Landscape-specific thresholds in the relationship between species richness and natural land cover

1. Thresholds in the relationship between species richness and natural land cover can inform landscape-level vegetation protection and restoration targets. However, landscapes differ considerably in composition and other environmental attributes. If the effect of natural land cover on species richness depends on (i.e. interacts with) these attributes, and this affects the value of thresholds in this relationship, such dependencies must be considered when using thresholds to guide landscape management. 2. We hypothesised that the amount of natural land cover at which a threshold occurs would differ in predictable ways with particular anthropogenic, abiotic and biotic attributes of landscapes. To test this, we related woodland bird species richness in 251 landscapes, each 100 km 2, to natural land cover in south-east Australia. We compared the fit of exponential and threshold models of the richness-natural land cover relationship, focussing on the extent of natural land cover at which thr...