Trade-offs between agriculture and biodiversity conservation in the South American Chaco

全球生物多样性正在迅速受到侵蚀，由于生物多样性的内在价值及其对人类福祉的重要性，这一问题引起了人们的高度关注。由于栖息地丧失、退化和破碎化，土地利用变化是造成这种下降的主要原因。由于需求激增，陆基生产必须增加，这些压力将进一步放大。显然，人类面临的一个核心挑战是如何平衡农业用地的利用与自然生态系统和生物多样性的保护。系统的权衡分析可以确定未实现的潜力，以协调经常相互冲突的农业和保护目标，但这需要详细了解生物多样性如何应对土地利用变化。不幸的是，在生物多样性最多且土地利用变化迅速而剧烈的地区，此类知识往往特别稀缺。该项目将评估阿根廷查科地区近期的土地利用变化以及农业与生物多样性之间的权衡。全球化引发了那里猖獗的农业扩张和集约化，但不幸的是，最近的土地利用变化及其对生物多样性的影响都没有得到很好的了解。我们将充分利用Landsat图像档案，导出大面积图像合成，并使用机器学习变化检测算法来重建阿根廷查科30年的土地利用变化。为了评估生物多样性，我们将沿着土地利用强度梯度进行快速鸟类群落调查，以获得一系列多样性指标。鸟类是优秀的生物多样性替代者，可以相对容易地以标准化方式在大面积范围内进行调查。然后，我们将使用非参数模型选择例程来了解土地利用变化和鸟类多样性指标的关系，特别是关于农业强度的变化。最后，我们将在一种新颖的优化方法中使用农业生产力和鸟类多样性指标，系统地评估农业生产和生物多样性之间的权衡，以确定最能协调查科生产和保护目标的不同土地利用水平。该项目将在一个高度动态的地区进行生物多样性和农业之间的第一个区域规模权衡分析，从而提高我们对土地利用如何影响生物多样性的理解。该项目还将就如何在全球化面前协调经常相互冲突的农业和保护目标产生新颖的见解。在此过程中，这里提出的项目将为土地利用科学、保护科学和可持续性科学领域做出重大贡献。我们的项目结果将为寻求查科过渡到更可持续的未来的保护和土地利用规划提供指导。

Global biodiversity is eroding rapidly, which is of great concern because of the intrinsic value of biodiversity and its importance for human well-being. Land use change has been the main cause of this decline due to habitat loss, degradation and fragmentation. These pressures will amplify further as land-based production will have to increase due to surging demand. Clearly, a central challenge for humankind is how to balance agricultural land use with the conservation of natural ecosystems and biodiversity. Systematic trade-off analyses can identify unrealized potentials for aligning the often conflicting goals of agriculture and conservation, but this requires detailed knowledge on how biodiversity responds to land use change. Such knowledge is, unfortunately, often particularly scarce in those areas where most biodiversity is found and where land use change is rapid and drastic.This project will assess recent land use changes and the trade-offs between agriculture and biodiversity at the regional scale in the Argentine Chaco. Globalization has triggered rampant agricultural expansion and intensification there, but unfortunately neither recent land use changes nor their biodiversity effects are well understood. Making full use of the Landsat image archive, we will derive large-area image composites and use machine-learning change detection algorithms to reconstruct 30 years of land use change for the Argentine Chaco. To assess biodiversity, we will carry out a rapid bird community survey along a gradient of land use intensity to derive a range of diversity metrics. Birds are excellent biodiversity surrogates and can be surveyed relatively easily across large areas in a standardized way. We will then use non-parametric model selection routines based to understand the relationship of land use change and bird diversity indicators, particularly regarding changes in agricultural intensity. Finally, we will use agricultural productivity and bird diversity indicators in a novel optimization approach to systematically assess the trade-offs among agricultural production and biodiversity in order to identify levels of different land uses that would aligning production and conservation goals best in the Chaco.This project will carry out one of the first regional-scale trade-off analyses between biodiversity and agriculture for a highly dynamic region, thereby improving our understanding of how land use affects biodiversity in general. The project will also generate novel insights into how to align the often conflicting goals of agriculture and conservation in the face of globalization. In doing so, the project proposed here will make substantial contributions to the fields of land use science, conservation science, and sustainability science. Our project results will provide guidance for conservation and land use planning seeking to transition to a more sustainable future in the Chaco.