Potential conflicts between microalgal biodiesel production and areas of high ecological importance at national scales

Current bioenergy production systems—aimed at replacing fossil fuels in the transport sector—have been linked to a wide range of environmental impacts, including biodiversity losses. This is mainly because they derive from food crops (i.e., maize, sugarcane, oil palm, soybeans, and rapeseed, among others), leading to direct and indirect land-use changes in areas of high biodiversity value. However, the potential impacts of novel, non-food based bioenergy production systems on biodiversity remains unclear. Microalgal production systems, which make use of microscopic prokaryotic and eukaryotic photosynthetic organisms, have the potential to become a future source of biofuels for the transport…