Quantifying biodiversity impacts of livestock using life‐cycle perspectives

Biodiversity impacts are rarely included in systems analyses of livestock production. We piloted two approaches toward quantifying biodiversity impacts, pressure-state-response (PSR) and potential species loss (PSL), at a cow–calf operation Florida for which extensive environmental data were available. Using these approaches, we compared production on vegetation types, semi-native pasture (SNP) improved (IMP), found fewer deleterious effects associated with SNP (characterized by low stocking rates no fertilizer) than IMP, as evidenced lower PSL greater biotic integrity under PSR. Both agreed the direction outcome, but argue that, when possible, they should be applied complementarily to inform both absolute per-unit product This research demonstrates how incorporate into life-cycle perspectives sustainability assessments availability varies, supporting expansion multi-metric, holistic evaluations that absent from most system analyses.