Effectiveness of Vegetation Surrogates for Parasitoid Wasps in Reserve Selection

A holy grail of conservation is to find simple but reliable measures of environmental change to guide management. For example, particular species or particular habitat attributes are often used as proxies for the abundance or diversity of a subset of other taxa. However, the efficacy of such kinds of species-based surrogates and habitat-based surrogates is rarely assessed, nor are different kinds of surrogates compared in terms of their relative effectiveness. We use 30-year datasets on arboreal marsupials and vegetation structure to quantify the effectiveness of: (1) the abundance of a particular species of arboreal marsupial as a species-based surrogate for other arboreal marsupial taxa, (2) hollow-bearing tree abundance as a habitat-based surrogate for arboreal marsupial abundance, and (3) a combination of species- and habitat-based surrogates. We also quantify the robustness of species-based and habitat-based surrogates over time. We then use the same approach to model overall species richness of arboreal marsupials. We show that a species-based surrogate can appear to be a valid surrogate until a habitat-based surrogate is co-examined, after which the effectiveness of the former is lost. The addition of a species-based surrogate to a habitat-based surrogate made little difference in explaining arboreal marsupial abundance, but altered the co-occurrence relationship between species. Hence, there was limited value in simultaneously using a combination of kinds of surrogates. The habitat-based surrogate also generally performed significantly better and was easier and less costly to gather than the species-based surrogate. We found that over 30 years of study, the relationships which underpinned the habitat-based surrogate generally remained positive but variable over time. Our work highlights why it is important to compare the effectiveness of different broad classes of surrogates and identify situations when either species- or habitat-based surrogates are likely to be superior.

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“…see [22], [23], [25], [30]). A key part of such assessment is testing of the relative effectiveness of different classes of surrogates [8].…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In particular, few proposed surrogates have been validated [22]–[25] such as by demonstrating that a species-based surrogate accurately predicts the fate of an entity for which it is presumed to be a proxy [13]. Further, there has been limited assessment of the relative effectiveness of different classes of surrogates [1], [7].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

An Empirical Assessment and Comparison of Species-Based and Habitat-Based Surrogates: A Case Study of Forest Vertebrates and Large Old Trees

et al. 2014

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“…The best strategy was significantly better than random selection of areas for all network sizes investigated (3, 5, and 7 reserves). Demonstration could help evaluate whether this strategy is transferable among vegetation types, geographic locations, and taxonomic groups, which were uncertainties noted by the investigators (Fraser et al 2009). Demonstration also could examine the cost of establishing and managing different configurations of reserves when trade-offs between strategies are cost dependent.…”

Section: Some Practical Experience With Demonstrationmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…Implementation of a varied fire regime using small-scale fires at appropriate firereturn intervals could increase labor and equipment costs relative to current approaches, but in this case the performance benefits may dominate any analysis of trade-offs. Fraser et al (2009) compared 18 vegetation-based reserve-selection strategies with random selection of areas for capturing both species richness and rare species of parasitoid wasps (Hymenoptera: subfamilies Diacritinae, Pimplinae, and Poemeniinae). The best strategy was significantly better than random selection of areas for all network sizes investigated (3, 5, and 7 reserves).…”

Section: Some Practical Experience With Demonstrationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Demonstration as a Means to Translate Conservation Science into Practice

Hall¹,

Fleishman

2010

Conservation Biology

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To be relevant to societal interests and needs, conservation science must explicitly lend itself to solving real-world problems. Failure to evaluate under field conditions how a new technology or method performs or the cost of its implementation can prevent its acceptance by end users. Demonstration, defined here as the translation of scientific understanding into metrics of performance and cost of implementation under real-world conditions, is a logical step in the challenging progression from fundamental research to application. Demonstration reduces scientific uncertainty and validates the hypothesis that a management approach is both effective and financially sustainable. Much like adaptive management, demonstration enables researchers and resource managers to avoid trial-and-error approaches and instead conduct unbiased assessment of management interventions. The participation of end users and regulators in the development and execution of demonstration projects ensures that performance measures are credible and increases the probability that successful innovations will be adopted. Four actions might better connect science to the needs of resource managers via demonstration. First, we recommend that demonstration be conducted as a formal process that documents successes and failures. Second, demonstration should be budgeted as an integral component of government agencies' science programs and executed as a partnership between researchers and managers. Third, public and private funders should increase the opportunities and incentives for academics to engage in demonstration. Fourth, social influences on adoption of new technologies and methods should be further explored. When end users can evaluate explicitly whether a new approach is likely to achieve management objectives, save money, and reduce risk under uncertainty, the professional community successfully has bridged a chasm between research and application.

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“…We focus on the Ichneumonidae, a diverse family of Hymenoptera with over 24 000 described species (Yu et al 2012) and estimates of over 100 000 species worldwide (Gauld et al 2002). Ichneumonids are increasingly used in biodiversity research (Sääksjärvi et al 2006, Fraser et al 2008, Peck et al 2008, Stenbacka et al 2010), and are one of the few groups of organisms whose global diversity remains high above tropical latitudes (Janzen 1981, Jones et al 2011). Previous surveys list more than 35 species of ichneumonids in the high Arctic, making them the most speciose group of parasitoids in the region (Danks 1981).…”

mentioning

confidence: 99%

Assessing five decades of change in a high Arctic parasitoid community

Timms¹,

Bennett²,

Buddle³

et al. 2013

Ecography

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Arctic ecosystems are fragile, and are particularly sensitive to the pressures of climate change. Both average temperature and precipitation have increased over the past five decades on Ellesmere Island, Nunavut, Canada in the high Arctic. Altered growth forms and increased biomass in dominant plant species on Ellesmere Island have been observed concurrent with the changing climate, but shifts in the diversity or rank abundance of plant and bird species have not been detected. Changes in diversity may take longer to appear, or may be assessed better using organisms with shorter generation times such as insects. We explored the ecological impacts of climate change on Ellesmere Island using historical and contemporary communities of ichneumonid wasps. We compared community diversity, functional composition, and body size of two common species using ichneumonid specimens collected in 1961–1965, 1980–1982, 1989–1992, and 2010. We found high compositional similarity between collections, overlapping estimates of species richness, no change in the proportion of idiobiont genera in the community, and no clear pattern in body size over time. The greatest amount of variation over time was detected in parasitoids of herbivores; proportionally fewer herbivore‐parasitizing genera were found in 2010 than in historical collections, and the two genera that were only found in one of the four collections were both parasitoids of herbivores. Our results point to the need to assess climate change effects in Arctic systems using a range of taxa, and responses to large‐scale environmental disturbances may be idiosyncratic and difficult to predict.

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Effectiveness of Vegetation Surrogates for Parasitoid Wasps in Reserve Selection

Cited by 13 publications

References 40 publications

An Empirical Assessment and Comparison of Species-Based and Habitat-Based Surrogates: A Case Study of Forest Vertebrates and Large Old Trees

An Empirical Assessment and Comparison of Species-Based and Habitat-Based Surrogates: A Case Study of Forest Vertebrates and Large Old Trees

Demonstration as a Means to Translate Conservation Science into Practice

Assessing five decades of change in a high Arctic parasitoid community

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