Journal
ECOLOGY LETTERS
Volume 15, Issue 9, Pages 963-970Publisher
WILEY-BLACKWELL
DOI: 10.1111/j.1461-0248.2012.01815.x
Keywords
Agriculture; bird; countryside biogeography; environmental filtering; homogenisation; intensification; sampling effects; turnover; ss-diversity
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Biodiversity is declining from unprecedented land conversions that replace diverse, low-intensity agriculture with vast expanses under homogeneous, intensive production. Despite documented losses of species richness, consequences for beta-diversity, changes in community composition between sites, are largely unknown, especially in the tropics. Using a 10-year data set on Costa Rican birds, we find that low-intensity agriculture sustained beta-diversity across large scales on a par with forest. In high-intensity agriculture, low local (a) diversity inflated beta-diversity as a statistical artefact. Therefore, at small spatial scales, intensive agriculture appeared to retain beta-diversity. Unlike in forest or low-intensity systems, however, high-intensity agriculture also homogenised vegetation structure over large distances, thereby decoupling the fundamental ecological pattern of bird communities changing with geographical distance. This similar to 40% decline in species turnover indicates a significant decline in beta-diversity at large spatial scales. These findings point the way towards multi-functional agricultural systems that maintain agricultural productivity while simultaneously conserving biodiversity.
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