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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 · 7,959 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

  3. Impacts of climate change on the future of biodiversity

    Céline Bellard, Cléo Bertelsmeier, Paul Leadley, et al. · 2012 · Ecology Letters · 4,197 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

  4. Biodiversity Loss Threatens Human Well-Being

    Sandra Dı́az, Joseph Fargione, F. Stuart Chapin, et al. · 2006 · PLoS Biology · 1,520 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.

  7. The direct drivers of recent global anthropogenic biodiversity loss

    Pedro Jaureguiberry, Nicolas Titeux, Martin Wiemers, et al. · 2022 · Science Advances · 1,041 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

  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 · 791 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

  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 · 760 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

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

    Rob Alkemade, Mark van Oorschot, Lera Miles, et al. · 2009 · Ecosystems · 601 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

  15. 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

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

    Hald-Mortensen, Christian · 2023 · Journal of Ecology & Natural Resources · 38 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

  20. Land Use and Water Stress as Determinants of Ecosystem Resilience: A Panel Data Analysis of Biodiversity Loss Drivers in European Countries

    Irina Georgescu, Mioara Băncescu · 2025 · Land · 4 citations

    This study evaluates the influence of land use and water stress on ecosystem resilience, using panel data for thirty-three European countries from 2007 to 2024, following the identification of a research gap in the literature on this topic. The dependent variable is the bioclimatic ecosystem resilience index (BER), and the explanatory variables are Agricultural Land Share (ALS), Forest Land Share (FLS), and the Level of Water Stress (WS). The estimated models are a fixed-effects panel regression with Driscoll-Kraay standard errors, robust to autocorrelation, heteroscedasticity, and spatial dependence, and a kernel-based regularized least squares model, which offers a new, nonlinear, heteroge

  23. Land Tenure, Socio-Economic Drivers, and Multi-Decadal Land Use and Land Cover Change in the Taita Hills, Kenya

    Hamisi Tsama Mkuzi, Maarifa Ali Mwakumanya, Tobias Bendzko, et al. · 2025 · Wild

    Understanding how land tenure and socio-economic pressures shape landscape transformation is critical for sustainable management in biodiversity-rich regions. This study examines three decades (1987–2017) of land use and land cover (LU&LC) change in the Ngerenyi area of the Taita Hills, Kenya, by integrating multispectral Landsat analysis with household survey data. Harmonized pre-processing and supervised classification of four LU&LC classes, agriculture, built-up areas, high-canopy vegetation, and low-canopy vegetation, achieved overall accuracies above 80% and Kappa values exceeding 0.75. Transition modeling using the Minimum Information Loss Transition Estimation (MILTE) approach

  24. Plant Diversity and Carbon Storage Potential Across Different Land Use Types in Infrastructure Development Landscapes in Cameroon: Implications for no Net Loss of Biodiversity

    Nforbelie LN, Sonke B, Fongod AG · 2025 · Journal of Energy and Environmental Science

    This study investigated biodiversity change and carbon storage potential of different land use types in infrastructure development landscapes in Cameroon, focusing on the Dibombe Hydropower Project area in the Littoral Region of the Country. Line transects were used to collect flora inventory data in seven different land use types. We assessed flora diversity, aboveground biomass (AGB), and the presence of threatened species across various land use types, including riparian forests, cocoa plantations, fallow land, and croplands. Our findings reveal rich biodiversity across the study area, with forests harbouring the highest species diversity (159 species, Simpson Diversity Index of 0.92). Co

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