Publication
Land use change drives major loss of Southeast Asian biodiversity
Publisher:
Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
Date:
12-08-2023
DOI:
10.1101/2023.08.08.552370
Abstract: Southeast Asia is highly bio erse and currently experiences among the highest rates of tropical deforestation globally, but impacts on bio ersity are not well synthesized. We use Bayesian multi-level modeling to meta-analyse 831 pairwise comparisons of bio ersity in sites subject to human land use change and anthropogenic forest disturbance (for ex le in plantations or logged forest) versus undisturbed sites. After controlling for hierarchical dependences, we show that bio ersity is a fifth lower in sites with these land-use changes (95% credible interval= 16-28%, mean = 22%). This reduction was greater when land use change/anthropogenic forest disturbances were high-intensity (34% reduction in bio ersity) compared to low-intensity (18% reduction), and effects were consistent across biogeographic regions and taxa. Oil-palm plantations lead to the greatest reduction in bio ersity (39%, CI 27-48%), and agroforests the least (24%, CI 10-37%). We also find that bio ersity is reduced in young secondary forest by 26% (CI 4-42%) compared to undisturbed forest, but there is no reduction in bio ersity for intermediate or mature-aged secondary forest (although species composition is potentially altered). Overall, our study provides the clearest evidence yet of the substantial detrimental impact of land-use change and anthropogenic forest disturbance on the bio ersity of Southeast Asia.