UCL Discovery
UCL home » Library Services » Electronic resources » UCL Discovery

Modelling and projecting the response of local assemblage composition to land use change across Colombia

Echeverría-Londoño, S; Newbold, T; Hudson, LN; Contu, S; Hill, SLL; Lysenko, I; Arbeláez-Cortés, E; ... Visconti, P; + view all (2016) Modelling and projecting the response of local assemblage composition to land use change across Colombia. Diversity and Distributions , 22 (11) pp. 1099-1111. 10.1111/ddi.12478. Green open access

[thumbnail of Newbold_Manuscript_DD_Final.pdf]
Preview
Text
Newbold_Manuscript_DD_Final.pdf

Download (414kB) | Preview
[thumbnail of newbold_Supporting_information.pdf]
Preview
Text
newbold_Supporting_information.pdf

Download (141kB) | Preview
[thumbnail of newbold_Tables.pdf]
Preview
Text
newbold_Tables.pdf

Download (69kB) | Preview

Abstract

AIM: Understanding the impact of land use change within assemblages is fundamental to mitigation policies at local and regional scale. Here, we aim to quantify how site-level terrestrial assemblages are responding to land use change in Colombia a mega-diverse country and to project future biodiversity under different scenarios of land use change associated with climate change policies. LOCATION: Colombia (northern South America). METHODS: We collated original biodiversity data from 17 publications (285 sites) that examined how human impact affects terrestrial biodiversity in Colombia. From each site we estimated compositional intactness (i.e. compositional similarity to undisturbed sites). We fitted generalized linear mixed-effects models to estimate how these measures of local biodiversity vary across land use habitats. Using space-for-time substitution, we applied our estimates to hindcast biodiversity changes since 1500 and project future changes under climate change policies of the four representative concentration pathways (RCPs). RESULTS: Assemblages in urban, cropland and pasture sites were compositionally very different from those in primary vegetation. We infer that average compositional intactness has been reduced by 18% across Colombia to date, with strong regional variation. The best RCP scenario for future biodiversity is GCAM-RCP4.5, a path that favours the expansion of secondary forests under a strong carbon market; while the worst is MESSAGE-RCP8.5, ‘the business-as-usual’ scenario. MAIN CONCLUSIONS: Land use change has driven an increasing change in the composition of ecological assemblages in Colombia. By 2095, the implementation of carbon markets policy of climate change from GCAM-RCP4.5 could mitigate these changes in community composition. In contrast, the business-as-usual scenario MESSAGE-RCP8.5 predicts a steep community change placing the quality of ecosystems at risk.

Type: Article
Title: Modelling and projecting the response of local assemblage composition to land use change across Colombia
Open access status: An open access version is available from UCL Discovery
DOI: 10.1111/ddi.12478
Publisher version: http://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12478
Language: English
Additional information: © 2016 John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Echeverría-Londoño, S; Newbold, T; Hudson, LN; Contu, S; Hill, SLL; Lysenko, I; Arbeláez-Cortés, E; (2016) Modelling and projecting the response of local assemblage composition to land use change across Colombia. Diversity and Distributions , 22 (11) pp. 1099-1111. 10.1111/ddi.12478, which has been published in final form at http://doi.org/10.1111/ddi.12478. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance with Wiley Terms and Conditions for Self-Archiving.
UCL classification: UCL
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences
UCL > Provost and Vice Provost Offices > School of Life and Medical Sciences > Faculty of Life Sciences > Div of Biosciences > Genetics, Evolution and Environment
URI: https://discovery.ucl.ac.uk/id/eprint/1508542
Downloads since deposit
287Downloads
Download activity - last month
Download activity - last 12 months
Downloads by country - last 12 months

Archive Staff Only

View Item View Item