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Exploring the spatial relationship between carbon storage and biodiversity: a systematic review and meta-analysis
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  • Baoxiao Liu,
  • Laura Scherer,
  • Peter M. Van Bodegom,
  • Zhongxiao Sun,
  • Paul Behrens
Baoxiao Liu
Universiteit Leiden Centrum voor Milieukunde

Corresponding Author:b.liu@cml.leidenuniv.nl

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Laura Scherer
Universiteit Leiden Centrum voor Milieukunde
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Peter M. Van Bodegom
Universiteit Leiden Centrum voor Milieukunde
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Zhongxiao Sun
Universiteit Leiden Centrum voor Milieukunde
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Paul Behrens
Universiteit Leiden Centrum voor Milieukunde
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Abstract

Climate change and biodiversity loss are severe and intertwined global threats. Land-based efforts to address both require an understanding of the spatial relationships between carbon storage and biodiversity. Here, we present a systematic review and meta-analysis of the strength of these spatial relationships across the literature. We synthesize the estimated spatial correlations and infer how different factors (spatial scale, metrics, biome, human pressure) impact these strengths using linear mixed-effect models. Our results show that spatial scale is a significant factor, and the combination of metrics used to express carbon storage and biodiversity plays a more important role. While relationships are moderately positive across all conditions, the strength of the relationships decreases significantly from global to local scales. We find large variations in the strength for different metrics, across different biomes, and in the presence or absence of human pressure. We find a stronger relationship in natural rather than human-dominated landscapes for temperate forests, grasslands and deserts, but the opposite for tropical and subtropical forests. Ecosystem-level biodiversity proxies (habitat quality) show strong relationships to the total carbon pool, while taxonomic metrics (species richness) show a weaker relationship. The largest negative relationship is between total carbon and flora & fauna species richness. Our results suggest different synergies for different dimensions of carbon storage and biodiversity and shed light on where further effort is needed.
Submitted to Land Degradation & Development
11 Jun 2024Assigned to Editor
11 Jun 2024Submission Checks Completed
08 Jul 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned
30 Aug 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
22 Sep 2024Editorial Decision: Revise Major
21 Oct 20241st Revision Received
22 Oct 2024Submission Checks Completed
22 Oct 2024Assigned to Editor
22 Oct 2024Review(s) Completed, Editorial Evaluation Pending
22 Oct 2024Reviewer(s) Assigned