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.