Dataset Information

Characterizing Land Use Impacts on Functional Plant Diversity for Life Cycle Assessments.

ABSTRACT: Decision support tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA) increasingly aim to account for impacts on biodiversity. While taxonomic measures like species richness have been implemented, they do not fully grasp the impacts on ecosystem functioning. Functional diversity, derived from the species' traits, is more representative of ecosystem processes. This study provides a framework for developing characterization factors for functional diversity as affected by land use. It exploits the large databases on plant traits and species composition that have recently become available and allow bringing biodiversity impact assessment to the next level. Three functional diversity indices therein describe different aspects of functional diversity, namely richness, evenness, and divergence. Applying our framework to Germany as a proof of concept, we show significant losses in functional plant diversity when converting natural forests to agricultural land use. Consistently across different forests and agricultural systems, functional richness decreases steeply and functional divergence moderately upon occupation. In contrast, functional evenness exhibits opposite trends. The resulting characterization factors are likely to be representative of temperate regions. The framework is flexible and applicable to larger scales and other impact categories. As such, it facilitates harmonizing biodiversity impact assessments and better represents ecosystem functioning by incorporating functional diversity.

SUBMITTER: Scherer L

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7271546 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Jun

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Characterizing Land Use Impacts on Functional Plant Diversity for Life Cycle Assessments.

Scherer Laura L van Baren Sven A SA van Bodegom Peter M PM

Environmental science & technology 20200513 11

Decision support tools such as life cycle assessment (LCA) increasingly aim to account for impacts on biodiversity. While taxonomic measures like species richness have been implemented, they do not fully grasp the impacts on ecosystem functioning. Functional diversity, derived from the species' traits, is more representative of ecosystem processes. This study provides a framework for developing characterization factors for functional diversity as affected by land use. It exploits the large datab ...[more]

PMID: 32343572

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Project description:Plant functional traits reflect individual and community ecological strategies. They allow the detection of directional changes in community dynamics and ecosystemic processes, being an additional tool to assess biodiversity than species richness. Analysis of functional patterns in plant communities provides mechanistic insight into biodiversity alterations due to anthropogenic activity. Although studies have consi-dered of either anthropogenic management or nutrient availability on functional traits in temperate grasslands, studies combining effects of both drivers are scarce. Here, we assessed the impacts of management intensity (fertilization, mowing, grazing), nutrient stoichiometry (C, N, P, K), and vegetation composition on community-weighted means (CWMs) and functional diversity (Rao's Q) from seven plant traits in 150 grasslands in three regions in Germany, using data of 6 years. Land use and nutrient stoichiometry accounted for larger proportions of model variance of CWM and Rao's Q than species richness and productivity. Grazing affected all analyzed trait groups; fertilization and mowing only impacted generative traits. Grazing was clearly associated with nutrient retention strategies, that is, investing in durable structures and production of fewer, less variable seed. Phenological variability was increased. Fertilization and mowing decreased seed number/mass variability, indicating competition-related effects. Impacts of nutrient stoichiometry on trait syndromes varied. Nutrient limitation (large N:P, C:N ratios) promoted species with conservative strategies, that is, investment in durable plant structures rather than fast growth, fewer seed, and delayed flowering onset. In contrast to seed mass, leaf-economics variability was reduced under P shortage. Species diversity was positively associated with the variability of generative traits. Synthesis. Here, land use, nutrient availability, species richness, and plant functional strategies have been shown to interact complexly, driving community composition, and vegetation responses to management intensity. We suggest that deeper understanding of underlying mechanisms shaping community assembly and biodiversity will require analyzing all these parameters.

Project description:Aim:Agricultural intensification and urbanization are important drivers of biodiversity change in Europe. Different aspects of bee community diversity vary in their sensitivity to these pressures, as well as independently influencing ecosystem service provision (pollination). To obtain a more comprehensive understanding of human impacts on bee diversity across Europe, we assess multiple, complementary indices of diversity. Location:One Thousand four hundred and forty six sites across Europe. Methods:We collated data on bee occurrence and abundance from the published literature and supplemented them with the PREDICTS database. Using Rao's Quadratic Entropy, we assessed how species, functional and phylogenetic diversity of 1,446 bee communities respond to land-use characteristics including land-use class, cropland intensity, human population density and distance to roads. We combined these models with statistically downscaled estimates of land use in 2005 to estimate and map-at a scale of approximately 1 km2-the losses in diversity relative to semi-natural/natural baseline (the predicted diversity of an uninhabited grid square, consisting only of semi-natural/natural vegetation). Results:We show that-relative to the predicted local diversity in uninhabited semi-natural/natural habitat-half of all EU27 countries have lost over 10% of their average local species diversity and two-thirds of countries have lost over 5% of their average local functional and phylogenetic diversity. All diversity measures were generally lower in pasture and higher-intensity cropland than in semi-natural/natural vegetation, but facets of diversity showed less consistent responses to human population density. These differences have led to marked spatial mismatches in losses: losses in phylogenetic diversity were in some areas almost 20 percentage points (pp.) more severe than losses in species diversity, but in other areas losses were almost 40 pp. less severe. Main conclusions:These results highlight the importance of exploring multiple measures of diversity when prioritizing and evaluating conservation actions, as species-diverse assemblages may be phylogenetically and functionally impoverished, potentially threatening pollination service provision.

Dataset Information

Characterizing Land Use Impacts on Functional Plant Diversity for Life Cycle Assessments.

Publications

Characterizing Land Use Impacts on Functional Plant Diversity for Life Cycle Assessments.

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