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Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2020:216 Koen Jacobus Josefus Kuipers Koen Jacobus Josefus Kuipers Predicting global habitat conversion and fragmentation effects on terrestrial vertebrate species richness with species-area models within the life cycle impact assessment framework ISBN 978-82-326-4780-4 (printed version) ISBN 978-82-326-4781-1 (electronic version) ISSN 1503-8181 Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2020:216 NTNU Faculty of Engineering Norwegian University of Science and Technology Department of Energy and Process Engineering Koen Jacobus Josefus Kuipers Predicting global habitat conversion and fragmentation effects on terrestrial vertebrate species richness with species-area models within the life cycle impact assessment framework Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor Trondheim, August 2020 Norwegian University of Science and Technology Faculty of Engineering Department of Energy and Process Engineering NTNU Norwegian University of Science and Technology Thesis for the degree of Philosophiae Doctor Faculty of Engineering Department of Energy and Process Engineering © Koen Jacobus Josefus Kuipers ISBN 978-82-326-4780-4 (printed version) ISBN 978-82-326-4781-1 (electronic version) ISSN 1503-8181 Doctoral theses at NTNU, 2020:216 Printed by Skipnes Kommunikasjon as Preface The thesis has been submitted to the Faculty of Engineering Science in partial fulfilment of the degree of Philosophiae Doctor. This work was carried out at the Industrial Ecology Programme and the Department of Energy and Process Engineering at the Norwegian University of Science and Technology in Trondheim, Norway, in the period 2016-2020. Koen Jacobus Josefus Kuipers Trondheim, April 2020 i Acknowledgements First, I would like to thank my supervisor, Francesca Verones, and co-supervisors, Roel May and Bente Graae, for their support and involvement throughout in my PhD research. Francesca, special thanks to you for your help, positive energy, and maybe most of all for creating such a pleasant atmosphere in your research group. I would also like to thank those who I have collaborated closely with, especially Stefanie Hellweg, Mark Huijbregts, and Aafke Schipper, whose contributions have been essential to the realisation of this thesis. Then, thanks to my colleagues, most of whom became my close friends. I am unsure whether the RBK matches, (overambitious) ski- or occasional cabin trips made me feel Norwegian or emphasised my foreignness, but I do know that I really enjoyed the years spent in Trondheim. Alex, Eivind, Dan, Cristina, the Jans, John, Lorenzo, Helene, Martin, Magnus, Maren, Otavio, Philomena, Romain, and all others, mange takk! Furthermore, I must acknowledge the importance of my colleagues in the LCIA group. The labyrinth of impact assessment models frequently made our heads spin and jointly attempting to unravel them has been fun, funny, and educational. Also, I really appreciated the visits from my friends and family members who cared to cross the North Sea! I am delighted that there are too many names to name, and sad about those who last- minute could not make it over to Norway due to current travel restrictions. Of course, special thanks to Isabelle, who visited me more than anyone else and whose company I always love. Finally, I would like to thank my family. Marius and Gertrude, thanks for having been so closely involved in all decisions that led me to where I am now. Pap, mam, and Lot, our shared humour never failed to cheer me up, especially when I needed it! ii Abstract Habitat change is the single largest threat to global biodiversity. Mainly caused by human land use, this results in the loss and fragmentation of natural habitat and subsequent losses of species. The relevance of halting and reversing biodiversity loss caused by habitat change is recognised by international efforts, such as the Aichi biodiversity targets or the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs, specifically, SDG 15). A variety of studies and assessments is needed to guide strategies to reach these goals and to assess whether we are on the right track for reaching them. In this light, a quantitative understanding of the effects of human land use is essential. Environmental decision-support tools can help to channel such information into decision-making processes, thereby helping to guide actions and strategies to minimise biodiversity impacts. Life cycle assessment (LCA) is such a tool that comprehensively assesses impacts along complete value chains. However, currently available life cycle impact assessment (LCIA) models for global land use impacts on species richness consider the effects of habitat conversion only and neglect the additional effects of habitat fragmentation. This means that land use impacts may be systematically underestimated in current LCAs. To more completely capture impacts related to land use, both habitat conversion and fragmentation effects should be considered. This thesis contributes to improving the LCIA characterisation of land use impacts by developing a novel method that considers the combined effects of habitat conversion and fragmentation. I investigated possible options for including the consideration of fragmentation effects within the LCA framework (Chapter 2). Based on a species-area relationship (SAR) approach, I developed a model that considers the global combined effects of habitat conversion and fragmentation on regional (non-flying) mammal species richness (Chapter 3). Fragmentation effects are estimated from changes in habitat connectivity based on the number and size of habitat patches, permeability of the matrix separating the patches, and species dispersal distances. The results suggest that neglecting fragmentation effects results in an average underestimation of land use impacts of about 10%. This reflects the relevance of considering fragmentation in addition to habitat conversion. In addition to regional species losses, we are interested global species extinctions. Hence, I developed an approach for indicating the potential effect of regional species loss on global species extinctions in a taxon- and regionally-specific manner (Chapter 4). The results highlight focal regions for the conservation of global species richness. A combination of the SAR model including fragmentation and the estimation of the global extinction probabilities results in a novel LCIA land use characterisation method (Chapter 5). This spatially differentiated LCIA model for land use impacts on species richness is globally applicable and considers the combined effects of habitat conversion and fragmentation on amphibians, reptiles, birds and mammals. Overall, these characterisation factors improve the potential for characterising impacts of land use in LCAs more completely. The limitations regarding a global approach like the one proposed here is that it generalises impacts over larger scales, potentially not accurately reflecting local responses to habitat conversion or dispersal behaviour of specific species. Nevertheless, large-scale studies may help to identify global trends or to trace impacts spanning across regions. Hence, LCA biodiversity assessments are best suited for comparative analyses at larger scales. This thesis is an important step forward to more completely cover the aspects of land use impacts on species richness in LCA. iii Publications This thesis is based on the four articles listed below as primary publications. Two of these articles have been published in the Journal of Life Cycle Assessment and Environmental Science and Technology, respectively. One of these articles is being prepared for submission at Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America and one is being prepared for submission at Science of the Total Environment. The articles listed as secondary publications are related to, but not included in this thesis. One of these articles has been published in Science of the Total Environment and the other is being prepared for submission. Primary publications Kuipers KJJ, RF May, BJ Graae, F Verones. 2019. Reviewing the potential for including habitat fragmentation to improve life cycle impact assessments for land use impacts on biodiversity. International Journal of Life Cycle Assessment 24: 2206-2219. Author contribution: Literature review and writing. Kuipers KJJ, S Hellweg, F Verones. 2019. Potential consequences of regional species loss for global species richness: a quantitative approach for estimating global extinction probabilities. Environmental Science & Technology 53: 4728-4738. Author contribution: Research design, modelling, data analysis, and writing. Kuipers KJJ, JP Hilbers, J Garcia-Ulloa, BJ Graae, R May, F Verones, MAJ Huijbregts, AM Schipper. In preparation. Effects of habitat conversion and fragmentation on mammal species richness worldwide. To be submitted to Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the United States of America. Author contribution: Research co-design, data collection, modelling, data analysis, and writing. Kuipers KJJ, R May, F Verones. In preparation. Considering habitat conversion and fragmentation in characterisation factors for land use impacts on vertebrate species richness. To be submitted to Science of the Total Environment. Author contribution: Research design, modelling, data analysis, and writing Secondary publications Dorber M, KJJ Kuipers, F Verones. 2020. Global characterization factors for terrestrial biodiversity impacts of future land inundation in life cycle assessment. Science of the Total Environment 712(134582).