With rising demand for biomass, cropland expansion and intensification represent the main strategies to boost agricultural production, but are also major drivers of biodiversity decline. We investigate the consequences of attaining equal global production gains by 2030, either by cropland expansion or intensification, and analyse their impacts on agricultural markets and biodiversity. We find that both scenarios lead to lower crop prices across the world, even in regions where production decreases. Cropland expansion mostly affects biodiversity hotspots in Central and South America, while cropland intensification threatens biodiversity especially in Sub-Saharan Africa, India and China. Our results suggest that production gains will occur at the costs of biodiversity predominantly in developing tropical regions, while Europe and North America benefit from lower world market prices without putting their own biodiversity at risk. By identifying hotspots of potential future conflicts, we demonstrate where conservation prioritization is needed to balance agricultural production with conservation goals.

Department of Computational Landscape Ecology UFZ Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research 04318 Leipzig Germany

Department of Geography Ludwig Maximilians Universität München 80333 Munich Germany

Faculty of Science Department of Ecology and Environmental Sciences Palacký University Olomouc 78371 Olomouc Czech Republic

Global Change Research Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences 60300 Brno Czech Republic

iDiv German Centre for Integrative Biodiversity Research 04103 Leipzig Germany

Institute of Geoscience and Geography Martin Luther University Halle Wittenberg 06099 Halle Germany

Kiel Institute for the World Economy 24105 Kiel Germany

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