Abstract
Agriculture intensification is a dominant driver of biodiversity loss.
Land sparing has been suggested as the best strategy to maintain
biodiversity, but very few intact lands remain on Earth for sparing.
Recently, international policies for nature conservation have proposed
removing land from agricultural management to meet the need for more
land sparing. However, the idea of land sparing has not considered the
risk of biological invasions in abandoned land. Many abandoned
agricultural lands are colonized by invasive species, creating
monospecific patches. Such invasions decrease biodiversity and have
cascading effects on other trophic levels and decrease ecosystem
services in nearby agricultural fields, which may negatively impacts
yield. Thus, the risk of inducing plant invasions and triggering
detrimental impacts on biodiversity, ecosystem services, and
agricultural yields limits land sparing from abandonment as a
conservation strategy. Our simulations suggest that land sharing may be
the best nature conservation strategy in invaded landscapes.