[MCN] Land use can jeopardize broad array of plants, animals

[Lance Olsen]

Nature Communications 12 February 2016
Land use imperils plant and animal community 
stability through changes in asynchrony rather 
than diversity
Nico Blüthgen, Nadja K. Simons, Kirsten Jung et al

Abstract : OPEN ACCESS
http://www.nature.com/ncomms/2016/160212/ncomms10697/full/ncomms10697.html

Human land use may detrimentally affect 
biodiversity, yet long-term stability of species 
communities is vital for maintaining ecosystem 
functioning. Community stability can be achieved 
by higher species diversity (portfolio effect), 
higher asynchrony across species (insurance 
hypothesis) and higher abundance of populations. 
However, the relative importance of these 
stabilizing pathways and whether they interact 
with land use in real-world ecosystems is 
unknown. We monitored inter-annual fluctuations 
of 2,671 plant, arthropod, bird and bat species 
in 300 sites from three regions. Arthropods show 
2.0-fold and birds 3.7-fold higher community 
fluctuations in grasslands than in forests, 
suggesting a negative impact of forest 
conversion. Land-use intensity in forests has a 
negative net impact on stability of bats and in 
grasslands on birds. Our findings demonstrate 
that asynchrony across species--much more than 
species diversity alone--is the main driver of 
variation in stability across sites and requires 
more attention in sustainable management.
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"Seventy percent of the world's remaining forests 
are within 1 kilometer of a road," Lovejoy said. 
"Which is a measure of how advanced fragmentation 
is."

Deforestation could dry out the Amazon, but a warmer climate might do the same.

The length of the dry season here is expected to 
increase due to climate change, and in fact, that 
already seems to be happening in some Amazon 
regions. And this, in turn, could not only 
threaten regional hydrology but push a transition 
to less carbon-dense forests - in some cases even 
exacerbating the possibility of wildfires that 
could transform tropical forests into a 
different, savannah-like environment.

Thus, both continuing deforestation and a warming 
climate alike threaten the carbon storage, and 
the rain generation, of the vast Amazon system. 
It's not one menace - it's two that are closely 
intertwined.

Forests become part of the climate story

The forests section of the recent Paris climate 
agreement wasn't one of the most noted or debated 
sections. And it wasn't as strong as some would 
have liked. But the mere fact that it was there 
was a landmark, Lovejoy said.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-environment/wp/2016/02/11/the-solution-to-climate-change-that-has-nothing-to-do-with-cars-or-coal/

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"Up until the late 1950s, tillage (plowing) 
released more carbon dioxide into the atmosphere 
than all the burning of oil and coal in history."

" ...   not tilling the soil begins to build up 
the carbon content of the soil. You might call 
this 'carbon farming'."

"Obviously, these programs are currently not big money-makers for farmers."

"Energy agriculture - carbon farming" Don Hofstrand co-director AgMRC
Iowa State University
https://www.extension.iastate.edu/agdm/articles/hof/HofAug07.html


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