scispace - formally typeset
Search or ask a question
Journal Article•DOI•

The legacy of past human land use in current patterns of mammal distribution

Ester Polaina1, Manuela González-Suárez2, Manuela González-Suárez1, Eloy Revilla1•
Spanish National Research Council1, University of Reading2
01 Oct 2019-Ecography (Wiley)-Vol. 42, Iss: 10, pp 1623-1635
TL;DR: In this paper, the role of past land-use modifications in the current distribution and conservation status of mammals worldwide using spatial data characterizing human land use from c.6000 to c.2000 was evaluated.
Abstract: Multiple environmental factors are known to shape species distributions at the global scale, including climate and topography, but understanding current extents of occurrence and biodiversity patterns requires considering anthropogenic factors as well. Numerous studies have explored the relationship between contemporary human activities and different biodiversity metrics, but the influence of past activities, such as land-use, remains poorly understood despite being one of the oldest human impacts. Here we evaluate the role of past land-use modifications in the current distribution and conservation status of mammals worldwide using spatial data characterizing human land use from c.B.C.6000 to c.A.D.2000. First, we applied a clustering method that revealed three generalized past human land-use trajectories that represent low-, recently- and steadily-used areas widely represented across the globe. Second, we fitted boosted regression trees to predict total and threatened mammalian richness, globally and within trajectory-clusters, testing the role of environmental factors and multiple human land-use metrics reflecting: total used area at different time spans, rates of land-use change, and the occurrence of remarkable land-use shifts. Environmental factors were identified as the main correlates of current mammalian richness, but several proposed metrics of past land-use were also relevant predictors. Overall, these results highlight the likely existence of a land-use legacy in some regions of the world that has influenced the distribution of extant mammals, particularly of those currently classified as threatened. Even if we cannot change that legacy, our results show that we need to account for past human impacts to understand present biodiversity patterns and, arguably, to guide future actions.

Summary (3 min read)

Jump to: [Introduction] – [Data sources and selection] – [Statistical analyses] – [Results] – [Discussion] – [Low-used areas] – [Recently-used areas] – [Steadily-used areas] and [Conclusions]

Introduction

  • Threatened species are unevenly distributed across the world, with remarkable differences among taxonomic groups (Grenyer et al. 2006).
  • As a result, the relationship between environmental factors, overall species richness, and the number of threatened species is not straightforward and shows spatial heterogeneity (Orme et al.
  • Since the beginning of sedentary human societies and the advent of agriculture, around B.C.8000-6000, the amount of land under human dominance has grown at an accelerating pace (Ellis 2011).
  • The authors study aims to provide an understanding of how past human land use relates with current global mammalian biodiversity patterns.

Data sources and selection

  • Data of mean proportion of land use per unit area at different time spans were obtained from Ellis et al. (2013; available at http://ecotope.org/products/datasets/used_planet/).
  • Grid-cells with an emerged area smaller than 10,000 km2 were excluded to avoid comparing grid-cells with very unequal areas.
  • For the purpose of the present work, it was represented as the value of human land use at c.A.D.2000, the most recent time break available on this data source.
  • The proportion of threatened mammals was calculated by dividing the number of threatened mammals over the total mammal richness per grid-cell.

Statistical analyses

  • To synthetize trajectory trends in longitudinal data of global land use the authors employed a clustering method that incorporates a k-means algorithm (Celeux and Govaert 1992) implemented in the kml package ('kml' function; Genolini et al. 2015) in R v.3.2.3 (R Core Team 2015).
  • The obtained trajectory-clusters were used as a categorical past land-use predictor in global models to test differences among clusters in terms of mammalian diversity and vulnerability.
  • Finally, from correlated pairs of two past land-use indicators the authors selected the past land-use indicator representing the oldest temporal span to increase the contrast with present land use (a control variable).
  • To fit the models the authors used the function ‘gbm.step’, which calculates the optimal number of boosting trees using 10-fold cross validation, and it is included in the dismo package (Hijmans et al. 2013) in R.
  • The explanatory power of each model was calculated as the percentage of deviance explained respect to a null model, defined as one without any splits –equivalent to an intercept only model in linear regression (Ferrier and Watson 1997).

Results

  • All quality criteria supported the differentiation of three generalized trajectory-clusters describing global temporal patterns in past land use from c.B.C.6000 to c.A.D.2000 (Fig. S1.1).
  • Recently-used areas largely correspond to territories of relatively modern human colonization and expansion, such as North America, Australia or southern and East Africa.
  • While quality criteria supported three clusters, there were additional configurations that had partial support.
  • These suggested further division of recently and steadilyused areas into more clusters with low-used areas always remaining as a single group (Fig. S1.2).
  • Both total mammalian richness and proportion of threatened species distribution were mainly explained by environmental indicators; with the exception of the relevance of past land use (c.A.D.1000) on total richness (Table 1) and pre-industrial rate of land-use change on proportion of threatened mammals within recently-used areas (Table 3).

Discussion

  • The authors results show that land-use history across the world can be broadly summarized into three trajectory-clusters: low-, recently- and steadily-used areas.
  • There are disparities in the influence of different predictors in explaining mammal diversity metrics within each cluster, and in the shape of the relationship between predictors and responses.
  • When disaggregating by trajectory-cluster, the authors detected descriptors of past landuse change as relevant.
  • This signal of the past is most noticeable for recently-used areas and when assessing differences in total numbers of threatened mammals.
  • Current land use or descriptors of remarkable past land-use changes were not identified as relevant in any model.

Low-used areas

  • According to their results, more than 50% of the global land area analyzed (excluding Antarctica and most of Greenland) have followed a low-used trajectory.
  • This high share of the global surface may explain why general trends in the effects of environmental and land-use predictors within these areas resemble the global trends.
  • These areas broadly coincide with last-of-the-wild regions, traditionally seen as opportunities to preserve biodiversity given the relatively low human influence to which they are exposed (Sanderson et al. 2002).
  • Lack of historical human pressure may be explained by two different reasons: low primary productivity associated to biomes in the northern hemisphere, such as the boreal forests, the Tundra, and deserts worldwide; and relative remoteness, limiting accessibility in some tropical forests, e.g. Amazon or Borneo (Fig. 1).
  • The fact that more threatened species tend to occur in areas more rapidly transformed during the period c.A.D. 0-1750 suggests the existence of a land-use legacy on these parts of the Earth, where mammals remain negatively influenced by past human impacts and local extinctions have not yet occurred given the low magnitude of land-use changes (Bürgi et al. 2017).

Recently-used areas

  • Around 32% of global land is classified as a recently-used trajectory, which coincide with areas humanized after the great colonization events of the 15th century onwards.
  • Many of these regions are located within highly developed countries, such as the United States or Australia (Fig. 1).
  • Today, these areas do not present particularly high species richness or accumulations of threatened mammals (Table S2.1), thus they are not generally considered a global priority (Brooks et al. 2006).
  • As for the land-use-history variables of interest, total mammalian richness is lower where the proportion of land use c.A.D.1000 had been relatively low (Fig. 4), opposite to what the authors expected under a time-lag effect (lower species richness predicted for areas heavily modified in the past).
  • Therefore, there is not a lagged effect of past land-use changes on current total richness, which remains relatively high within these areas (Table S2.1).

Steadily-used areas

  • Less than 16% of global land belongs to this trajectory-cluster, which is characterized by a relatively high and long-lasting human land use covering different tropical and temperate regions.
  • In these areas, steep changes in use were rare, but their average level of human appropriation of land by A.D.0 was already higher than levels observed today in low-used areas (Table S2.1).
  • Furthermore, areas with more threatened mammals are also characterized by rapid, very low, or even negative preindustrial changes (i.e. where human land use decreased; Fig.4).
  • On the other hand, in areas like Eastern Europe and African regions from Guinea to Chad, changes were pronounced and their prediction of species not having had time to recover from past human pressures may hold (Fig. S4.18).
  • Nevertheless, it is important to note that, within these areas, environmental factors have the greatest relevance in explaining diversity, therefore, time-lagged effects must be cautiously interpreted (Table 2).

Conclusions

  • To their knowledge, the use of temporal trajectory-clusters' delineation has never been applied in biogeographical or ecological studies.
  • In particular, the rate of change during the period c.A.D.0-1750 repeatedly appears as relevant in tested models, highlighting the importance of this time-span.
  • Extinction debts at regional scales have been found to reflect more recent habitat modifications and particularly affect sensitive species, agreeing with their global results (Uezu and Metzger 2016).
  • Overall, their study shows current biodiversity patterns reflect a signal of environmental drivers but also of past land use.

Did you find this useful? Give us your feedback

Figures (6)

Content maybe subject to copyright    Report

The legacy of past human land use in
current patterns of mammal distribution
Article
Accepted Version
Polaina, E., González-Suárez, M. and Revilla, E. (2019) The
legacy of past human land use in current patterns of mammal
distribution. Ecography, 42 (10). pp. 1623-1635. ISSN 0906-
7590 doi: https://doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04406 Available at
https://centaur.reading.ac.uk/84799/
It is advisable to refer to the publisher’s version if you intend to cite from the
work. See Guidance on citing
.
To link to this article DOI: http://dx.doi.org/10.1111/ecog.04406
Publisher: Wiley
All outputs in CentAUR are protected by Intellectual Property Rights law,
including copyright law. Copyright and IPR is retained by the creators or other
copyright holders. Terms and conditions for use of this material are defined in
the End User Agreement
.
www.reading.ac.uk/centaur
CentAUR
Central Archive at the University of Reading
Reading’s research outputs online
1
The legacy of past human land use in current patterns of mammal distribution 1
2
Ester Polaina (e.polaina@gmail.com) 3
Conservation Biology Department, Doñana Biological Station-CSIC, Seville, Spain 4
Ecology Department, Swedish University of Agricultural Science, Uppsala, Sweden 5
ORCID ID: 0000-0002-5064-5881 6
7
Manuela González-Suárez (manuela.gonzalez@reading.ac.uk) 8
Conservation Biology Department, Doñana Biological Station-CSIC, Seville, Spain 9
School of Biological Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, UK 10
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5069-8900 11
12
Eloy Revilla (revilla@ebd.csic.es) 13
Conservation Biology Department, Doñana Biological Station-CSIC, Seville, Spain 14
ORCID ID: 0000-0001-5534-5581 15
16
Corresponding author: Ester Polaina 17
18
Acknowledgements 19
We thank the IUCN Red List team for making and maintaining its database freely 20
available online. We also acknowledge the Laboratory for Anthropogenic Landscape 21
Ecology, directed by Dr. Erle C. Ellis, for publicly sharing anthropogenic land cover 22
change datasets. This work was funded by the program ‘Junta para la Ampliación de 23
Estudios’ (JAEPre022. BOE-A-2011-10745, co-funded by the European Social Fund), 24
the European Community's Seventh Framework Programme (FP7/ grant n° 235897 and 25
2
EU BON project nº 308454), and the Spanish Ministry of Science and Innovation co-26
funded by FEDER (CGL2009-07301/BOS, CGL2012-35931/BOS and JCI-2011-27
09158). 28
29
3
Abstract 30
Multiple environmental factors are known to shape species distributions at the global 31
scale, including climate and topography, but understanding current extents of 32
occurrence and biodiversity patterns requires considering anthropogenic factors as well. 33
Numerous studies have explored the relationship between contemporary human 34
activities and different biodiversity metrics, but the influence of past activities, such as 35
land-use, remains poorly understood despite being one of the oldest human impacts. 36
Here we evaluate the role of past land-use modifications in the current distribution and 37
conservation status of mammals worldwide using spatial data characterizing human 38
land use from c.B.C.6000 to c.A.D.2000. First, we applied a clustering method that 39
revealed three generalized past human land-use trajectories that represent low-, recently- 40
and steadily-used areas widely represented across the globe. Second, we fitted boosted 41
regression trees to predict total and threatened mammalian richness, globally and within 42
trajectory-clusters, testing the role of environmental factors and multiple human land-43
use metrics reflecting: total used area at different time spans, rates of land-use change, 44
and the occurrence of remarkable land-use shifts. Environmental factors were identified 45
as the main correlates of current mammalian richness, but several proposed metrics of 46
past land-use were also relevant predictors. Overall, these results highlight the likely 47
existence of a land-use legacy in some regions of the world that has influenced the 48
distribution of extant mammals, particularly of those currently classified as threatened. 49
Even if we cannot change that legacy, our results show that we need to account for past 50
human impacts to understand present biodiversity patterns and, arguably, to guide future 51
actions. 52
53
4
Keywords: land-use history, land-use trajectory, KK10 model, IUCN, threatened 54
species, distribution, cluster analysis 55
Citations
More filters
Journal Article•
Anthropogenic transformation of the terrestrial biosphere

[...]

Erle C. Ellis1•
University of Maryland, Baltimore County1
01 Jan 2011-Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B
TL;DR: In this article, the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere.
Abstract: Human populations and their use of land have transformed most of the terrestrial biosphere into anthropogenic biomes (anthromes), causing a variety of novel ecological patterns and processes to emerge. To assess whether human populations and their use of land have directly altered the terrestrial biosphere sufficiently to indicate that the Earth system has entered a new geological epoch, spatially explicit global estimates of human populations and their use of land were analysed across the Holocene for their potential to induce irreversible novel transformation of the terrestrial biosphere. Human alteration of the terrestrial biosphere has been significant for more than 8000 years. However, only in the past century has the majority of the terrestrial biosphere been transformed into intensively used anthromes with predominantly novel anthropogenic ecological processes. At present, even were human populations to decline substantially or use of land become far more efficient, the current global extent, duration, type and intensity of human transformation of ecosystems have already irreversibly altered the terrestrial biosphere at levels sufficient to leave an unambiguous geological record differing substantially from that of the Holocene or any prior epoch. It remains to be seen whether the anthropogenic biosphere will be sustained and continue to evolve.

578 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Land-use change and biodiversity: Challenges for assembling evidence on the greatest threat to nature.

[...]

Charles W. Davison1, Carsten Rahbek, Naia Morueta-Holme1•
University of Copenhagen1
29 Aug 2021-Global Change Biology
TL;DR: In this paper, the authors employ named entity recognition to analyze more than 4000 abstracts, alongside full reading of 100 randomly selected papers, highlighting the broad range of study designs and methodologies used; the most common being local space-for-time comparisons that classify land use in situ.
Abstract: Land-use change is considered the greatest threat to nature, having caused worldwide declines in the abundance, diversity, and health of species and ecosystems. Despite increasing research on this global change driver, there are still challenges to forming an effective synthesis. The estimated impact of land-use change on biodiversity can depend on location, research methods, and taxonomic focus, with recent global meta-analyses reaching disparate conclusions. Here, we critically appraise this research body and our ability to reach a reliable consensus. We employ named entity recognition to analyze more than 4000 abstracts, alongside full reading of 100 randomly selected papers. We highlight the broad range of study designs and methodologies used; the most common being local space-for-time comparisons that classify land use in situ. Species metrics including abundance, distribution, and diversity were measured more frequently than complex responses such as demography, vital rates, and behavior. We identified taxonomic biases, with vertebrates well represented while detritivores were largely missing. Omitting this group may hinder our understanding of how land-use change affects ecosystem feedback. Research was heavily biased toward temperate forested biomes in North America and Europe, with warmer regions being acutely underrepresented despite offering potential insights into the future effects of land-use change under novel climates. Various land-use histories were covered, although more research in understudied regions including Africa and the Middle East is required to capture regional differences in the form of current and historical land-use practices. Failure to address these challenges will impede our global understanding of land-use change impacts on biodiversity, limit the reliability of future projections and have repercussions for the conservation of threatened species. Beyond identifying literature biases, we highlight the research priorities and data gaps that need urgent attention and offer perspectives on how to move forward.

31 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Current climate, but also long‐term climate changes and human impacts, determine the geographic distribution of European mammal diversity

[...]

Ana M. C. Santos, Marcus Vinicius Cianciaruso, Ana Márcia Barbosa, Luis Mauricio Bini, José Alexandre Felizola Diniz-Filho, Frederico V. Faleiro, Sidney F. Gouveia1, Rafael Loyola, Nagore G. Medina2, Thiago F. Rangel, Geiziane Tessarolo3, Joaquín Hortal4, Joaquín Hortal5 •
Universidade Federal de Sergipe1, Autonomous University of Madrid2, Goiás State University3, Spanish National Research Council4, University of Lisbon5
12 Jul 2020-Global Ecology and Biogeography
TL;DR: In this article, the authors present tools to unify range dynamics and community-level processes into a single analytical framework to predict diversity variations across scales through process-based models linking com-munity ecology and biogeography.
Abstract: This work was supported by the projects ‘Developing tools to unify range dynamics and community-level processes into a single analytical framework’ (cooperation project Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Cientificas-Conselho Nacional de Desenvolvimento Cientifico e Tecnologico CSIC-CNPq P2011BR0071) and ‘Predicting diversity variations across scales through process-based models linking com-munity ecology and biogeography’ (Pesquisador Visitante Especial CNPq, PVE314523/2014-6). AMCS was supported by a Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowship (IEF 331623 ‘COMMSTRUCT’), by a ‘Juan de la Cierva’ Fellowship (IJCI-2014-19502) funded by the cur-rent Spanish Ministerio de Ciencia, Innovacion y Universidades, by Universidad de Alcala, through a travel grant within the ‘Ayudas de movilidad de personal docente y personal investigador’ program, and by the Portuguese Fundacao para a Ciencia e a Tecnologia (contract CEEIND/03425/2017). RL’s research is funded by CNPq (grant #306694/2018-2). This paper is a contribution of the Instituto Nacional de Ciencia e Tecnologia (INCT) in Ecology, Evolution and Biodiversity Conservation funded by Brazilian Ministerio da Ciencia, Tecnologia, Inovacoes e Comunicacoes, CNPq and Fundacao de Amparo a Pesquisa do estado de Goias (grant MCTIC/CNPq/FAPEG 465610/2014-5).

15 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Threatened bird species are concentrated in regions with less historical human impacts

[...]

Xueting Yang1, Shicheng Li2, Alice C. Hughes3, Gang Feng1•
Inner Mongolia University1, China University of Geosciences (Wuhan)2, Xishuangbanna Tropical Botanical Garden3
01 Mar 2021-Biological Conservation
TL;DR: Wang et al. as mentioned in this paper showed that there are higher proportions of threatened bird species in Northern China, especially Northeastern and Northwestern China, compared with less historical anthropogenic activities, i.e., smaller changes in forest cover and cropland area in northern China between 1700 and 1800.

5 citations

Journal Article•DOI•
Where wolves were: setting historical baselines for wolf recovery in Spain

[...]

Marta Teixidó i Clavero, Andreína García-Reyes, Alberto Fernández-Gil, Eloy Revilla, Néstor Fernández 
02 Sep 2022-Animal Conservation
TL;DR: In this article, the authors used probabilistic distribution models to estimate the wolf historical range with unprecedented detail, allowing the quantification of the historical reduction in occupancy area, which represented an average range reduction of 68% between the mid 19th century and present time, resulting in the current restriction of the species to the country's northwestern quadrant.
Abstract: Reference conditions are necessary to assess the conservation status of species, understand their declines, and manage their recovery. Historical documents offer large amounts of records of a wide variety of species, which may be used to generate reference baselines on the historical distribution range of species. We collected information on the Iberian wolf Canis lupus signatus presence or assumed absence for 6734 localities in Spain from the geographical dictionary edited by Pascual Madoz in the mid‐19th century. We used probabilistic distribution models to estimate the wolf historical range with unprecedented detail, allowing the quantification of the historical reduction in occupancy area. Wolf records were widely distributed in mid‐19th century Spain, being present in all its mainland provinces. The probability of occurrence was positively associated with landscape roughness and negatively with human population density and the landscape suitability for agriculture. The area estimated to be occupied by wolves ranged between 212 200 and 317 600 km2, depending on the approach used to set cut‐off values from the predictions. Our estimations represented an average range reduction of 68% between the mid‐19th century and present time, resulting in the current restriction of the species to the country's north‐western quadrant. The putative recent recovery of the wolf in Spain consists mainly of the accumulation of wolf records in areas where the species had persisted and the recolonization of some peripheral areas, but there is no indication of widespread recovery of the historical distribution range. We show that the compilation of historical species records allows producing baseline range scenarios with much higher resolution than usually available to inform species status and set recovery targets, an approach that can be implemented in other areas and taxa.

3 citations

References
More filters
Journal Article•DOI•
A continuous satellite-derived global record of land surface evapotranspiration from 1983 to 2006

[...]

Ke Zhang1, John S. Kimball1, Ramakrishna R. Nemani2, Steven W. Running1•
University of Montana1, Ames Research Center2
01 Sep 2010-Water Resources Research
TL;DR: In this article, a satellite remote sensing-based evapotranspiration (ET) algorithm was applied to assess global terrestrial ET from 1983 to 2006 using a modified Penman-Monteith approach with biome-specific canopy conductance determined from the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and quantifying open water evaporation using a Priestley-Taylor approach.
Abstract: [1] We applied a satellite remote sensing-based evapotranspiration (ET) algorithm to assess global terrestrial ET from 1983 to 2006. The algorithm quantifies canopy transpiration and soil evaporation using a modified Penman-Monteith approach with biome-specific canopy conductance determined from the normalized difference vegetation index (NDVI) and quantifies open water evaporation using a Priestley-Taylor approach. These algorithms were applied globally using advanced very high resolution radiometer (AVHRR) GIMMS NDVI, NCEP/NCAR Reanalysis (NNR) daily surface meteorology, and NASA/GEWEX Surface Radiation Budget Release-3.0 solar radiation inputs. We used observations from 34 FLUXNET tower sites to parameterize an NDVI-based canopy conductance model and then validated the global ET algorithm using measurements from 48 additional, independent flux towers. Two sets of monthly ET estimates at the tower level, driven by in situ meteorological measurements and meteorology interpolated from coarse resolution NNR meteorology reanalysis, agree favorably (root mean square error (RMSE) = 13.0-15.3 mm month -1 ; R 2 = 0.80-0.84) with observed tower fluxes from globally representative land cover types. The global ET results capture observed spatial and temporal variations at the global scale and also compare favorably (RMSE = 186.3 mm yr -1 ; R 2 = 0.80) with ET inferred from basin-scale water balance calculations for 261 basins covering 61 % of the global vegetated area. The results of this study provide a relatively long term global ET record with well-quantified accuracy for assessing ET climatologies, terrestrial water, and energy budgets and long-term water cycle changes.

509 citations

"The legacy of past human land use i..." refers background or methods in this paper

  • ...…Original resolution Reference Long name Short name Spatial Temporal Mean annual actual evapotranspiration AET mm, accumulated 2000 1 degree month Zhang et al. (2010, 2015) Mean annual temperature Temperature ºC, average 1970-2000 10 arc minutes month Fick & Hijmans (2017) Mean annual…...

    [...]

  • ...Present environmental conditions were synthesized for each 110 km grid-cell in terms of annual mean actual evapotranspiration (AET), obtained from Zhang et al. (2010); annual mean temperature and precipitation, obtained from WorldClim2 (Fick and Hijmans 2017); and mean elevation, extracted from the…...

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
Consequences of climate change on the tree of life in Europe

[...]

Wilfried Thuiller1, Sébastien Lavergne1, Cristina Roquet1, Isabelle Boulangeat1, Bruno Lafourcade1, Miguel B. Araújo2, Miguel B. Araújo3 •
Joseph Fourier University1, University of Évora2, Spanish National Research Council3
24 Feb 2011-Nature
TL;DR: It is shown that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies, and such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions.
Abstract: Extinction episodes, such as the anthropogenic one widely thought to be under way right now, result in a pruned tree of life. The possibility that further non-random extinctions across the tree of life could arise as a consequence of climate change has been investigated quantitatively using a series of projections of the phylogenetic diversity of European plants, birds and mammals. The overall effect is a thinning of the tree, with little loss of diversity. However, there are differences in the responses of northern and southern European species. For instance, France and Spain are more exposed to losses of phylogenetic diversity than high-latitude and high-altitude regions, where phylogenetic diversity is projected to increase. Many species are projected to become vulnerable to twenty-first-century climate changes1,2, with consequent effects on the tree of life. If losses were not randomly distributed across the tree of life, climate change could lead to a disproportionate loss of evolutionary history3,4,5. Here we estimate the consequences of climate change on the phylogenetic diversities of plant, bird and mammal assemblages across Europe. Using a consensus across ensembles of forecasts for 2020, 2050 and 2080 and high-resolution phylogenetic trees, we show that species vulnerability to climate change clusters weakly across phylogenies. Such phylogenetic signal in species vulnerabilities does not lead to higher loss of evolutionary history than expected with a model of random extinctions. This is because vulnerable species have neither fewer nor closer relatives than the remaining clades. Reductions in phylogenetic diversity will be greater in southern Europe, and gains are expected in regions of high latitude or altitude. However, losses will not be offset by gains and the tree of life faces a trend towards homogenization across the continent.

508 citations

"The legacy of past human land use i..." refers background in this paper

  • ...However, extinctions do not occur by chance but are instead largely shaped by human activities, such as direct persecution or habitat modifications (Russell et al. 2013); and extreme climatic events, such as past ice ages or current climate change (Thuiller et al. 2011, Varela et al. 2015)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
Global distribution and conservation of rare and threatened vertebrates

[...]

Richard Grenyer1, Richard Grenyer2, C. David L. Orme3, Sarah F. Jackson4, Gavin H. Thomas3, Gavin H. Thomas5, Richard G. Davies4, T. Jonathan Davies6, T. Jonathan Davies2, Kate E. Jones7, Valerie A. Olson8, Valerie A. Olson7, Robert S. Ridgely9, Pamela C. Rasmussen10, Tzung-Su Ding11, Peter M. Bennett7, Tim M. Blackburn5, Kevin J. Gaston4, John L. Gittleman2, John L. Gittleman6, Ian P. F. Owens3, Ian P. F. Owens12 •
Royal Botanic Gardens1, University of Virginia2, Imperial College London3, University of Sheffield4, University of Birmingham5, University of Georgia6, Zoological Society of London7, University of Bath8, Academy of Natural Sciences of Drexel University9, Michigan State University10, National Taiwan University11, Natural Environment Research Council12
02 Nov 2006-Nature
TL;DR: The results indicate that ‘silver-bullet’ conservation strategies alone will not deliver efficient conservation solutions, and priority areas for biodiversity conservation must be based on high-resolution data from multiple taxa.
Abstract: 'Silver bullet' conservation strategies assume that the distribution of extinction-prone species in one well studied taxonomic group will predict the distribution of comparable species in other groups. This has been hard to test, but the availability of new databases on the global distribution of birds, mammals and amphibians means that a test is now possible. The three groups show similar patterns in terms of overall species richness, but the distribution of threatened and rare species is different in each group. Silver bullet strategies alone, it seems, miss the target. Instead, priority areas for biodiversity conservation must be based on high-resolution data from multiple taxa. 'Silver-bullet' approaches to conservation assume that conservation strategy can be based on the distribution of species in one or two well known taxonomic groups, as there is high cross-taxon congruence in large-scale patterns of biodiversity. Although birds, mammals and amphibians show similar patterns in terms of overall species richness, the distribution of threatened and rare species is found to be different in each group. Global conservation strategies commonly assume that different taxonomic groups show congruent geographical patterns of diversity, and that the distribution of extinction-prone species in one group can therefore act as a surrogate for vulnerable species in other groups when conservation decisions are being made1,2,3,4. The validity of these assumptions remains unclear, however, because previous tests have been limited in both geographical and taxonomic extent5,6,7,8,9,10,11,12. Here we use a database on the global distribution of 19,349 living bird, mammal and amphibian species to show that, although the distribution of overall species richness is very similar among these groups, congruence in the distribution of rare and threatened species is markedly lower. Congruence is especially low among the very rarest species. Cross-taxon congruence is also highly scale dependent, being particularly low at the finer spatial resolutions relevant to real protected areas. ‘Hotspots’ of rarity and threat are therefore largely non-overlapping across groups, as are areas chosen to maximize species complementarity. Overall, our results indicate that ‘silver-bullet’ conservation strategies alone will not deliver efficient conservation solutions. Instead, priority areas for biodiversity conservation must be based on high-resolution data from multiple taxa.

504 citations

"The legacy of past human land use i..." refers background in this paper

  • ...…the framework of spatial conservation planning, considering high richness as an attribute to be prioritized, but not explicitly searching for correlates or drivers of those patterns (Bonn et al. 2002; Grenyer et al. 2006; spatial resolutions ranging from ~25 x 25km to ~100 x 100km grid sizes)....

    [...]

  • ...Threatened species are unevenly distributed across the world, with remarkable differences among taxonomic groups (Grenyer et al. 2006)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
Developments in National Policies for Food and Nutrition Security in Brazil

[...]

Cecilia Rocha1•
Ryerson University1
01 Jan 2009-Development Policy Review
TL;DR: The authors examines evaluation evidence on two of the most important recent initiatives in Brazil's policies for food and nutrition security (conditional cash transfers through Bolsa Familia and support for family agriculture through the Programa de Aquisicao de Alimentos).
Abstract: Brazil is on track to achieve many of the Millennium Development Goals, and this is widely credited to bold and innovative government policies backed by new forms of popular participation in social policy. This article examines evaluation evidence on two of the most important recent initiatives in Brazil's policies for food and nutrition security (conditional cash transfers through Bolsa Familia and support for family agriculture through the Programa de Aquisicao de Alimentos). It also considers advances in older policies (such as the School Meals programme) and the work of the National Council for Food and Nutrition Security, which has culminated in national legislation establishing food and nutrition security as a right.

476 citations

"The legacy of past human land use i..." refers methods in this paper

  • ...We chose the KK10 model (Kaplan et al. 2011), which assumes that humans tend to use land more intensively –against extensively– when population density is high and land scarce (Boserup 1965)....

    [...]

Journal Article•DOI•
Holocene carbon emissions as a result of anthropogenic land cover change

[...]

Jed O. Kaplan1, Kristen M. Krumhardt1, Erle C. Ellis2, William F. Ruddiman3, Carsten Lemmen, Kees Klein Goldewijk4 •
École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne1, University of Maryland, Baltimore County2, University of Virginia3, Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency4
01 Aug 2011-The Holocene
TL;DR: In this article, the authors developed a new, annually resolved inventory of anthropogenic land cover change from 8000 years ago to the beginning of large-scale industrialization (ad 1850), which is based on a simple relationship between population and land use observed in several European countries over preindustrial time.
Abstract: Humans have altered the Earth’s land surface since the Paleolithic mainly by clearing woody vegetation first to improve hunting and gathering opportunities, and later to provide agricultural cropland. In the Holocene, agriculture was established on nearly all continents and led to widespread modification of terrestrial ecosystems. To quantify the role that humans played in the global carbon cycle over the Holocene, we developed a new, annually resolved inventory of anthropogenic land cover change from 8000 years ago to the beginning of large-scale industrialization (ad 1850). This inventory is based on a simple relationship between population and land use observed in several European countries over preindustrial time. Using this data set, and an alternative scenario based on the HYDE 3.1 land use data base, we forced the LPJ DGVM in a series of continuous simulations to evaluate the impacts of ALCC on terrestrial carbon storage during the preindustrial Holocene. Our model setup allowed us to quantify the importance of land degradation caused by repeated episodes of land use followed by abandonment. By 3 ka BP, cumulative carbon emissions caused by anthropogenic land cover change in our new scenario ranged between 84 and 102 Pg, translating to c. 7 ppm of atmospheric CO2. By ad 1850, emissions were 325–357 Pg in the new scenario, in contrast to 137–189 Pg when driven by HYDE. Regional events that resulted in local emissions or uptake of carbon were often balanced by contrasting patterns in other parts of the world. While we cannot close the carbon budget in the current study, simulated cumulative anthropogenic emissions over the preindustrial Holocene are consistent with the ice core record of atmospheric d13CO2 and support the hypothesis that anthropogenic activities led to the stabilization of atmospheric CO2 concentrations at a level that made the world substantially warmer than it otherwise would be.

474 citations

Related Papers (5)
EDITOR'S CHOICE: REVIEW: Effects of land use on plant diversity – A global meta‐analysis

[...]

01 Dec 2014-Journal of Applied Ecology
Katharina Gerstner, Carsten F. Dormann, Anke Stein, Ameur M. Manceur, Ralf Seppelt 
Land Use in Life Cycle Assessment: Global Characterization Factors Based on Regional and Global Potential Species Extinction

[...]

07 Aug 2013-Environmental Science & Technology
Laura de Baan, Christopher L. Mutel, Michael Curran, Stefanie Hellweg, Thomas Koellner 
Assessment of Land Use Impacts on the Natural Environment Part 2: Generic Characterization Factors for Local Species Diversity in Central Europe

[...]

01 Jan 2008-International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment
Thomas Koellner, Roland W. Scholz
Local factors mediate the response of biodiversity to land use on two African mountains

[...]

01 Aug 2017-Animal Conservation
Martin Jung, Samantha L. L. Hill, Samantha L. L. Hill, Philip J. Platts, Rob Marchant, Stefan J. Siebert, Anne Fournier, F. B. Munyekenye, Andy Purvis, Andy Purvis, Neil D. Burgess, Neil D. Burgess, Tim Newbold, Tim Newbold 
Considering habitat conversion and fragmentation in characterisation factors for land-use impacts on vertebrate species richness.

[...]

18 Aug 2021-Science of The Total Environment
Koen J. J. Kuipers, Roelof Frans May, Francesca Verones
Frequently Asked Questions (7)
Q1. What have the authors contributed in "The legacy of past human land use in current patterns of mammal distribution" ?

In this paper, the relationship between environmental factors, overall species richness, and the number of threatened species is not straightforward and shows spatial heterogeneity. 

The fact that past land-use metrics are more relevant in explaining total and especially threatened mammalian richness distributions than present land use also has implications for future studies given the widespread practice of including present land use, but not past use, as a predictor of numbers of threatened species ( Lenzen et al. 2009, Koh and Ghazoul 2010, Brum et al. 2013 ). Deeper impacts on species biodiversity may have already occurred, but they may only be apparent to the conservation biologists of the future. On the other hand, what the authors call current mammalian biodiversity patterns may be an optimistic picture of what actually remains, since rapid changes may not be captured by global biodiversity databases and, although their resolution of 1° is recommended at the global scale, IUCN range maps are known to overestimate species geographic ranges ( Hurlbert and Jetz 2007 ). Recentlyused areas, which have been rarely prioritized for conservation up to now, are likely most affected by extinction debt which may be best addressed via restoration initiatives. 

Less than 16% of global land belongs to this trajectory-cluster, which is characterized by a relatively high and long-lasting human land use covering different tropical and temperate regions. 

Around 32% of global land is classified as a recently-used trajectory, which coincide with areas humanized after the great colonization events of the 15th century onwards. 

According to their results, more than 50% of the global land area analyzed (excluding Antarctica and most of Greenland) have followed a low-used trajectory. 

It seems clear that whereas the most threatening activities are normally related to lower total species richness, the relationship between threats and threatened species likely varies across regions and spatial scales in more complex ways. 

Within low-used areas, effects directions were the same as described for the global modeland, additionally, more threatened mammals were found where pre-industrial land-use change was relatively faster (Fig. 4).