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Differentiating the effects of climate and land use change on European biodiversity: A scenario analysis

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Abstract

Current observed as well as projected changes in biodiversity are the result of multiple interacting factors, with land use and climate change often marked as most important drivers. We aimed to disentangle the separate impacts of these two for sets of vascular plant, bird, butterfly and dragonfly species listed as characteristic for European dry grasslands and wetlands, two habitats of high and threatened biodiversity. We combined articulations of the four frequently used SRES climate scenarios and associated land use change projections for 2030, and assessed their impact on population trends in species (i.e. whether they would probably be declining, stable or increasing). We used the BIOSCORE database tool, which allows assessment of the effects of a range of environmental pressures including climate change as well as land use change. We updated the species lists included in this tool for our two habitat types. We projected species change for two spatial scales: the EU27 covering most of Europe, and the more restricted biogeographic region of ‘Continental Europe’. Other environmental pressures modelled for the four scenarios than land use and climate change generally did not explain a significant part of the variance in species richness change. Changes in characteristic bird and dragonfly species were least pronounced. Land use change was the most important driver for vascular plants in both habitats and spatial scales, leading to a decline in 50–100% of the species included, whereas climate change was more important for wetland dragonflies and birds (40–50 %). Patterns of species decline were similar in continental Europe and the EU27 for wetlands but differed for dry grasslands, where a substantially lower proportion of butterflies and birds declined in continental Europe, and 50 % of bird species increased, probably linked to a projected increase in semi-natural vegetation. In line with the literature using climate envelope models, we found little divergence among the four scenarios. Our findings suggest targeted policies depending on habitat and species group. These are, for dry grasslands, to reduce land use change or its effects and to enhance connectivity, and for wetlands to mitigate climate change effects.

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Acknowledgments

This paper is based on the outcome of an expert workshop organized in March 2012 in the hamlet Ehrenberg-Seiferts, located in the UNESCO Biosphere Reserve Rhön, Hessen, Germany (www.biosphaerenreservat-rhoen.de). It was supported financially by the European Commission as part of the EU-funded FP7 project RESPONSES, Grant Agreement number 244092.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Environmental Sciences, Norway’s University of Life Sciences, P.O. Box 5003, 1432, Ås, Norway

    Jan E. Vermaat

  2. PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, The Hague, The Netherlands

    Fritz A. Hellmann, Jelle van Minnen & Rob Alkemade

  3. Environmental Geography group, Department of Earth Sciences, Faculty Earth and Life Sciences, VU University, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Astrid J. A. van Teeffelen

  4. Institute of Natural Resource Sciences, Zürich University of Applied Sciences, Wädeswil, Switzerland

    Regula Billeter

  5. Department of Biogeography, BayCEER, University of Bayreuth, 95440, Bayreuth, Germany

    Carl Beierkuhnlein

  6. Department of Biology and Biotechnologies, Università di Roma La Sapienza, Roma, Italy

    Luigi Boitani

  7. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Helsinki, Helsinki, Finland

    Astrid J. A. van Teeffelen & Mar Cabeza

  8. Department of Aquatic Ecology and Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), University of Duisburg and Essen, 45117, Essen, Germany

    Christian K. Feld

  9. School of Biological and Biomedical Sciences, Durham University, Durham, UK

    Brian Huntley

  10. Land Use Research Group, School of Geosciences, University of Edinburgh, Drummond Street, Edinburgh, EH8 9XP, UK

    James Paterson

  11. De Vlinderstichting/Dutch Butterfly Conservation, P.O. Box 506, 6700AM, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Michiel F. WallisDeVries

  12. Laboratory of Entomology, Wageningen University, P.O. Box 16, 6700AA, Wageningen, The Netherlands

    Michiel F. WallisDeVries

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  1. Jan E. Vermaat
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  2. Fritz A. Hellmann
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Correspondence to Jan E. Vermaat.

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Vermaat, J.E., Hellmann, F.A., van Teeffelen, A.J.A. et al. Differentiating the effects of climate and land use change on European biodiversity: A scenario analysis. Ambio 46, 277–290 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s13280-016-0840-3

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