Local land use and landscape heterogeneity reduce tropical biodiversity and multifunctionality

Tropical rainforests harbor exceptional biodiversity and function, but are increasingly threatened by agricultural expansion. Whether landscape heterogeneity mitigates these impacts, as in temperate systems, remains unclear. Here, we quantified how local land use and landscape heterogeneity shape multidiversity and ecosystem multifunctionality, using 34 biodiversity metrics and 21 functions across 128 plots in Sumatra. Relative to rainforests, plantations reduced multidiversity and multifunctionality by ~25%, with stronger aboveground declines, lower plant and animal but higher microbial diversity. Contrary to temperate systems, landscape heterogeneity did not buffer local land-use effects but exacerbated declines in multidiversity and multifunctionality, and benefits of surrounding-rainforest cover were confined to rainforest fragments rather than plantations. Our results highlight the irreplaceability of continuous tropical rainforests, and the limited transferability of temperate-based landscape conservation strategies.