Publication
The 20th century saw rates of biodiversity loss high enough to qualify as a sixth mass extinction. Climate change now further threatens species and ecosystem services. Pereira et al. forecasted changes in both biodiversity loss and ecosystem services to 2050 and compared them with changes from 1900 to 2015, combining results
The 20th century saw rates of biodiversity loss high enough to qualify as a sixth mass extinction. Climate change now further threatens species and ecosystem services. Pereira et al. forecasted changes in both biodiversity loss and ecosystem services to 2050 and compared them with changes from 1900 to 2015, combining results from 13 different models. Across three shared socioeconomic pathway scenarios, rates of biodiversity decline from land-use change are expected to be lower than in the 20th century but much higher when climate change is considered. Provisioning ecosystem services (i.e., materials) are expected to increase, but regulating services (e.g., pollination) decline under most scenarios. Outcomes depend on the scenario, suggesting that policies can make a difference.
Global trends and scenarios for terrestrial biodiversity and ecosystem services from 1900 to 2050
Henrique M. Pereira, Inês S. Martins, Isabel M. D. Rosa, Hyejin Kim, Paul Leadley, Alexander Popp, Detlef P. van Vuuren, George Hurtt, Luise Quoss, […], and Rob Alkemade