Impact of Land-Use and Climate on Biodiversity in an Agricultural Landscape

The term “biodiversity” was used for the first time by wildlife scientist and conservationist [1] in a lay book advocating nature conservation. The term was not adopted by more then decade. In 1980 use of the term by Thomas Lovejoy in the Foreword to the book “Conservation Biology” [2] credited with launching the field of conservation biology introduced the term to the scientific community. There are many definitions of biodiversity. One of them, formulated in Millennium Ecosystem Assessment [3] reads: ” Biodiversity is the variability among living organisms from all sources, including terrestrial, marine, and other aquatic ecosystems and the ecological complexes of which they are part; this includes diversity within species, between species, and of ecosystems”. Biodiversity forms the foundation of the vast array of ecosystem services that critically contribute to human well-being. Biodiversity is important in human-managed as well as natural ecosystems. Decisions humans make that influence biodiversity affect the well-being of themselves and others [3].