''Bioenergy and Wildlife: Threats and Opportunities for Grassland Conservation''

=Abstract= Demand for land to grow corn for ethanol increased in the United States by 4.9 million hectares between 2005 and 2008^citation?, with wide-ranging effects on wildlife, including habitat loss. Depending on how biofuels are made, additional production could have similar impacts.

In an article in the October edition of BioScience, which is published by the American Institute of Biological Sciences the authors present a framework for assessing the impacts of biofuels on wildlife, and use this framework to evaluate the impacts of existing and emerging biofuels feedstocks? on grassland wildlife?.

Meeting the growing demand for biofuels while avoiding negative impacts on wildlife will require either biomass sources that do not require additional land - e.g., wastes, residues, cover crops?, algae - or crop production practices? that are compatible with wildlife.

The authors suggest that diverse native prairie? offers a potential approach that is compatible with wildlife. Additional research is required to assess the compatibility of wildlife with different composition, inputs, and harvest management approaches, and to address concerns over prairie yields versus the yields of other biofuel crops.

Citations

''Bioenergy and Wildlife: Threats and Opportunities for Grassland Conservation'' by:

• Joseph E. Fargione
• Thomas R. Cooper
• David J. Flaspohler
• Jason Hill
• Clarence Lehman
• Tim Mc Coy
• Scott Mc Leod
• Erik J. Nelson
• Karen S. Oberhauser
• David Tilman

External Links

• American Institute of Biological Sciences
• BioScience