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There is little question that conversion of natural lands to agriculture, and other large-scale human disturbances, has dramatically altered insect communities (Dirzo et al., 2014). Nonetheless, recent declines among European honey bees (Apis mellifera) and other pollinators make it clear that subtler, ongoing changes to insect populations can bring additional harm to natural and managed ecosystems (Biesmeijer et al., 2006;Carvalheiro et al., 2010;Potts et al., 2010). Particularly troubling are recent reports that some broad groups of insects, particularly, but not only, in Europe are experiencing sudden, often dramatic, decreases in abundance and biomass

Hydraulic fracturing and horizontal drilling have become major methods to extract new oil and gas deposits, many of which exist in shale formations in the temperate deciduous biome of the eastern United States. While these technologies have increased natural gas production to new highs, they can have substantial environmental effects. We measured the changes in land use within the maturing Fayetteville Shale gas development region in Arkansas between 2001/2002 and 2012. Our goal was to estimate the land use impact of these new technologies in natural gas drilling and predict future consequences for habitat loss and fragmentation. Loss of natural forest in the gas field was significantly higher compared to areas outside the gas field. The creation of edge habitat, roads, and developed areas was also greater in the gas field. The Fayetteville Shale gas field fully developed about 2% of the natural habitat within the region and increased edge habitat by 1,067 linear km. Our data indicate that without shale gas activities, forest cover would have increased slightly and edge habitat would have decreased slightly, similar to patterns seen recently in many areas of the southern U.S. On average, individual gas wells fully developed about 2.5 ha of land and modified an additional 0.5 ha of natural forest. Considering the large number of wells drilled in other parts of the eastern U.S. and projections for new wells in the future, shale gas development will likely have substantial negative effects on forested habitats and the organisms that depend upon them.

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The rapid expansion of unconventional oil and gas development in the US has been controversial because of numerous environmental and social issues, including the conversion, fragmentation, and degradation of natural habitats. Here we describe land‐use impacts and ecosystem services costs of recent energy development in the eight major unconventional oil and gas production regions of the US. From 2004 to 2015, more than 200,000 hectares of land were developed or modified. By 2015, the estimated annual ecosystem services costs of this habitat change had risen to US$272 million, which resulted in a cumulative total of almost US$1.4 billion. These costs were concentrated in deciduous forests and grasslands/pastures. Depending on future well‐drilling rates, cumulative ecosystem services costs projected to the year 2040 range from US$9.4 billion to US$31.9 billion. These environmental and economic impacts should be considered when governments perform cost–benefit analyses and create regulatory oversight.

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Despite increasing attention, the quantification of ecosystem services values in life cycle assessment (LCA) remains nascent relative to other impact categories. In this analysis, we develop and implement a novel approach for quantifying both land requirements and ecosystem services values based on The Economics of Ecosystems and Biodiversity framework. Our case study focuses on energy infrastructure in the US portion of the Chihuahuan Desert, a location that has high resource potential for multiple types of energy. The analysis focuses on the land requirements of three types of power plants from a life cycle perspective: natural gas, solar, and wind. The mean land-use intensity for natural gas, solar, and wind electricity is estimated to be 0.27, 0.68, and 0.064 meters squared per Megawatt-hour (m 2 /MWh), respectively. When considering cumulative land use of the upstream natural gas supply chain, solar breaks even with gas within 10 years. Mean ecosystem services costs are $0.54, $1.39, and $0.12 USD/MWh for electricity generated from natural gas, solar, and wind, respectively. Ecosystem services costs for developments in this region are low relative to levelized costs of electricity (<5%) but are subject to low values compared to other types of ecosystems. Results will vary with regionalized ecosystem services values and different products. Although the results of this study are specific to electricity generation in the Chihuahuan Desert with 2016 as the baseline year, our approach is applicable across regions, scales, and product systems within LCA. This article met the requirements for a gold-silver JIE data openness badge described at http://jie.click/badges.