Is bioenergy for the birds? An evaluation of alternative future bioenergy landscapes

Fargione, Joseph

doi:10.1073/pnas.1014045107

Cited by 18 publications

(13 citation statements)

References 13 publications

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“…). However, many uncertainties remain about how birds will respond to perennial bioenergy crops, and most research has focused on local habitat associations instead of regional effects of bioenergy development on bird communities (Fargione , Werling et al. ).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities

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Williams

Sample

et al. 2016

Ecological Applications

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Increased demand and government mandates for bioenergy crops in the United States could require a large allocation of agricultural land to bioenergy feedstock production and substantially alter current landscape patterns. Incorporating bioenergy landscape design into land-use decision making could help maximize benefits and minimize trade-offs among alternative land uses. We developed spatially explicit landscape scenarios of increased bioenergy crop production in an 80-km radius agricultural landscape centered on a potential biomass-processing energy facility and evaluated the consequences of each scenario for bird communities. Our scenarios included conversion of existing annual row crops to perennial bioenergy grasslands and conversion of existing grasslands to annual bioenergy row crops. The scenarios explored combinations of four biomass crop types (three potential grassland crops along a gradient of plant diversity and one annual row crop [corn]), three land conversion percentages to bioenergy crops (10%, 20%, or 30% of row crops or grasslands), and three spatial configurations of biomass crop fields (random, clustered near similar field types, or centered on the processing plant), yielding 36 scenarios. For each scenario, we predicted the impact on four bird community metrics: species richness, total bird density, species of greatest conservation need (SGCN) density, and SGCN hotspots (SGCN birds/ha ≥ 2). Bird community metrics consistently increased with conversion of row crops to bioenergy grasslands and consistently decreased with conversion of grasslands to bioenergy row crops. Spatial arrangement of bioenergy fields had strong effects on the bird community and in some cases was more influential than the amount converted to bioenergy crops. Clustering grasslands had a stronger positive influence on the bird community than locating grasslands near the central plant or at random. Expansion of bioenergy grasslands onto marginal agricultural lands will likely benefit grassland bird populations, and bioenergy landscapes could be designed to maximize biodiversity benefits while meeting targets for biomass production.

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Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities

Blank

Williams

Sample

et al. 2016

Ecological Applications

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“…Rowe et al ., ) or indirectly (e.g. Holland et al ., ) based on studies conducted on small, temporal (single samples within a single season), spatial (localized, experimental plots) scales, whilst sustainability concerns relate to longer term, landscape‐scale expansion (Fargione, ; Dauber & Bolte, ). Furthermore, many studies assess biodiversity taxa of one type of biomass crop, without drawing comparisons with the land uses they may replace (see review by Dauber et al ., ) and use coarse levels of identification (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Dedicated biomass crops can enhance biodiversity in the arable landscape

et al. 2015

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Suggestions that novel, non‐food, dedicated biomass crops used to produce bioenergy may provide opportunities to diversify and reinstate biodiversity in intensively managed farmland have not yet been fully tested at the landscape scale. Using two of the largest, currently available landscape‐scale biodiversity data sets from arable and biomass bioenergy crops, we take a taxonomic and functional trait approach to quantify and contrast the consequences for biodiversity indicators of adopting dedicated biomass crops on land previously cultivated under annual, rotational arable cropping. The abundance and community compositions of biodiversity indicators in fields of break and cereal crops changed when planted with the dedicated biomass crops, miscanthus and short rotation coppiced (SRC) willow. Weed biomass was consistently greater in the two dedicated biomass crops than in cereals, and invertebrate abundance was similarly consistently higher than in break crops. Using canonical variates analysis, we identified distinct plant and invertebrate taxa and trait‐based communities in miscanthus and SRC willows, whereas break and cereal crops tended to form a single, composite community. Seedbanks were shown to reflect the longer term effects of crop management. Our study suggests that miscanthus and SRC willows, and the management associated with perennial cropping, would support significant amounts of biodiversity when compared with annual arable crops. We recommend the strategic planting of these perennial, dedicated biomass crops in arable farmland to increase landscape heterogeneity and enhance ecosystem function, and simultaneously work towards striking a balance between energy and food security.

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“…The first‐generation biofuels whose main components are fatty acid methyl‐ or ethyl‐ester derive from soybean, rapeseed, or palm oil . Extra chemical or biological transesterification is required during their production, leading to a high cost and a complex process . Molecular structures of produced biofuels rely on acyl moieties of triglycerides from raw materials.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Enhancing microbial production of biofuels by expanding microbial metabolic pathways

Chen

2017

Biotech and App Biochem

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Fatty acid, isoprenoid, and alcohol pathways have been successfully engineered to produce biofuels. By introducing three genes, atfA, adhE, and pdc, into Escherichia coli to expand fatty acid pathway, up to 1.28 g/L of fatty acid ethyl esters can be achieved. The isoprenoid pathway can be expanded to produce bisabolene with a high titer of 900 mg/L in Saccharomyces cerevisiae. Short- and long-chain alcohols can also be effectively biosynthesized by extending the carbon chain of ketoacids with an engineered "+1" alcohol pathway. Thus, it can be concluded that expanding microbial metabolic pathways has enormous potential for enhancing microbial production of biofuels for future industrial applications. However, some major challenges for microbial production of biofuels should be overcome to compete with traditional fossil fuels: lowering production costs, reducing the time required to construct genetic elements and to increase their predictability and reliability, and creating reusable parts with useful and predictable behavior. To address these challenges, several aspects should be further considered in future: mining and transformation of genetic elements related to metabolic pathways, assembling biofuel elements and coordinating their functions, enhancing the tolerance of host cells to biofuels, and creating modular subpathways that can be easily interconnected.

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Is bioenergy for the birds? An evaluation of alternative future bioenergy landscapes

Cited by 18 publications

References 13 publications

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities

Alternative scenarios of bioenergy crop production in an agricultural landscape and implications for bird communities

Dedicated biomass crops can enhance biodiversity in the arable landscape

Enhancing microbial production of biofuels by expanding microbial metabolic pathways

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