Summary
Accelerating human impacts are reshaping Earth’s ecosystems. Populations1, richness2–4 and composition4 of communities at sites around the world are being altered over time in complex and heterogeneous ways5–7. Land-use change is thought to be the greatest driver of this population and biodiversity change in terrestrial ecosystems8–10. However, a major knowledge gap is whether land-use change drivers, such as forest loss and habitat conversion, can indeed explain the high heterogeneity of temporal population and biodiversity trends9,11. Here, we fill this gap by analysing change in 6,667 time series of populations (species’ abundance)12 and biodiversity (species richness and turnover in ecological communities)13 over one and a half centuries of forest cover change and habitat transitions. We revealed an acceleration in both increases and decreases in population size, species richness and turnover after peak forest loss at over 2,000 sites across the globe. We found that temporal lags in population and biodiversity change following forest loss can extend up to half of a century and were longer for species with longer generation times such as large mammals. Together, our results demonstrate that historic and contemporary forest cover change do not universally lead to population declines and biodiversity loss, though population declines were most pronounced during and immediately following peak forest loss. By explicitly quantifying multi-decadal temporal lags in population and biodiversity responses to land-use change, our findings inform projections of how life on Earth will be reshaped across the Anthropocene.
