A practical approach to measuring the biodiversity impacts of land conversion

1. Further progress in reducing biodiversity loss relies on the improved quantification of the connections between drivers of habitat loss and subsequent biodiversity impacts. To this end, biodiversity impact metrics should be able to report linked trends in specific human activities and changes in biodiversity state, accounting for both the ecology of different species, and the cumulative effects of historical habitat losses. These characteristics are not currently captured within a single metric.

2. Here we develop a globally applicable methodological framework that uses freely and publicly available datasets to quantify the relative impacts of anthropogenic activities on biodiversity. We use species-specific habitat suitability models to link specific land uses to ensuing changes in the likelihood that local populations of those species will persist. To illustrate our approach we assess the impacts of soy expansion and other land uses within the Brazilian Cerrado on over 2,000 spe...