Effect of land use on biodiversity

'We know that the landscape is going to change a lot in the future as the population grows, but we haven't really known how biodiversity will change in response. With PREDICTS we're building global models that help us to predict how land-use change will affect local biodiversity - and us - in the future.'
Prof Andy Purvis, biodiversity researcher

Museum scientists have shown for the first time the extent to which human land use has affected the diversity of wildlife in ecosystems around the world. The research team assessed changes in biodiversity caused by the conversion of land for agriculture and urbanisation from 1500 until the present day.

'What the figures show is that if you were to go out and sample a site, anywhere in the world, on average you'd find 13.6% fewer species than you would have done in 1500. And that appears to be because of major land-use changes by humans,'

says lead scientist Prof Purvis.

That figure is a global average, so local biodiversity in some areas is still relatively intact, but others - including Western Europe - have experienced losses in excess of 20% to 30% since the industrial revolution.

This research is part of a major collaborative project called known as PREDICTS: Projecting Responses of Ecological Diversity In Changing Terrestrial Systems. The team brought together a huge database of evidence to complete the largest survey ever on the impact of humanity on local biodiversity. The database contains records from 90 countries and 450 scientific papers, representing more than 40,000 species - comprising 1.5% of species that have been formally described by science. It is a vast assemblage of unprecedented geographic and taxonomic coverage.

The team also forecast the future impact of pressures caused by human activities. Under a business-as-usual scenario, the vast majority of countries will see a decrease in their species richness over the next hundred years. However, if humanity protects forested areas and supports carbon markets, almost all countries could actually gain back biodiversity by the end of the century. This work is vital at a time when a growing human population is putting increased pressure on available land.

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