Towards energy independence? Scenarios for biodiversity under increased crop fields

Agricultural management is a major factor driving the change of faunal richness and functional diversity in anthropogenic landscapes. Thus, changes in agricultural management may have tremendous effects on biodiversity. Recently, interest in fuel crops is rising. Their possible advantage is twofold. First they can alleviate the dependency from energy-imports. Second, they have a neutral CO2 effect and may thus do not aggravate global warming. An increase in arable land however may have unforeseen effects on local and regional biodiversity. Here we offer a scenario-oriented approach which links landscape complexity measured by means of GIS-oriented analysis of satellite images with faunal richness and functional diversity of specific animal groups using the GEPARD-tool. This tool allows to analyse faunal richness from within the ArcGIS environment using generalised linear model methodology. We estimate faunal richness for functional groups of carabids and birds, namely carnivore, omnivore, and phytophagous carabids and granivore, omnivore, and insectivore birds. We construct landscapes with an increasing proportion of arable land and ask how this effects the faunal richness based on the established model. We can show that the effects of increasing arable land are different for the functional groups. This indicates the need for spatially targeted management efforts, including expertise on different functional groups of animals.