Ecol. Lett. http://doi.org/bnrc (2016)

Biodiversity is threatened by many global change drivers, with land conversion and climate change among the most important. Assessments that link species' responses to multiple global change drivers remain rare, however, despite having great potential value for conservation planning.

In an effort to address this knowledge gap, Luke Frishkoff from Stanford University, USA, and co-authors assess the linkages between climate and land-use change impacts for more than 300 species of birds in Costa Rica.

They find that the species that thrive in drier conditions also tend to be able to utilize agricultural areas. Furthermore, species that prefer forest habitats in drier regions were found to use agricultural areas more in wetter regions. Under projected drying conditions, forest-dependent species that avoid agricultural areas were the most likely to experience decreases in habitable range size. The synergy between these drivers of biodiversity loss is likely to reduce biodiversity more severely than would be expected if climate and land conversion effects were acting either antagonistically or independently.