Sustainable resource use demand management of inevitable trade-offs that occur when one ecosystem service is enhanced at the expense of another, for example between provisioning and regulating ecosystem services (Deng et al., 2016; Inostroza et al., 2017). Dividing areas between conservation and production is one common strategy (see the land-sparing/land-sharing debate; Fischer et al., 2014). However, in most real-world situations, there is a need of simultaneously managing for both goals at the same place—protecting biodiversity, while still extracting provisioning services (MEA, 2005). A pattern of a negative relationship between regulating ecosystem services (e.g. biodiversity) and provisioning ecosystem services (e.g. yield) among a group of sites could be an indication that management for one property will trade off against the other property (Elmqvist et al., 2010). However, Elmqvist et al. (2010) proposed that this negative relationship could take different shapes: a concave, linear or convex relationship (Figure 1). If the relationship is convex, it suggests that it could be possible to somewhat increase the yield without losing substantial biodiversity, while if the relationship is concave, biodiversity values quickly erode with increasing yield (Elmqvist et al., 2010). Hence, a convex relationship offers more opportunities for conserving biodiversity, whereas a concave relationship indicates a strong conflict between the two goals already with little intensification. Thus, exploring the shape of such relationships is an important step in developing strategies and policies for sustainable future land use (Jiren et al., 2018; Steffan-Dewenter et al., 2007).