Higher taxa are effective surrogates for species in the selection of conservation reserves in estuaries

Shokri, MR; Gladstone, W

Higher taxa are effective surrogates for species in the selection of conservation reserves in estuaries

Shokri, MR Gladstone, W

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Publication Type:: Journal Article
Citation:: Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 2009, 19 (6), pp. 626 - 636
Issue Date:: 2009-09-01

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Field	Value	Language
dc.contributor.author	Shokri, MR	en_US
dc.contributor.author	Gladstone, W https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4517-4605	en_US
dc.date.issued	2009-09-01	en_US
dc.identifier.citation	Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems, 2009, 19 (6), pp. 626 - 636	en_US
dc.identifier.issn	1052-7613	en_US
dc.identifier.uri	http://hdl.handle.net/10453/13380
dc.description.abstract	1. The lack of information about marine biodiversity is problematic for the selection of conservation reserves that aim to protect representative samples of biodiversity. A number of surrogate measures for biodiversity have been suggested as a potential solution to this problem. 2. The present study tested the effectiveness of using higher taxa of macroinvertebrates as a surrogate for species-level identification to depict spatial variation in species richness and assemblage variation and to select conservation reserves in one estuary in south-east Australia. 3. Spatial patterns of richness and assemblage variation for species were significantly correlated with patterns defined from genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla with a decline in the magnitude of correlation coefficients from finer to coarser resolutions. A network of reserves selected to include representatives of all phyla, classes, orders, families and genera coincidentally included 54%, 61.7%, 75%, 92.6%, 98.8% species in 8.3%, 13.9%, 17.7%, 44.4% and 58.3% of grid cells, respectively. However, only reserves selected for genera, families and orders performed significantly better than random selection. 4. Percentage of species represented by orders, families and genera in a realistic level of available grid cells for conservation (i.e. 13.9%) were very close ranging between 70 and 73.5%. A factor diminishing the performance of order as surrogate for species richness was related to the difficulty of identifying many macroinvertebrates to the order level. Therefore, it is concluded that genus- and family-level identification is an effective surrogate for species-level identification for conservation planning in estuaries. © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.	en_US
dc.relation.ispartof	Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems	en_US
dc.relation.isbasedon	10.1002/aqc.1013	en_US
dc.subject.classification	Marine Biology & Hydrobiology	en_US
dc.title	Higher taxa are effective surrogates for species in the selection of conservation reserves in estuaries	en_US
dc.type	Journal Article
utslib.citation.volume	6	en_US
utslib.citation.volume	19	en_US
utslib.for	0602 Ecology	en_US
utslib.for	05 Environmental Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	06 Biological Sciences	en_US
utslib.for	07 Agricultural and Veterinary Sciences	en_US
pubs.embargo.period	Not known	en_US
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Science
pubs.organisational-group	/University of Technology Sydney/Faculty of Science/School of Life Sciences
utslib.copyright.status	closed_access
pubs.issue	6	en_US
pubs.publication-status	Published	en_US
pubs.volume	19	en_US

Abstract:

1. The lack of information about marine biodiversity is problematic for the selection of conservation reserves that aim to protect representative samples of biodiversity. A number of surrogate measures for biodiversity have been suggested as a potential solution to this problem. 2. The present study tested the effectiveness of using higher taxa of macroinvertebrates as a surrogate for species-level identification to depict spatial variation in species richness and assemblage variation and to select conservation reserves in one estuary in south-east Australia. 3. Spatial patterns of richness and assemblage variation for species were significantly correlated with patterns defined from genera, families, orders, classes, and phyla with a decline in the magnitude of correlation coefficients from finer to coarser resolutions. A network of reserves selected to include representatives of all phyla, classes, orders, families and genera coincidentally included 54%, 61.7%, 75%, 92.6%, 98.8% species in 8.3%, 13.9%, 17.7%, 44.4% and 58.3% of grid cells, respectively. However, only reserves selected for genera, families and orders performed significantly better than random selection. 4. Percentage of species represented by orders, families and genera in a realistic level of available grid cells for conservation (i.e. 13.9%) were very close ranging between 70 and 73.5%. A factor diminishing the performance of order as surrogate for species richness was related to the difficulty of identifying many macroinvertebrates to the order level. Therefore, it is concluded that genus- and family-level identification is an effective surrogate for species-level identification for conservation planning in estuaries. © 2008 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.

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http://hdl.handle.net/10453/13380