Tropical biodiversity loss from land-use change is severely underestimated by local-scale assessments

Abstract

Human impacts on nature span vast spatial scales that transcend abiotic gradients and biogeographic barriers, yet estimates of biodiversity loss from land-use change overwhelmingly derive from local-scale studies. Using a field dataset of 971 bird species sampled in forest and cattle pasture across 13 biogeographic regions of Colombia, we quantify biodiversity losses from local to near-national scales. Losses are on average 60% worse at the pan-Colombian scale than in individual regions, with underestimation remaining until six to seven biogeographic regions are sampled. Regional losses greatly exceed local losses when beta-diversity is high due to reduced species turnover in pasture across geographic space and elevation. Extrapolation from local-scale studies causes major underestimation of biodiversity loss, emphasizing the need to incorporate spatial structure into measures of change.

Metadata

Item Type:	Article
Authors/Creators:	Socolar, J.B. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9126-9093 Mills, S.C. Gilroy, J.J. Martínez-Revelo, D.E. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4446-4902 Medina-Uribe, C.A. Parra-Sanchez, E. Ramirez-Gutierrez, M. Sand Sæbø, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-7658-4290 Meneses, H.S. Pérez, G. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-5050-2020 Barlow, J. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4992-2594 Ochoa Quintero, J.M. Freckleton, R.P. https://orcid.org/0000-0002-8338-864X Haugaasen, T. https://orcid.org/0000-0003-0901-5324 Edwards, D.P. https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8562-3853
Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information:	© The Author(s) 2025. This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article’s Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article’s Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/.
Keywords:	Community ecology; Conservation biology; Tropical ecology
Dates:	Submitted: 27 November 2024 Accepted: 3 June 2025 Published (online): 22 July 2025 Published: 22 July 2025
Institution:	The University of Sheffield
Academic Units:	The University of Sheffield > Faculty of Science (Sheffield) > School of Biosciences (Sheffield)
Funding Information:	Funder Grant number NATURAL ENVIRONMENT RESEARCH COUNCIL NE/R017441/1
Depositing User:	Symplectic Sheffield
Date Deposited:	06 Aug 2025 14:11
Last Modified:	06 Aug 2025 14:11
Status:	Published online
Publisher:	Springer Science and Business Media LLC
Refereed:	Yes
Identification Number:	10.1038/s41559-025-02779-4
Related URLs:	Dataset
Sustainable Development Goals:
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID):	oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:230149