Biodiversity footprints of 151 popular dishes from around the world

being home to the world’s highest number of endemic species [44] which explains the high number of threatened species affected by dishes containing beef produced in Brazil. Lechazo, lamb dish from Spain, was the dish with the highest biodiversity footprint. This result is due to the poor conversion efficiency of lamb combined with a relatively high area of pasture needed for its production [45]. The fact that the dish is from Spain is however due to not having lamb dishes from Brazil, Australia or Thailand. Lamb produced in these countries would achieve a much higher biodiversity footprint as it presents the highest biodiversity foot- print per gram and calorie (S13 Table). The bottom dishes in terms of biodiversity footprint included mainly starchy dishes such as baguette (French loaf of bread), warabi mochi (dessert made of starch from the bracken root), and pyzy (potato dumpling) under all three biodiversity indicators and in all four scenarios. For the locally produced scenario, these starchy foods with low biodiversity footprints mainly originated from countries in temperate regions such as Poland and France. Temperate regions have lower species richness than tropical regions and shelter species with greater range sizes as greater temperature variability selects for species with wider ranges [46]. The greater range would also reduce species’ vulnerability to anthropogenic activities and decrease species’ sus- ceptibility to extinction [47]. Surprisingly, besides beef, dishes with chicken, rice, or legumes as the main ingredient had

also high biodiversity footprints. These results are explained by these dishes mainly originating from India and Mexico. Land conservation to agriculture has occurred in India at the expense of sup alpine forests, such as the Indian Himalaya Region [48], which is another global biodi- versity hotspot. Similarly, Mexico presents pastureland expansion at the expense of its tropical forest biome ecoregions [49]. India is both a top producer of legumes and one of the mega- diverse countries of the world containing 7–8% of global discovered species [50]. In addition, chickpeas, the legume included in approximately 60% of the high biodiversity footprint legume dishes is cultivated in the southern parts of the Western Ghats [51], another biodiversity hot- spot. For rice dishes (e.g. idli, ketupat (Javanese rice cake), and basmati (Indian rice dish)), the high global biodiversity footprints could be attributed to 60% of rice being produced in the tropics, such as in India, and Indonesia. The tropics select for species with smaller range sizes due to lower latitude and temperature seasonality [46], resulting in higher range rarity. Our results highlight the urgency for policy formulation regarding agricultural practices in countries such as India and Brazil where high biodiversity footprint dishes originated from. Some policy formulations could include taxes on dishes with high biodiversity footprint or their related ingredients [19] such as beef while subsidizing other alternative sources of pro-

tein. With price being a concern towards green consumption especially during the initial stages of adoption, lower prices for dishes with a low biodiversity footprint could help to better ease the conversion to low biodiversity footprint dishes [52]. Our results could also encourage the development of restoration projects in areas where the highest biodiversity footprints occur, e.g. restoration projects to increase connectivity have been identified as a priority in the Atlantic Forest in Brazil [53]. Other suitable interventions could be land sparing via agricul- tural intensification, yet these implications need to be observed from the perspective of sus- tainable intensification to prevent further impacts on biodiversity [54]. Our analyses present several limitations. The biodiversity footprint data of pasture obtained from Beyer and Manica [26] were general and not specific to different livestock. This might lead to inaccuracies regarding the biodiversity footprints associated with the respective pas- ture-grown livestock ingredients. Although our approach opens an alternative way to estimate biodiversity footprint of food production based on IUCN Red List approaches for extinction risk estimation, it still has room to be further developed. For instance, no distinction was made between species that survive in agricultural land vs. species that have natural habitat PLOS ONE Biodiversity footprint of popular dishes PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0296492 February 21, 2024 10 / 15