hide
Free keywords:
-
Abstract:
Human activities, especially conversion and degradation of habitats, are causing global biodiversity declines. How local
ecological assemblages are responding is less clear—a concern given their importance for many ecosystem functions and
services.We analysed a terrestrial assemblage database of unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage to quantify
local biodiversity responses to land use and related changes. Here we show that in the worst-affected habitats, these
pressures reducewithin-sample species richness by anaverage of 76.5%,total abundance by 39.5%andrarefaction-based
richness by 40.3%. We estimate that, globally, these pressures have already slightly reduced average within-sample
richness (by 13.6%), total abundance (10.7%) and rarefaction-based richness (8.1%), with changes showing marked
spatial variation. Rapid further losses are predicted under a business-as-usual land-use scenario; within-sample
richness is projected to fall by a further 3.4% globally by 2100, with losses concentrated in biodiverse but economically
poor countries. Strongmitigationcan delivermuchmore positive biodiversity changes (up to a 1.9%average increase) that are less strongly related to countries’ socioeconomic status.
