Data from: Impact of crop type on biodiversity globally

The negative impact of agricultural land on biodiversity is widely
recognized. However, there remains a knowledge gap regarding the role of
different crop types in maintaining biodiversity within the agricultural
landscape. By extracting biodiversity data from global datasets and
classifying different crop types, we quantified the contribution of
different crop types to biodiversity. Our results indicate that
biodiversity levels vary widely among crop types. We found a general loss
of biodiversity when natural vegetation is converted to agricultural land,
and highest losses in fiber crops, cereals and oil crops, and least in
other crops (such as coffee or cocoa) and in mixed crops. In general,
perennial crops retain more biodiversity than annual crops. Losses of
biodiversity can be mitigated through mixed cropping of multiple crop
types, especially by combining annual and perennial crops. The negative
impact of converting natural vegetation to agriculture is greater in
tropical than in non-tropical areas, and hence, the import of commodities
from these biodiversity-rich regions may be particularly detrimental.
Given the ongoing increase in biodiversity losses from global
intensification and expansion of agricultural land, maintaining or
restoring natural vegetation, rating the crop-type specific biodiversity,
diversifying crops, and preferring perennial over annual crops,
particularly in the tropics, need to be better considered and implemented
in global agri-environmental schemes.