title: Balance between climate change mitigation benefits and land use impacts of bioenergy: conservation implications for European birds.
abstract: Both climate change and habitat modification exert serious pressure on biodiversity. Although climate change mitigation has been identified as an important strategy for biodiversity conservation, bioenergy remains a controversial mitigation action due to its potential negative ecological and socio-economic impacts which arise through habitat modification by land-use change. While the debate continues, the separate or simultaneous impacts of both climate change and bioenergy on biodiversity have not yet been compared. We assess projected range shifts of 156 European bird species by 2050 under two alternative climate change trajectories: a baseline scenario, where the global mean temperature increases by 4°C by the end of the century, and a 2 degrees scenario, where global concerted effort limits the temperature increase to below 2°C. For the latter scenario, we also quantify the pressure exerted by increased cultivation of energy biomass as modelled by IMAGE2.4, an integrated land-use model. The global bioenergy use in this scenario is in the lower end of the range of previously estimated sustainable potential. Under the assumptions of these scenarios, we find that the magnitude of range shifts due to climate change is far greater than the impact of land conversion to woody bioenergy plantations within the European Union, and that mitigation of climate change reduces the exposure experienced by species. However, we identified potential for local conservation conflict between priority areas for conservation and bioenergy production. These conflicts must be addressed by strict bioenergy sustainability criteria that acknowledge biodiversity conservation needs beyond existing protected areas and apply also to biomass imported from outside the European Union.
authors.affiliation: Metapopulation Research Group, Department of Biosciences, P.O. Box 65, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland; tel. +35844-5377193; laura.meller@helsinki.fi ; Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université J. Fourier, Grenoble I, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Laura
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Meller
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université J. Fourier, Grenoble I, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France.
authors.forename: Wilfried
authors.initials: W
authors.lastname: Thuiller
authors.affiliation: Laboratoire d'Ecologie Alpine, UMR CNRS 5553, Université J. Fourier, Grenoble I, BP 53, 38041 Grenoble Cedex 9, France ; Instituto Pirenaico de Ecología (CSIC), 50080 Zaragoza, Spain.
authors.forename: Samuel
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Pironon
authors.affiliation: Muséum National d'Histoire Naturelle, UMR 7204 MNHN-CNRS-UPMC, Centre de Recherches sur la Biologie des Populations d'Oiseaux, CP 51, 55 Rue Buffon, 75005, Paris, France ; Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06520-8106, USA.
authors.forename: Morgane
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Barbet-Massin
authors.affiliation: PBL Netherlands Environmental Assessment Agency, Bilthoven, The Netherlands.
authors.forename: Andries
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Hof
authors.affiliation: Metapopulation Research Group, Department of Biosciences, P.O. Box 65, 00014 University of Helsinki, Finland; tel. +35844-5377193; laura.meller@helsinki.fi.
authors.forename: Mar
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Cabeza
keywords: biodiversity; climate change adaptation; climate change mitigation; complementarity; renewable energy; spatial conservation prioritization