Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204

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Global Environmental Change

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Land use biodiversity impacts embodied in international food trade

Abhishek Chaudharya,* , Thomas Kastnerb
a
Institute of Environmental Engineering, ETH Zurich, 8093 Zurich, Switzerland
b
Institute of Social Ecology Vienna, Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, Schottenfeldgasse 29, Wien, Graz, A-1070 Vienna, Austria

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history:
Received 20 December 2015 Agricultural land use to meet the demands of a growing population, changing diets, lifestyles and biofuel
Received in revised form 14 March 2016 production is a significant driver of biodiversity loss. Globally applicable methods are needed to assess
Accepted 23 March 2016 biodiversity impacts hidden in internationally traded food items. We used the countryside species area
Available online xxx relationship (SAR) model to estimate the mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles species lost (i.e.
species ‘committed to extinction’) due to agricultural land use within each of the 804 terrestrial
Keywords: ecoregion. These species lost estimates were combined with high spatial resolution global maps of crop
Biodiversity yields to calculate species lost per ton for 170 crops in 184 countries. Finally, the impacts per ton were
Agriculture
linked with the bilateral trade data of crop products between producing and consuming countries from
Global trade
FAO, to calculate the land use biodiversity impacts embodied in international crop trade and
Land use
Sustainability consumption. We found that 83% of total species loss is incurred due to agriculture land use devoted for
Consumption domestic consumption whereas 17% is due to export production. Exports from Indonesia to USA and
China embody highest impacts (20 species lost at the regional level each). In general, industrialized
countries with high per capita GDP tend to be major net importers of biodiversity impacts from
developing tropical countries. Results show that embodied land area is not a good proxy for embodied
biodiversity impacts in trade flows, as crops occupying little global area such as sugarcane, palm oil,
rubber and coffee have disproportionately high biodiversity impacts.
ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction Several international agreements aimed at reducing the current

Terrestrial biodiversity fulfills important functions such as
pollination, pest control, nutrient cycling and its loss has economic
as well as human health implications (Cardinale et al., 2012;
Hooper et al., 2012). The conversion of natural forests has
negatively affected the flows of many important ecosystem
services, such as carbon storage, water filtration, and habitat
provision for biodiversity (MEA, 2005; Foley et al., 2005). The
International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list
shows that 322 species of vertebrates have gone extinct since 1500,
and approximately 41% of amphibians, 26% of mammals, 13% of
birds,
40% of described invertebrate species and
30% of plant
species are considered threatened with extinction (IUCN, 2014). It
has been estimated that agricultural activities negatively impact
53% of threatened terrestrial species (Tanentzap et al., 2015).
Overall, the current rate of extinction is about 100 times the
background extinction rate (Ceballos et al., 2015).
* Corresponding author.
E-mail addresses: abhishek@ifu.baug.ethz.ch, abhinain2010@yahoo.com
(A. Chaudhary).
rate of biodiversity loss have failed to meet their targets (Tittensor
et al., 2014). In addition to traditional measures such as setting
aside areas for species conservation, novel policies aimed at
directly addressing the human drivers of biodiversity loss (e.g.
consumption patterns) are required (Lenzen et al., 2012; Tanentzap
et al., 2015). It is thus important to identify the hotspots of
agriculture driven biodiversity loss and global food trade flows
embodying high biodiversity impacts.
As the world’s economies are becoming increasingly intercon-
nected, international trade flows of biomass products have been
increasing (Erb et al., 2009). It is important to inform the consumers
regarding the environmental impacts ‘hidden’ in products they
consume. Environmentally extended input output analysis is a
common tool to assess the impact of traded commodity in the
country of origin and upstream supply chains (Wiedmann et al.,
2011). Biophysical accounting methods have also been applied to
trace the origin of consumed products and to assess embodied
natural resource inputs such as land or water use in international
supply chains (MacDonald et al., 2015; Kastner et al., 2014a).
Assessments of carbon emissions embodied in world trade have also
been carried out (Peters et al., 2011), but similar analyses of
biodiversity impacts are rare.

http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2016.03.013
0959-3780/ ã 2016 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
196 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
The study by Lenzen et al. (2012) is the first and to this date
only attempt at quantifying biodiversity loss embodied in global
trade of goods and services. They assessed the species threats
caused by production of different commodities and combined it
with economic multi-region input output (MRIO) tables to
evaluate the trade of these threats between countries. Their
results showed that industrialized countries are the main
importers of threats that occur outside their borders, mainly in
tropical developing countries. However, a similar analysis linking
biophysical accounting trade databases (e.g. Kastner et al., 2014a)
with biodiversity loss at a global scale is still lacking. Alternative
globally applicable methods and metrics to quantify biodiversity
loss are needed to test the robustness of results obtained by
Lenzen et al. (2012).
1.1. Assessing land use impacts on biodiversity
Biodiversity loss due to land use has been studied at different
spatial scales  local, regional and global. The estimates of local
biodiversity loss are typically obtained from plot-scale biodiversity
monitoring studies, comparing species richness between the
disturbed site (e.g. agricultural land) and the natural, undisturbed
habitat (reference site) of the same region (Gibson et al., 2011).
Such spatial comparisons assume that human intervention have
caused the biodiversity differences between otherwise similar
sites (Newbold et al., 2015). In order to predict regional and global
biodiversity loss due to land use, the models describing species-
area relationships (SARs) are often employed.
Traditionally the classic SAR model, defining species richness as
a power function, S = cAz, (where A is the area, S is the number of
species, and c and z are model parameters), has been used to
predict species extinction following habitat loss in a region (Brooks
et al., 2002). However it assumes that the areas converted to
agriculture or used for forestry are totally hostile to biodiversity,
thereby overestimating extinctions (Koh and Ghazoul, 2010). There
is a growing recognition that human-modified habitats also play
important role in biodiversity conservation (Karp et al., 2012).
Alternative models that account for habitat heterogeneity have
been proposed to assess patterns of species richness in multi-
habitat landscapes such as the matrix SAR model (Koh and
Ghazoul, 2010) or countryside SAR model (Pereira and Daily, 2006;
Pereira et al., 2014).
Unlike classic or matrix SAR, the countryside SAR model
recognizes the fact that species adapted to human-modified
habitats also survive in the absence of natural habitat. The
countryside SAR model has recently been proven to perform better
than both matrix and classic SAR in predicting species extinction
from habitat loss in heterogeneous, human modified landscapes
(Pereira et al., 2014; Proença and Pereira, 2013; Guilherme and
Pereira, 2013).
Using the current extent of land use, the countryside SAR
predicts the final, equilibrium level of species extinctions per
ecoregion taking levels prior to human intervention as baseline
but does not inform on the timing of extinctions. In other words,
SARs provide an estimate of species ‘committed to extinction’
(Wearn et al., 2012) rather than species immediately going
extinct. The term “extinction debt” has been coined to refer to
future biodiversity losses due to past habitat destruction that
have yet to be realized because of time delays in extinction.
During this time delay it is possible to take conservation
measures (e.g. restoring habitat) to safeguard the persistence
of biodiversity that is otherwise committed to extinction (see
Wearn et al., 2012).
Recently, Chaudhary et al. (2015) calculated species lost due to
total land use within each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregions for four
taxa (mammals, birds, amphibians and reptiles) using the
countryside SAR model. Terrestrial ecoregions were chosen as
spatial units because they contain distinct communities of species,
and their boundaries approximate the original extent of natural
ecosystems prior to major land use change (Olson et al., 2001). The
countryside SAR thus predicted the fraction of species lost
compared to those occurring naturally prior to human intervention
in that ecoregion. The total predicted species loss due to land use
was then allocated to individual land use types based on the area
occupied by them within the ecoregion and the affinity of taxa to
them to derive so called characterization factors (CFs) i.e. the
factors indicating biodiversity damage caused by unit area of a
particular land use in a particular region.
1.2. Objective and scope
This study extends the analysis carried out by Chaudhary et al.
(2015) by combining the CFs (in units—species lost/m2) per
ecoregion for agricultural land with high-resolution maps of
harvested area and crop yield for individual crops to derive the
impacts per unit mass produced (species lost per ton) for 170 crops
in 184 countries for four vertebrate taxa. We then obtain
170 matrices containing mass of each of the crop traded between
different countries for the year 2011 using FAOSTAT trade database
(FAOSTAT, 2015; Kastner et al., 2014a). Finally, the newly calculated
impacts per ton at crop level are combined with these trade
matrices to assess the biodiversity impacts embodied in interna-
tional food trade and consumption.
2. Materials and methods
We here briefly summarize the methodology to calculate the
species loss and how to link these estimates to crop products trade
and consumption (see Chaudhary et al., 2015; Kastner et al., 2011,
2014a for full details). For each taxon g, countryside SAR predicts
the number of species lost ðSlost Þ caused by all (cumulative) land
use within an ecoregion j as a function of the number of species
Sorg;j occurring in the original natural habitat area Aorg;j as
presented in Eq. (1). Anew;j is the remaining natural habitat area
in the region, hg;i;j is the affinity of taxa g to the land use type i
(annual crops, permanent crops, pasture, urban, extensive forestry,
intensive forestry), Ai;j is the area of individual land use type i in the
ecoregion and zj (z-value) is the SAR exponent:
0 1z j
Xn
Anew;j þ h  Ai;j
@ i¼1 g;i;j A
Slost;g;j ¼ Sorg;g;j  Sorg;g;j  ð1Þ
Aorg;j
hg;i;j is a function of the z-value and the relative local species
richness of the taxa in land use type i to that in natural forest of the
same region (Pereira and Daily, 2006; Pereira et al., 2014). The
value of hg;i;j for natural habitat is 1 and decreases till zero as land
use becomes increasingly hostile for the taxon (Pereira et al., 2014).
The area estimates per ecoregion (Anew;j ; Aorg;j and Ai;j ) were
obtained from global land use maps (Ellis and Ramankutty, 2008),
species richness per ecoregion (Sorg;g;j ) from WWF database
(WildFinder, 2006), z-values (zj ) from Drakare et al. (2006) and
the taxa affinities ðhg;i;j Þ from global literature review (Chaudhary
et al., 2015). More details on model parameters and their sources
are listed in supplementary information.
2.1. Allocating the total species loss to each land use type
The species loss due to total land use in an ecoregion j is
allocated to each land use type i according to their relative area
share in the current human modified area and the taxa affinity to
these land use types in the region through an allocation factor ðai;j Þ.
 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
X 6
Note that ai;j = 1.
i¼1  
Ai;j  1  hi;j
ai;j ¼ X6   ð2Þ
A  1  hi;j
i¼1 i;j
Combining Eqs. (1) and (2), the characterization factors (CFs) for
each taxa g, in an ecoregion j are then calculated as:
Slost;g;j  ai;j
CF regional;i;j;g ¼ ð3Þ
Ai;j
CFs in equation 3 thus give an estimate of regional species loss (i.e.
species ‘committed to extinction’ at the regional level) per m2 of six
different land use types in each of the 804 terrestrial ecoregion
(Chaudhary et al., 2015).
2.2. Country-specific biodiversity impacts per ton of crop production
We obtained the harvested area and annual production (Pc;p in
tons) of each of 170 crops at a 5 min by 5 min pixel level from
Monfreda et al. (2008) (which follows the FAOSTAT crop
classification system). Pfister et al. (2011) adjusted this crop area
per pixel for multiple cropping, using length of growing season
estimates of each crop in different agro-ecological zones. We used
this adjusted area occupied by a crop c per pixel p (denoted as Ac;p
hereafter) for further analysis. For each taxon g, the characteriza-
tion factors per ecoregion (CF g;j ) for annual and permanent crops
(Eq. (3)) were taken from Chaudhary et al. (2015) and it was
assumed that CF value is the same for all pixels p occurring within
an ecoregion j (i.e. CF g;p ¼ CF g;f 8 p 2 j).
The impact per ton of each crop (Ic;k;g ) was then obtained by
dividing the total impact caused by each crop in each country k
with its total production:
Xn
p¼1
CF g;p  Ac;p
Ic;k;g ¼ Xn ð4Þ
P
p¼1 c;p
Here n is the total number of pixels within the country k and CF g;p is
the characterization factor for taxa g in pixel p (units—species lost
per m2). Ac;p and Pc;p are the area (in m2) and production (in tons) of
crop c in pixel p. This resulted in a total of 170  184 = 31,280 Ic;k;g
values.
2.3. Crop trade
We first obtained bilateral trade linkages between 184 countries
for 450 agricultural commodities (in metric tons) from FAOSTAT for
the year 2011 (for details see Kastner et al., 2014a). Each processed
food and livestock item was first converted into primary crop
equivalents (total of 170 crops) based on factors calculated as the
ratio of dry matter content of the processed product and the dry
matter content of the primary product (for details see Kastner
et al., 2014a). Next, using the approach proposed by Kastner et al.
(2011), we link the (apparent) consumption of each crop product
(including crop product feed embodied in animal product trade) to
the actual country of crop production, eliminating trade links with
countries where only processing takes place. For instance, if Swiss
chocolate, made with cocoa beans originating from Ecuador is
exported to China, our trade matrix will show the link between
consumption in China and cocoa cultivation in Ecuador. This
resulted in 170 matrices indicating for each of the 184 countries the
country of production for the consumed crops (in tons of primary
equivalents; including the amount of domestic production for
domestic consumption).
197
2.4. Total biodiversity damage due to food consumption per country
Biodiversity impacts caused by food consumption in each
country consist of impacts due to use of domestic land plus impacts
occurring outside its borders from imported items, minus the
exported impacts. For impacts occurring inside a country we
multiplied its crop production (in tons) with impacts per ton of
that crop in that country (Ic;k;g , Eq. (4). For imported impacts, the
crop mass imported was multiplied with corresponding impacts
per ton for that crop  country combination.
2.5. Embodied regional species loss
The biodiversity damage associated with each trade flow is
calculated by multiplying the mass traded of each crop from one
country to other with newly calculated impacts (species lost per
ton, Eq. (4)) for that combination of crop and country. This gives the
species loss embodied in individual trade of each crop from
exporting to importing country.
2.6. Characterization factors (CFs) for global species loss
CFs in Eq. (3) give an estimate of regional species loss per m2 of
agriculture land use in ecoregion j. However it does not tell if the
extinction occurs in that region only or if it is a global extinction. If
a species is endemic to a region, its loss will mean permanent
global extinction. For example consider Region 1 that hosts just the
range edges of 10 species as compared to a Region 2 which hosts
10 endemic species (i.e. 100% of their habitat range). Following a
human land use intervention, if both regions are made totally
unsuitable for these 10 species, the actual biodiversity damage will
be more severe in Region 2, as it results in global loss of the
10 species. While avoiding high regional species loss is necessary to
ensure resilience of ecosystem services of the region (Hooper et al.,
2012), preventing global extinctions is also important in order to
preserve genetic diversity of life on Earth (Mace et al., 2003). In
order to get an estimate of global (permanent) species extinctions,
we replaced species richness (Sorg;g;j in Eq. (1)) with number of
endemic species per ecoregion (Send;g;j ) and calculated another set
of CFs, hereafter referred to as global CFs. Global species loss per ton
were calculated using equations 2–4. Finally, we also quantified the
embodied global species loss in international trade flows.
3. Results
3.1. Country-specific biodiversity impacts per ton of crop production
Table S1 presents the regional biodiversity impacts per ton
(Eq. (4)) for each crop and country combination. As not every crop
is grown in every country, the impacts per ton for a total of 8458
crop  country combinations are calculated. Highest impacts are
observed for cropland use in tropical regions, followed by
temperate regions and lowest for boreal regions. For all four taxa,
the impacts for a particular cropland use varies over six orders of
magnitude (
104 to 1011 species lost/ton) depending upon the
country. For example, one ton of wheat cultivation in Guatemala
results in 2.69  106 mammal species lost as compared to
2.90  108 in Estonia (Table S1).
3.2. Hotspots of biodiversity loss due to agricultural land use
The impacts per ton were multiplied by volumes of current crop
production (in tons) in each country to identify which crop causes
high land-use impacts in each country (Table S2). This enables
identifying the hotspots of biodiversity loss due to global
198 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204

agricultural land use. Wheat, rice and maize land use contributed
to 2220 species lost (40% of global agricultural land use impacts).
This was expected because together these three crops occupy
40%
of global cropland. However, the crops such as sugarcane, palm oil,
coconut, cassava, rubber, and coffee are responsible for surpris-
ingly high land use driven species loss (together accounting for just
below 23% of global impacts) considering the fact that together
they only occupy less than 10% of global cropland. Globally, 70% of
agricultural land use biodiversity impacts are accounted for by the
13 crops (Table S2). There exist important regional differences in
terms of impacts. For example, while wheat in Canada and Russia
occupy large areas, their contribution to global biodiversity loss is
meagre owing to low characterization factors (Eq. (3)) and thus low
impacts per ton (Eq. (4), Table S1). Land use for rice, coconut,
rubber and palm oil production in the South-east Asian countries
Indonesia, Malaysia and Philippines were found to contribute the
most to biodiversity loss among all crop-country combinations
(see Table S2 for the full list).
3.3. Total biodiversity damage due to food consumption per country
Fig. 1a shows the top 10 countries with highest biodiversity
impacts due to food consumption (i.e. impacts due to domestic
cropland use plus imported impacts minus the impacts associated
with exported crop items). As expected, populous, biodiversity rich
nations like China, India, Brazil, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria,
Philippines and Thailand with large agricultural area occupy top
ranks in terms of total biodiversity impacts due to their
consumption (Fig. 1a, Table S3). As domestic land use is used for
producing commodities for domestic consumption as well as
exports, we decoupled these impacts. Fig. 1b shows that in terms of
exported impacts—Indonesia, Thailand, India and Malaysia, rank
very high for all taxa. Cropland use for producing export items
results in a total of 156, 65, 63 and 62 species lost in these
countries, respectively. The exported impacts differ in terms of
taxa, e.g. exports from Mexico embody significant amphibian
species loss, exports from Australia high reptile species loss and
exports from USA, Viet Nam and Argentina are causing significant
birds species loss (Table S3).
Next, Fig. 1c shows that imports into the USA and China
embody highest species lost. It is interesting to see that even
countries with smaller populations such as Japan, Germany,
South Korea, UK, France, and Italy—all cause high biodiversity loss
abroad owing to their high per capita consumption and import
levels. We found that in total 83% of total regional species loss
(4747 species) is incurred due to land use devoted for domestic

a) Consumpon impacts
0 100 200 300 400 500 600 700 800 900

India
Indonesia
China
Philippines
Viet Nam
Brazil
Mexico
Nigeria
USA
Myanmar

b) Exported impacts
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140 160 180

Indonesia
Thailand
India
Australia
Malaysia
Viet Nam
USA
Brazil
Sri Lanka
Ecuador

c) Imported impacts
0 20 40 60 80 100 120 140

USA
China
Japan
Germany
India
South Korea
Indonesia
Russia
Italy
France

Fig. 1. Top ranking countries for biodiversity impacts due to consumption, exports and imports. Unit: number of species lost (regional species loss estimate). See Table S3 for
full list.
 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204 199

Table 1
Top-ranking net importers and net exporters of biodiversity impacts. Group I (‘importers’) consist of nations where biodiversity impacts rest more abroad than domestically
and whose exports embody little impacts. Group II (‘traders’) countries are that both import and export biodiversity impacts. Countries in group III (‘exporters’), export
significant impacts but import little from abroad. Group IV (‘domestic-oriented’) comprises of countries with relatively little engagement in global biodiversity trade. Unit:
number of species lost (regional species loss estimate). GDP per capita values are in US$ for the year 2011 (IMF, 2011). See Table S4 for full list.

Country Total Consumption impacts Of which Exported impacts Imports–exports Group GDP/capita

Domestic Imported
China 489 382 107 13 94 II 6091
USA 181 66 115 46 68 II 51749
Japan 78 20 58 0 58 I 46720
Germany 46 3 43 2 41 I 41863
South Korea 32 2 29 0 29 I 22590
Russia 59 33 26 6 20 II 14037
Italy 47 21 26 6 20 I 33072
U.K 33 11 22 3 19 I 39093
France 27 4 23 5 19 I 39772
Saudi Arabia 17 1 16 0 16 I 25136

Indonesia 529 503 27 156 129 II 3557

Thailand 129 123 6 65 58 III 5480
Australia 36 31 6 62 57 III 67556
Malaysia 70 50 20 62 42 II 10432
Ecuador 42 41 1 36 35 III 5425
Brazil 222 213 9 44 35 III 11340
Sri Lanka 73 70 3 36 34 III 2923
Viet Nam 224 208 17 49 32 II 1755
India 785 751 34 63 29 IV 1489
Cameroon 46 45 2 25 23 III 1167

consumption whereas 17% due to export production (a total of
969 species).
3.4. Synthetic typologies of biodiversity trade
Table 1 below shows the ranking of countries in terms of net
biodiversity impacts imported (= imported  exported impacts).
Countries that export more impacts than they import are net
biodiversity exporters, and vice versa. Following the approach by
MacDonald et al. (2015), we also divided the countries into four
major groups depending upon the relative role they play in
agricultural globalization and the trade of biodiversity impacts (see
Table 1, Table S4). In the first group are those where the majority of
biodiversity impacts rest abroad rather than domestically and
whose exports embody little impacts. This includes small countries
with negligible arable land (e.g. Singapore, Saudi Arabia, Hong
Kong etc.) and European industrialized countries such as Germany,
France, Austria, Netherlands, Belgium, Sweden, Norway, Finland
and Denmark where 80–99% of impacts occur through imported
items. For example, total German food consumption was estimated
to result in 46 species lost, of which 43 are from imported food
items (Table 1).
The second group consists of nations that both import and
export biodiversity impacts. These countries include USA, Canada,
Malaysia, Spain, China (Table S4) who often trade oil crops or other
high-value commodities with staple crops. For example, Canadian
imports embody 15 species lost (mainly through rubber imports
from Indonesia and coffee from Mexico, Colombia, and Guatemala)
and its exports cause 19 species loss domestically (mainly through
rapeseed and wheat destined for China, Japan and USA).
In group III lie countries exporting significant biodiversity
impacts but importing little impacts from abroad. For example,

Table 2
Top-ranking bilateral international trade flows in terms of embodied biodiversity impacts, major crops causing the impact and their ranking in terms of embodied cropland
area (see Table S5 and S6 for full list). Unit: number of species lost (regional species loss estimate).

Impacts in Driven by Mammals Birds Amphibians Reptiles Total Major causes Rank area
Indonesia USA 7 5 2 6 20 Rubber, cocoa, coffee 23
Indonesia China 8 5 2 6 20 Palm oil, rubber 26
Mexico USA 7 4 2 5 19 Coffee, vegetables, fruits 32
Indonesia India 7 4 2 5 18 Palm oil, cashew, nuts 22
Thailand China 8 4 1 3 16 Rubber, cassava, fruits 15
Malaysia China 7 4 2 3 15 Palm oil, rubber 46
Indonesia Japan 5 3 1 4 13 Rubber, coffee, cocoa 54
Ecuador USA 5 3 2 3 13 Cocoa beans, coffee 189
Viet Nam China 4 3 1 1 10 Cassava, rubber, rice 108
India China 3 4 0 1 9 Cotton, castor, rapeseed 9
USA China 2 5 1 1 9 Soybean, cotton 1
Australia Indonesia 1 4 0 2 8 Wheat 11
Australia Japan 1 4 0 2 7 Wheat, barley 10
Brazil China 2 1 2 1 7 Soybean 2
USA Mexico 2 4 0 1 7 Wheat, soybean, sorghum 3
Guatemala USA 2 1 1 2 6 Coffee, bananas 243
Indonesia Germany 2 2 1 2 6 Palm oil, rubber, coffee 125
Viet Nam Indonesia 3 2 0 1 6 Rice 154
Indonesia S. Korea 2 1 1 2 6 Rubber, coconut, palm oil 156
Sri Lanka Russia 2 1 1 2 6 Tea 966
200 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
exports from Thailand are responsible for
35% of total species lost
domestically while imports account for just 5% of their total
consumption impacts. At the extreme end of this group are
Australia, Argentina, and Paraguay whose exports actually embody
more species loss than incurred due to land used for their domestic
consumption (Table S4).
Group IV comprises of countries that have relatively little
engagement in global biodiversity trade. Here both the exports and
imports embody little impacts and the local consumption is mainly
met through crops grown domestically. These domestic-oriented
countries lie exclusively in SE Asia (e.g. Myanmar, Nepal), Africa
(e.g. Nigeria, Tanzania) and Caribbean (e.g. Haiti, Jamaica).
In general, industrialized countries with high per capita GDP
tend to be major net importers of biodiversity impacts, while many
developing tropical countries suffer habitat degradation and
consequent biodiversity loss for the sake of producing crop items
for exports. Average GDP per capita for group I countries stood at
31,000$ as compared to 11,200$ (group II); 9258$ (group III) and
3700$ for group IV (IMF, 2011).
In terms of imported impacts per capita, 35 out of top
40 countries belonged to group I signifying their high consumption
levels (see Table S4). While India, Indonesia and China were top
Fig. 2. (a) Total biodiversity impacts imported by the United States from different countries and, (b) total impacts exported by Indonesia to other countries. Unit: number of
species lost (regional species loss estimate).
3 countries in terms of total consumption impacts (Fig. 1a), they
rank way lower at 79, 20 and 136th position respectively in terms
of per capita consumption impacts. On the other hand,
Luxembourg ranked 146th when total impacts were considered
compared to 22nd position in terms of per capita impacts.
Biodiverse Central American or Caribbean countries such as Belize,
Suriname, Panama, Jamaica and Haiti suffering high species loss
and with small populations come at top with respect to per capita
impacts (Table S4).
3.5. Embodied impacts in bilateral trade links
Table 2 shows the top 20 trade flows in terms of embodied
regional species loss (see Table S5 for full list) along with the
major crops causing biodiversity damage in the exporting
country. Exports from Indonesia and Mexico to USA embody
highest impacts (20 and 19 species lost respectively). Exports
from Brazil, Thailand, Malaysia and Indonesia to China also cause
high species loss. For amphibian species loss, exports from Brazil
to China show the highest values. For reptiles, exports from
Australia to Japan and Indonesia were identified as having
significant impacts.
 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
The main crops causing high impact of these bilateral links are
also shown in Table 2. Exports of rubber from Indonesia to USA
alone is responsible for a total of 14 species lost at the regional
level, while oil palm exports from Indonesia, Malaysia to India,
China and Pakistan also embody high species loss. Rubber exports
from Indonesia, Thailand and Malaysia to China, USA and Japan
also cause high impacts on biodiversity. In addition, land used for
coffee and cocoa exports from the Central American countries
Mexico, Colombia, Ecuador to the USA are identified as causing
high species loss. Also, tea exports from Sri Lanka to Russia were
identified as having high impact on amphibians and reptiles (full
list in Table S6).
It is interesting to note that the embodied cropland use area
between countries is not a good proxy for embodied biodiversity
impacts. As shown in Table 2, in terms of embodied land, exports
from Ecuador to USA rank 189 (
0.28 million ha) but in terms of
species loss, it ranks 8th among all international trade flows.
Similarly, agricultural goods exports from Canada to USA embody

3.6 million ha land (5th highest) but this trade flow ranks 36th in
terms of embodied total species loss (Table S6).
The international trade in biodiversity impacts can be visual-
ized using global maps. Fig. 2 below illustrates the flows of
embodied biodiversity impacts for two countries: imports to the
USA and exports from Indonesia. US imports are responsible for a
total of 115 species lost abroad mainly in Mexico and Indonesia but
also in Ecuador, Colombia, Guatemala and Costa Rica (Fig. 2a). In
Indonesia 156 species are lost due to land use devoted to export
production—mainly destined for USA, China and India followed by
Japan, Germany, South Korea and Malaysia (Fig. 2b).
3.6. Global species loss
Table 3 shows the global (=endemic) species loss embodied in
bilateral crop item trade flows between different countries (see
Table S7 for full list). It can be seen that the ranking of several trade
flows changed compared to regional species loss. For example,
exports from Sri Lanka to Russia and from the Philippines to the
USA now rank 3rd and 8th respectively in terms of embodied global
species extinctions in contrast to ranks 20 and 31 when embodied
regional extinctions were considered. Conversely, exports from
USA to Mexico ranked 15th in terms of regional species loss but
appear only at position 288 in the global loss rankings (Table S8).
Table S7 shows the total global species loss caused by food
consumption in each country along with global extinctions
exported and imported. Here also the ranking of countries
changed: for example, Haiti now ranks 8th in terms of total
consumption impacts (19 global species extinctions) while it
ranked 29th when the regional species loss was considered
(Table S7). On the other hand, Bangladesh’s consumption results in
Table 3
Top-10 international supply chains in terms of embodied global (=endemic) biodiversity impacts and comparison with embodied regional species loss ranking. See Table S8
for all flows. Unit: number of species lost (global species loss estimate).
Impacts suffered in Driven by
Ecuador USA
Indonesia USA
Sri Lanka Russia
Brazil China
Indonesia China
Mexico USA
Malaysia China
Philippines USA
Indonesia Japan
Indonesia India
201
3 global extinctions (rank 32nd) compared to 106 regional
extinctions (rank 13th).
We found that in total 81% of total global species loss
(514 species) is incurred due to land use devoted for domestic
consumption whereas 19% due to export production (a total of
117 species). Overall, the synthetic typologies as listed in Table 1
above changed little when global extinctions are considered. Note
that SAR gives an estimate of total species loss within a region but
doesn’t tell which species are lost. Therefore with our approach, we
are not able to tell how many species in the regional estimate are
lost in all the regions they occur in. As a result, the estimated global
extinctions are a conservative estimate as they consider only
species strictly endemic to individual ecoregions.
4. Discussion
4.1. Methodological aspects
The study is first to quantify the land use driven biodiversity
impacts embodied in internationally traded crop items by
combining ecological models with biophysical trade flows. We
used countryside SAR model along with high-resolution spatial
information on global crop area and production to calculate
regional species extinctions per unit mass of each crop produced in
each country. These impacts were linked with international food
trade and consumption data to identify trade flows embodying
high biodiversity damage. Note that SARs provide an estimate of
species ‘committed to extinction’ (Wearn et al., 2012) rather than
species immediately going extinct. This implies that not all the
calculated extinctions have already taken place and the producing
countries can still act towards preventing a part of them.
Additionally, we also estimated the embodied global extinctions
by considering only endemic species which are unique to each
ecoregion and thus highly vulnerable to any future habitat loss.
This study corroborates the findings of earlier researchers
(Lenzen et al., 2012) and shows that imported agricultural goods
are causing significant loss of biodiversity in the country of origin
and highlighted the major crops in different countries causing high
biodiversity extinctions (Table S2). This information is useful for
producing countries to identify the hotspots of species loss within
their borders and perhaps become a starting point for further in-
depth investigations aimed at designing specific mitigation
measures. For example, many of the crops responsible for high
damage have below par yields (tons/ha) owing to technological or
other factors in the country of production (Mueller et al., 2012;
Pradhan et al., 2015). If yields were raised, some of the existing
agricultural area could be abandoned and left for regenerating,
thereby benefitting local biodiversity. This would need, however,
accompanying measures to ensure that higher yields do not fuel
overall production (and area) increases due to increased
Global species loss Trade flow rank for regional species loss
3 8
2 1
2 20
2 14
2 2
2 3
2 6
2 31
2 7
2 4
202 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
profitability of agriculture (Rudel et al., 2009). Our results also
allow for comparing similar crop items from different countries
(Table S1). Countries experiencing high rates of biodiversity loss
and looking to expand their cropland area may avoid future
extinctions by considering importing the corresponding crops
grown in countries with low impacts per ton.
On the consumption side, the results are relevant to countries
such as China, USA, Germany, Japan (Table 1) to help identify the
most damaging imported items such as rubber, soybeans, palm oil,
coffee and their origins (Tables 2 and 3). For example, China,
importing soybean for use as livestock feed, could encourage its
population to adopt change from meat towards more environ-
mentally benign dietary options, thereby helping to reduce the
biodiversity damage occurring in exporting tropical countries such
as Brazil. Here a nutritional assessment of traded food items will be
useful to guide such policy changes (D’Odorico et al., 2014). Using
human-edible crops to feed animals has been shown to be an
inefficient way to provide calories to humans (Cassidy et al., 2013).
4.2. Comparison of results with existing studies
Our approach provides an alternative to that of Lenzen et al.
(2012) who used an economic MRIO model to explore embodied
biodiversity impacts in global supply chains. In the MRIO approach
impacts are connected to final consumption based on monetary
links between economic sectors of countries or world regions. In
contrast, we apply purely biophysical accounting methods based
on bilateral trade links of crops and products processed from them.
Studies have shown different results based on whether MRIO or
purely biophysical approaches are used to determine the land area
associated with traded crop items (Kastner et al., 2014b; Bruckner
et al., 2015) with both approaches having their pros and cons. Our
results indicate that China is a net cropland and biodiversity
impact importer (Table 1). In contrast, recent MRIO studies based
on monetary trade data predict that China is a net exporter of
embodied cropland (Weinzettel et al., 2013; Yu et al., 2013) and
also a net exporter of biodiversity impacts (354 threats imported
vs. 434 exported, Lenzen et al., 2012). Reasons for these disparities
include, on the one hand, the coarse sector aggregation of current
MRIO models that lump together crops with very different
economic value compared to the product level resolution of
purely biophysical accounts. On the other hand, the purely
biophysical approach used by us does not take into account flows
associated with more complex supply chains (e.g., biomass used in
the production of cars).
Recent review by Bruckner et al. (2015) concluded that
biophysical accounting such as employed in this study is more
appropriate for land footprint analysis of food products that
typically undergo only a few processing steps, as well as when
aiming at a detailed product resolution. MRIO accounting as used
by Lenzen et al. (2012) on the other hand is more suited for the
analysis of land flows embodied in non-food land-based products
such as wood products, paper, biofuels, textiles, and leather.
In this study, we calculated species extinctions in different
ecoregions due to total land use (equation-1) and then allocated
the total species loss to agriculture land use in that region
according to the species affinity to them (Eq. (2)). However, apart
from agriculture land use impacts on biodiversity through habitat
loss/degradation, crop production also causes biodiversity damage
through other environmental pathways. For example, fertilizer
run-off from fields leads to eutrophication of rivers affecting
aquatic biodiversity (MacDonald et al., 2012). Irrigation water use
might lead to water scarcity in the region (Hoekstra and
Mekonnen, 2012), while pollution from machinery use on farm
and during processing, transport of crops can also negatively affect
flora and fauna. It was beyond the scope of this study to model
these pathways and quantify the resulting species loss. Hence our
results likely underestimate the biodiversity impacts traded.
Projects such as world food LCA database (Peano et al., 2012)
aim to gather detailed environmental emissions data for several
food items and thus will be useful in future to assess complete
impacts associated with them. In this regard, the estimates by
Lenzen et al. (2012) are more complete as they also account for
other threats caused during different stages of food production.
4.3. Limitations and data gaps
The input data used to calculate species extinctions through
SAR model come with uncertainties and limitations that should be
considered when interpreting the results. For example, the species
affinity estimates (hg;i;j , Eq. (1)) were derived from empirical data
from global literature review (see Chaudhary et al., 2015). As more
plot-scale local biodiversity monitoring data becomes available
(e.g. PREDICTS database, Hudson et al., 2014), these estimates can
be updated and accuracy of results can be improved.
While the crop trade data was obtained from FAOSTAT for the
year 2011, the yield and harvested area maps used to derive
impacts per ton (Eq. (4)) were based on the year 2000 available
from Monfreda et al., 2008. Yields of some crops might have
increased (or decreased) over last decade. Thus we might have
over- or underestimated some of the traded impacts but currently
these maps are the best available source for high resolution impact
assessment of global cropland use. Next, our trade and consump-
tion data only covers the crop portion of livestock feed but does not
include data on pasture land use associated with livestock
products, implying that biodiversity impacts due to livestock
grazing are not accounted for. Additionally, our account does not
include areas planted to fodder crops such as alfalfa or clover
(Kastner et al., 2014a).
Limitation of using species richness loss as an indicator of
biodiversity damage as in our study is that complex changes in
composition and community structure that are commonly caused
by human land use are not accounted for. Biodiversity indicators
that compare compositional (e.g., Sørensen’s similarity index,
Sørensen, 1948) or population (mean species abundance, Alke-
made et al., 2009) changes in the species community between a
reference and agricultural land use, could reveal further insights
and identify additional/different trade flows embodying high
impacts. However, monitoring data required for such indicators is
rarely available on a global scale for multiple taxa. Future studies
should explore these alternative measures of biodiversity. Further,
owing to the lack of species richness per ecoregion data in the IUCN
and WWF databases, we could not calculate the impacts on
invertebrates, fungi and bacteria that contribute to several
ecological services and together make up
80% of global terrestrial
species.
5. Conclusions
Our results are potentially useful to both, decision makers in
countries currently importing or exporting biodiversity impacts.
Whether the responsibility for reducing the impacts lies with
producing or consuming countries is a subject of debate (Liu,
2015). Producers control production methods and exert the
impacts but consumer demand and lifestyle drives production, so
that responsibility is shared between them (Lenzen et al., 2007).
While some countries are totally reliant on imports because of
land and resource constraints (e.g. Hong Kong, Saudi Arabia etc.),
countries such as Germany, France could theoretically reduce the
displaced impacts abroad by devoting more of their domestic
resources to local crop production (Fader et al., 2013). Reducing the
 A. Chaudhary, T. Kastner / Global Environmental Change 38 (2016) 195–204
volume of imported commodities that cause high species loss and
raising consumers’ awareness of the biodiversity damage caused
by these products they buy can help induce sustainable
consumption patterns.
Brazil’s soy moratorium (Gibbs et al., 2015a) is a good example
of how demand-side interventions can contribute to reducing
deforestation or adoption of environmentally benign production
methods in the exporting countries. Many multinational traders,
processers and retailers who buy beef or soy products have agreed
to stop sourcing from farms established on recently cleared forests
(Gibbs et al., 2015b). By quantifying biodiversity impacts hidden in
crop products, our results help identify high damage products from
different countries and could also be useful for product labelling
and certification schemes. Existing carbon footprint labeling
schemes (Cohen and Vandenbergh 2012; Tan et al., 2014) should
be extended in future to also include biodiversity impacts of the
product (Lenzen et al., 2012).
Future studies should extend or complement our assessment
linking biodiversity impacts to consumption, through, for instance,
employing alternative measures of biodiversity loss, including
other land use types and land-based products, or using more
spatially-refined, sub-national trade and consumption accounting
approaches (Godar et al., 2015). Further insights from such
assessments would be highly valuable for devising demand-side
strategies to reduce current rates of biodiversity loss.
Acknowledgment
TK acknowledges funding by the European Research Council
Starting Grant LUISE (263522). AC was funded within the National
Research Programme “Resource Wood” (NRP 66) by the Swiss
National Science Foundation (project no. 136612).
Appendix A. Supplementary data
Supplementary data associated with this article can be
found, in the online version, at http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.
gloenvcha.2016.03.013.
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