International Industrial Ecology Day 2021
Considering functional diversity in impact assessment: the example of plants and land use
The life cycle assessment community recognizes the value of functional diversity, and some recommend it as a complementary metric to the commonly used species-richness-related metrics. Functional diversity is derived from species traits and is, thus, more representative of ecosystem functioning. However, no operational characterization factors exist so far. Here we provide a framework for developing such characterization factors, exemplified by land occupation impacts on functional plant diversity.
Large databases on plant traits and species composition have recently become available and offer new opportunities for biodiversity impact assessment. Functional diversity itself is multi-faceted, and we consider three indices, namely functional richness, evenness, and divergence. Trait selection is a crucial, initial step in the process. Given the observational study and lack of time series, we designed natural experiments and substituted space for time to infer cause-effect relationships between environmental pressure and functional diversity. Matched sample pairs provided equivalent control and treatment groups and limited any confounding by environmental covariates. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework in Germany as a proof of concept.
The results show significant losses in functional plant diversity when occupying formerly natural forests with agriculture. While functional richness decreases strongly and functional divergence moderately upon occupation, functional evenness rather increases locally. Characterization factors for functional richness showed the highest deviation among land use pairs, suggesting that functional richness is most decisive for differences in functional diversity loss.
Combining a data-driven approach with natural experiments offers great potential for developing characterization factors for ecosystem quality. The characterization factors developed here are likely to represent temperate regions. The framework is flexible and applicable to larger scales and other taxa and impact categories.
Large databases on plant traits and species composition have recently become available and offer new opportunities for biodiversity impact assessment. Functional diversity itself is multi-faceted, and we consider three indices, namely functional richness, evenness, and divergence. Trait selection is a crucial, initial step in the process. Given the observational study and lack of time series, we designed natural experiments and substituted space for time to infer cause-effect relationships between environmental pressure and functional diversity. Matched sample pairs provided equivalent control and treatment groups and limited any confounding by environmental covariates. We demonstrate the applicability of the framework in Germany as a proof of concept.
The results show significant losses in functional plant diversity when occupying formerly natural forests with agriculture. While functional richness decreases strongly and functional divergence moderately upon occupation, functional evenness rather increases locally. Characterization factors for functional richness showed the highest deviation among land use pairs, suggesting that functional richness is most decisive for differences in functional diversity loss.
Combining a data-driven approach with natural experiments offers great potential for developing characterization factors for ecosystem quality. The characterization factors developed here are likely to represent temperate regions. The framework is flexible and applicable to larger scales and other taxa and impact categories.
Author(s)
| Name | Affiliation |
|---|---|
| Laura Scherer | Leiden University |
| Sven A. van Baren | Wageningen University & Research |
| Peter M. van Bodegom | Leiden University |
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