According to the World Biodiversity Council IPBES, land use change (such as conversion of forest to pasture) is considered the most important factor leading to biodiversity change. But scientists disagree about how much biodiversity has changed. To better answer this question, the research team modeled the effects of land-use change on biodiversity in the 20th century. Calculations have shown that global biological diversity could decline by two to eleven percent just because of land-use change. This range covers four measures of biodiversity (global number of species, average number of local species, average habitat size, average community integrity), calculated using seven different models. (KNOWLEDGE NEWS, more at mdr.de)