Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife
Abstract
Recent expansion of croplands in the United States has caused widespread conversion of grasslands and other ecosystems with largely unknown consequences for agricultural production and the environment. Here we assess annual land use change 2008–16 and its impacts on crop yields and wildlife habitat. We find that croplands have expanded at a rate of over one million acres per year, and that 69.5% of new cropland areas produced yields below the national average, with a mean yield deficit of 6.5%. Observed conversion infringed upon high-quality habitat that, relative to unconverted land, had provided over three times higher milkweed stem densities in the Monarch butterfly Midwest summer breeding range and 37% more nesting opportunities per acre for waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Northern Great Plains. Our findings demonstrate a pervasive pattern of encroachment into areas that are increasingly marginal for production, but highly significant for wildlife, and suggest that such tradeoffs may be further amplified by future cropland expansion.
- Authors:
-
[1];
[1];
- Univ. of Wisconsin, Madison, WI (United States); Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
- Publication Date:
- Research Org.:
- Great Lakes Bioenergy Research Center (GLBRC), Madison, WI (United States)
- Sponsoring Org.:
- USDOE Office of Science (SC), Biological and Environmental Research (BER); USDA; National Science Foundation (NSF)
- OSTI Identifier:
- 1776854
- Grant/Contract Number:
- SC0018409; 96-3A75-16-032; DGE-1747503
- Resource Type:
- Accepted Manuscript
- Journal Name:
- Nature Communications
- Additional Journal Information:
- Journal Volume: 11; Journal Issue: 1; Journal ID: ISSN 2041-1723
- Publisher:
- Nature Publishing Group
- Country of Publication:
- United States
- Language:
- English
- Subject:
- 54 ENVIRONMENTAL SCIENCES
Citation Formats
Lark, Tyler J., Spawn, Seth A., Bougie, Matthew, and Gibbs, Holly K. Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. United States: N. p., 2020.
Web. doi:10.1038/s41467-020-18045-z.
Lark, Tyler J., Spawn, Seth A., Bougie, Matthew, & Gibbs, Holly K. Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife. United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18045-z
Lark, Tyler J., Spawn, Seth A., Bougie, Matthew, and Gibbs, Holly K. Wed .
"Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife". United States. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-020-18045-z. https://www.osti.gov/servlets/purl/1776854.
@article{osti_1776854,
title = {Cropland expansion in the United States produces marginal yields at high costs to wildlife},
author = {Lark, Tyler J. and Spawn, Seth A. and Bougie, Matthew and Gibbs, Holly K.},
abstractNote = {Recent expansion of croplands in the United States has caused widespread conversion of grasslands and other ecosystems with largely unknown consequences for agricultural production and the environment. Here we assess annual land use change 2008–16 and its impacts on crop yields and wildlife habitat. We find that croplands have expanded at a rate of over one million acres per year, and that 69.5% of new cropland areas produced yields below the national average, with a mean yield deficit of 6.5%. Observed conversion infringed upon high-quality habitat that, relative to unconverted land, had provided over three times higher milkweed stem densities in the Monarch butterfly Midwest summer breeding range and 37% more nesting opportunities per acre for waterfowl in the Prairie Pothole Region of the Northern Great Plains. Our findings demonstrate a pervasive pattern of encroachment into areas that are increasingly marginal for production, but highly significant for wildlife, and suggest that such tradeoffs may be further amplified by future cropland expansion.},
doi = {10.1038/s41467-020-18045-z},
journal = {Nature Communications},
number = 1,
volume = 11,
place = {United States},
year = {Wed Sep 09 00:00:00 EDT 2020},
month = {Wed Sep 09 00:00:00 EDT 2020}
}
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