ArticlePhilosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences2014
Closing yield gaps: perils and possibilities for biodiversity conservation.
Article in Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences, 2014. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers.
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Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed.
- Geography and availability of natural habitat determine whether cropland intensification or expansion is more detrimental to biodiversity.Nature ecology & evolution · 2025Article
- Projected landscape-scale repercussions of global action for climate and biodiversity protection.Nature communications · 2023Article
- Livelihood Capitals and Opportunity Cost for Grazing Areas' Restoration: A Sustainable Intensification Strategy in the Ecuadorian Amazon.Animals : an open access journal from MDPI · 2023Article
- Could global norms enable definition of sustainable farming systems in a transformative international trade system?Discover sustainability · 2023Review
- Crop Model Parameterisation of Three Important Pearl Millet Varieties for Improved Water Use and Yield Estimation.Plants (Basel, Switzerland) · 2022Article
- Relative effects of land conversion and land-use intensity on terrestrial vertebrate diversity.Nature communications · 2022Article
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- Historical and projected future range sizes of the world's mammals, birds, and amphibians.Nature communications · 2020Article
- Crop diversification and saline water irrigation as potential strategies to save freshwater resources and reclamation of marginal soils-a review.Environmental science and pollution research international · 2020Review
- Global impacts of future cropland expansion and intensification on agricultural markets and biodiversity.Nature communications · 2019Article
- Article
- The costs of saving nature: Does it make "cents"?PLoS biology · 2017Review
- Supporting local diversity of habitats and species on farmland: a comparison of three wildlife-friendly schemes.The Journal of applied ecology · 2016Article
- Evolutionary biology and genetic techniques for insect control.Evolutionary applications · 2016Review
- Conservation planning in agricultural landscapes: hotspots of conflict between agriculture and nature.Diversity & distributions · 2015Article
- Oil palm natural diversity and the potential for yield improvement.Frontiers in plant science · 2015Article
- Agricultural intensification exacerbates spillover effects on soil biogeochemistry in adjacent forest remnants.PloS one · 2015Article
- Achieving food and environmental security: new approaches to close the gap.Philosophical transactions of the Royal Society of London. Series B, Biological sciences · 2014Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors.
Funding
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Abstract
Increasing agricultural productivity to 'close yield gaps' creates both perils and possibilities for biodiversity conservation. Yield increases often have negative impacts on species within farmland, but at the same time could potentially make it more feasible to minimize further cropland expansion into natural habitats. We combine global data on yield gaps, projected future production of maize, rice and wheat, the distributions of birds and their estimated sensitivity to changes in crop yields to map where it might be most beneficial for bird conservation to close yield gaps as part of a land-sparing strategy, and where doing so might be most damaging. Closing yield gaps to attainable levels to meet projected demand in 2050 could potentially help spare an area equivalent to that of the Indian subcontinent. Increasing yields this much on existing farmland would inevitably reduce its biodiversity, and therefore we advocate efforts both to constrain further increases in global food demand, and to identify the least harmful ways of increasing yields. The land-sparing potential of closing yield gaps will not be realized without specific mechanisms to link yield increases to habitat protection (and restoration), and therefore we suggest that conservationists, farmers, crop scientists and policy-makers collaborate to explore promising mechanisms.
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