Journal Article

Contrasted effects of human pressure on biodiversity in the UK: a multi‐taxonomic assessment using airborne environmental DNA

Littlefair, Joanne E., Cristescu, Melania E., Garrett, Nina R., Tournayre, Orianne, Brown, Andrew S., Allerton, James J., Clare, Elizabeth L.

2025

Overview

Human activities have significantly modified habitats, resulting in a global biodiversity crisis. In this study, we leveraged the first national‐scale biodiversity survey based on airborne environmental DNA, comparing the effects of three human pressure indices increasing in complexity and scope – a binary urban–rural index, an index integrating land cover and pollutant concentrations as a proxy of human activity, and the composite human footprint index – across mammals, birds, insects, plants and fungi. While most taxa exhibited higher diversity in urban areas compared to rural ones, we uncovered more complex patterns using the landscape‐pollution and human footprint indices, including dual diversity maxima at both high and moderate levels of human pressure. We also show an effect of human pressure on community composition even when local species richness remained stable: regardless of the human pressure index, anthropogenic sites were mostly characterized by synanthropic and invasive species. Overall, our results underscore the complex interactions among anthropogenic pressures, taxon diversity and community composition, demonstrating the value of multi‐taxon analyses and multiple indices to better understand biodiversity patterns at large scales.

• Publisher: Blackwell Publishing Ltd
• Subject: airborne eDNA metabarcoding / diversity / human footprint index / land cover / pollution / urban versus rural