability

    M. Mies · 2025 · Journal of Industrial Ecology · 14 citations

    This study analyzed the impact of sovereign biodiversity risk drivers on financial stability. Using a global dataset covering 2004–2021, I found empirical evidence that the biodiversity risks land use, drought, and freshwater stocks significantly affect the systemic risk measures SRISK and systemic expected shortfall (SES). This study also found empirical evidence that including non‐financial risks in banks' risk assessments is beneficial for financial stability because lending makes borrowers more aware of sustainability. By providing empirical findings on the influence of country‐specific biodiversity risk drivers on market‐based systemic risk measures, this study provides suggestions for

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