Bioenergy cropland expansion may offset positive effects of climate change mitigation for global vertebrate diversity
Open accessAbstract
Climate and land-use change interactively affect biodiversity. Large-scale expansions of bioenergy have been suggested as an important component for climate change mitigation. Here we use harmonized climate and land-use projections to investigate their potential combined impacts on global vertebrate diversity under a low- and a high-level emission scenario. We combine climate-based species distribution models for the world’s amphibians, birds, and mammals with land-use change simulations and identify areas threatened by both climate and land-use change in the future. The combined projected effects of climate and land-use change on vertebrate diversity are similar under the two scenarios, with land-use change effects being stronger under the low- and climate change effects under the high-emission scenario. Under the low-emission scenario, increases in bioenergy cropland may cause severe impacts in biodiversity that are not compensated by lower climate change impacts. Under this low-emission scenario, larger proportions of species distributions and a higher number of small-range species may become impacted by the combination of land-use and climate change than under the high-emission scenario, largely a result of bioenergy cropland expansion. Our findings highlight the need to carefully consider both climate and land-use change when projecting biodiversity impacts. We show that biodiversity is likely to suffer severely if bioenergy cropland expansion remains a major component of climate change mitigation strategies. Our study calls for an immediate and significant reduction in energy consumption for the benefit of both biodiversity and to achieve the goals of the Paris Agreement.
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For strong climate change mitigation scenarios, the required expansion of land area for bioenergy crops was found to have similarly negative impacts on terrestrial biodiversity as had unmitigated climate change due to the reduction in species' ranges and pressure on protected areas.
“For strong climate change mitigation scenarios, the required expansion of land area for bioenergy crops was found to have similarly negative impacts on terrestrial biodiversity as had unmitigated climate change (95) due to the reduction in species' ranges and pressure on protected areas.”
From Restoring Degraded Lands (2021) · cites this paper as [95]
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- Authors
- Hof, C., Voskamp, A., Biber, M. F., Böhning-Gaese, K., Engelhardt, E. K., Niamir, A., Willis, S. G., & Hickler, T.
- Affiliations
- Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (DE)
- Durham University (GB)
- Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (BiK-F), 60325 Frankfurt, Germany;
- Goethe University Frankfurt (DE)
- Corresponding author
- Hof, Christian
- ORCID
- Venue
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences
- Publisher
- National Academy of Sciences
- Published
- 2018-12-10
- Volume
- 115
- Issue
- 52
- Pages
- 13294-13299
- ISSN
- 0027-8424 (ISSN-L)
- 1091-6490
- PMC
- PMC6310845
- OpenAlex
- W2904638654
- Cited by
- 131
- References
- 6
- Citations by year
- 2026: 14 · 2025: 14 · 2024: 20 · 2023: 14 · 2022: 15 · 2021: 22 · 2020: 21 · 2019: 11
- FWCI
- 12.11
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- hybrid
- doi.org
- Licence
- Locations
- Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Europe PMC (PubMed Central) (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (acceptedVersion, other-oa)
- Informationszentrum Lebenswissenschaften (ZB MED) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- Durham Research Online (Durham University) (submittedVersion, cc-by-nc-nd)
- mediaTUM – the media and publications repository of the Technical University Munich (Technical University Munich) (submittedVersion, other-oa)
- Funders
- Bundesministerium für Bildung und Forschung (01LS1617A)
- Bayerisches Staatsministerium für Bildung und Kultus, Wissenschaft und Kunst (bayklif B3)
- Topics
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Ecological Modeling › Species Distribution and Climate Change
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Global and Planetary Change › Land Use and Ecosystem Services
- Physical Sciences › Environmental Science › Nature and Landscape Conservation › Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies
- Keywords
- climate change mitigation, land use change, vertebrate diversity, amphibians, birds, mammals, species distribution modeling, emission scenarios, biodiversity projections, Paris Agreement, energy consumption reduction
- MeSH terms
- Amphibians, Animals, Conservation of Natural Resources, Mammals, Species Specificity, Vertebrates, Ecosystem, Crops, Agricultural, Biodiversity, Climate Change
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