Trade-offs between biodiversity and agriculture are moving targets in dynamic landscapes

Understanding how biodiversity responds to intensifying agriculture is
critical to mitigating the trade-offs between them. These trade-offs are
particularly strong in tropical and subtropical deforestation frontiers,
yet it remains unclear how changing landscape context in such frontiers
alters agriculture-biodiversity trade-offs. We focus on the Argentinean
Chaco, a global deforestation hotspot, to explore how landscape context
shapes trade-off curves between agricultural intensity and avian
biodiversity. We use a space-for-time approach and integrate a large field
dataset of bird communities (197 species, 234 survey plots), three
agricultural intensity metrics (meat yield, energy yield and profit), and
a range of environmental covariates in a hierarchical Bayesian occupancy
framework. Woodland extent in the landscape consistently determines how
individual bird species, and the bird community as a whole, respond to
agricultural intensity. Many species switch in their fundamental response,
from decreasing occupancy with increased agricultural intensity when
woodland extent in the landscape is low (loser species), to increasing
occupancy with increased agricultural intensity when woodland extent is
high (winner species). This suggests that landscape context strongly
mediates who wins and loses along agricultural intensity gradients.
Likewise, where landscapes change, such as in deforestation frontiers, the
very nature of the agriculture-biodiversity trade-offs can change as
landscapes transformation progresses. Synthesis and applications. Schemes
to mitigate agriculture-biodiversity trade-offs, such as land sparing or
sharing, must consider landscape context. Strategies that are identified
based on a snapshot of data risk failure in dynamic landscapes,
particularly where agricultural expansion continues to reduce natural
habitats. Rather than a single, fixed strategy, adaptive management of
agriculture-biodiversity trade-offs is needed in such situations. Here we
provide a toolset for considering changing landscape contexts when
exploring such trade-offs. This can help to better align agriculture and
biodiversity in tropical and subtropical deforestation frontiers.