Global effects of land use on biodiversity differ among functional groups

Abstract

Human land use has caused substantial declines in global species richness. Evidence from different taxonomic groups and geographic regions suggests that land use does not equally impact all organisms within terrestrial ecological communities, and that different functional groups of species may respond differently. In particular, we expect large carnivores to decline more in disturbed land uses than other animal groups. We present the first global synthesis of responses to land use across functional groups using data from a wide set of animal species, including herbivores, omnivores, carnivores, fungivores and detritivores; and ranging in body mass from 2 × 10−6 g (an oribatid mite) to 3,825 kg (the African elephant). We show that the abundance of large endotherms, small ectotherms, carnivores and fungivores (although in the last case, not significantly) are reduced disproportionately in human land uses compared with the abundance of other functional groups. The results, suggesting that certain functional groups are consistently favoured over others in land used by humans, imply a substantial restructuring of ecological communities. Given that different functional groups make unique contributions to ecological processes, it is likely that there will be substantial impacts on the functioning of ecosystems. A free Plain Language Summary can be found within the Supporting Information of this article.