Skip to main content
  • Other Publications
    • Philosophical Transactions B
    • Proceedings B
    • Biology Letters
    • Open Biology
    • Philosophical Transactions A
    • Proceedings A
    • Royal Society Open Science
    • Interface
    • Interface Focus
    • Notes and Records
    • Biographical Memoirs

Advanced

  • Home
  • Content
    • Latest issue
    • All content
    • Subject collections
    • Special features
    • Videos
  • Information for
    • Authors
    • Reviewers
    • Readers
    • Institutions
  • About us
    • About the journal
    • Editorial board
    • Author benefits
    • Policies
    • Citation metrics
    • Publication times
    • Open access
  • Sign up
    • Subscribe
    • eTOC alerts
    • Keyword alerts
    • RSS feeds
    • Newsletters
    • Request a free trial
  • Submit
You have accessRestricted access

Habitat conversion and global avian biodiversity loss

K. J. Gaston, T. M. Blackburn, K. K. Goldewijk
Published 22 June 2003.DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2303
K. J. Gaston
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
T. M. Blackburn
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
K. K. Goldewijk
  • Find this author on Google Scholar
  • Find this author on PubMed
  • Search for this author on this site
  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF
Loading

Abstract

The magnitude of the impacts of human activities on global biodiversity has been documented at several organizational levels. However, although there have been numerous studies of the effects of local–scale changes in land use (e.g. logging) on the abundance of groups of organisms, broader continental or global–scale analyses addressing the same basic issues remain largely wanting. None the less, changing patterns of land use, associated with the appropriation of increasing proportions of net primary productivity by the human population, seem likely not simply to have reduced the diversity of life, but also to have reduced the carrying capacity of the environment in terms of the numbers of other organisms that it can sustain. Here, we estimate the size of the existing global breeding bird population, and then make a first approximation as to how much this has been modified as a consequence of land–use changes wrought by human activities. Summing numbers across different land–use classes gives a best current estimate of a global population of less than 100 billion breeding bird individuals. Applying the same methodology to estimates of original land–use distributions suggests that conservatively this may represent a loss of between a fifth and a quarter of pre–agricultural bird numbers. This loss is shared across a range of temperate and tropical land–use types.

Royal Society Login

Sign in for Fellows of the Royal Society

Fellows: please access the online journals via the Fellows’ Room

Not a subscriber? Request a free trial

Log in using your username and password

Enter your Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences username.
Enter the password that accompanies your username.
Forgot your user name or password?

Log in through your institution

You may be able to gain access using your login credentials for your institution. Contact your library if you do not have a username and password.

Pay Per Article - You may access this article or this issue (from the computer you are currently using) for 30 days.

Regain Access - You can regain access to a recent Pay per Article or Pay per Issue purchase if your access period has not yet expired.

PreviousNext
Back to top
PreviousNext
22 June 2003
Volume 270, issue 1521
  • Table of Contents
  • Index by author
Share
Habitat conversion and global avian biodiversity loss
K. J. Gaston, T. M. Blackburn, K. K. Goldewijk
Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 2003 270 1293-1300; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2303. Published 22 June 2003
del.icio.us logo Digg logo Reddit logo Twitter logo CiteULike logo Connotea logo Facebook logo Google logo Mendeley logo
Email

Thank you for your interest in spreading the word on Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences.

NOTE: We only request your email address so that the person you are recommending the page to knows that you wanted them to see it, and that it is not junk mail. We do not capture any email address.

Enter multiple addresses on separate lines or separate them with commas.
Habitat conversion and global avian biodiversity loss
(Your Name) has sent you a message from Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences
(Your Name) thought you would like to see the Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B: Biological Sciences web site.
Print
Manage alerts

Please log in to add an alert for this article.

Sign In to Email Alerts with your Email Address
Citation tools

Habitat conversion and global avian biodiversity loss

K. J. Gaston, T. M. Blackburn, K. K. Goldewijk
Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B 2003 270 1293-1300; DOI: 10.1098/rspb.2002.2303. Published 22 June 2003

Citation Manager Formats

  • BibTeX
  • Bookends
  • EasyBib
  • EndNote (tagged)
  • EndNote 8 (xml)
  • Medlars
  • Mendeley
  • Papers
  • RefWorks Tagged
  • Ref Manager
  • RIS
  • Zotero

Article reuse

  • Article
  • Info & Metrics
  • eLetters
  • PDF

Related articles

Cited by

Large datasets are available through Proceedings B's partnership with Dryad

Open biology

  • PROCEEDINGS B
    • About this journal
    • Contact information
    • Purchasing information
    • Submit
    • Author benefits
    • Open access membership
    • Recommend to your library
    • FAQ
    • Help

Royal society publishing

  • ROYAL SOCIETY PUBLISHING
    • Our journals
    • Open access
    • Publishing policies
    • Conferences
    • Podcasts
    • News
    • Blog
    • Manage your account
    • Terms & conditions
    • Cookies

The royal society

  • THE ROYAL SOCIETY
    • About us
    • Contact us
    • Fellows
    • Events
    • Grants, schemes & awards
    • Topics & policy
    • Collections
    • Venue hire

Copyright © 2018 The Royal Society