Journal
PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
Volume 111, Issue 4, Pages 1652-1657Publisher
NATL ACAD SCIENCES
DOI: 10.1073/pnas.1309492111
Keywords
energy policy; greenhouse gas mitigation
Categories
Funding
- DOE Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center DOE Biological and Environmental Research Office of Science [DE-FC02-07ER64494]
- DOE Office of the Biomass Program Office of Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy [DE-AC0576RL01830]
- US National Science Foundation Long-Term Ecological Research program Division of Environmental Biology [1027253]
- US Department of Agriculture National Institute of Food and Agriculture [2011-67009-30137]
- Michigan State University AgBioResearch
- Division Of Environmental Biology
- Direct For Biological Sciences [1027253] Funding Source: National Science Foundation
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Agriculture is being challenged to provide food, and increasingly fuel, for an expanding global population. Producing bioenergy crops on marginal lands-farmland suboptimal for food crops-could help meet energy goals while minimizing competition with food production. However, the ecological costs and benefits of growing bioenergy feedstocks-primarily annual grain crops-on marginal lands have been questioned. Here we show that perennial bioenergy crops provide an alternative to annual grains that increases biodiversity of multiple taxa and sustain a variety of ecosystem functions, promoting the creation of multifunctional agricultural landscapes. We found that switchgrass and prairie plantings harbored significantly greater plant, methanotrophic bacteria, arthropod, and bird diversity than maize. Although biomass production was greater in maize, all other ecosystem services, including methane consumption, pest suppression, pollination, and conservation of grassland birds, were higher in perennial grasslands. Moreover, we found that the linkage between biodiversity and ecosystem services is dependent not only on the choice of bioenergy crop but also on its location relative to other habitats, with local landscape context as important as crop choice in determining provision of some services. Our study suggests that bioenergy policy that supports coordinated land use can diversify agricultural landscapes and sustain multiple critical ecosystem services.
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