Land Systems as Surrogates for Biodiversity in Conservation Planning

Abstract

Abstract. Environmental surrogates (land classes) for the distribution of biodiversity are increasingly being used for conservation planning. However, data that demonstrate coincident patterns in land classes and biodiversity are limited. We ask the overall question, ''Are land systems effective surrogates for the spatial configuration of biodiversity for conservation planning?'' and we address three specific questions: (1) Do different land systems represent different biological assemblages? (2) Do biological assemblages on the same land system remain similar with increasing geographic separation? and (3) Do biological assemblages on the same land system remain similar with increasing land system isolation? Vascular plants, invertebrates, and microbiota were surveyed from 24 sites in four land systems in arid northwest New South Wales, Australia. Within each land system, sites were located to give a hierarchy of inter-site distances, and land systems were classified as either ''low isolation'' (large and continuous) or ''high isolation'' (small patches interspersed among other land systems).Each type of land system supported components of biodiversity either not found, or found infrequently, on other land systems, suggesting that land systems function as surrogates for biodiversity, and that conservation-area networks representing land-system diversity will also represent biological diversity. However, the majority of taxa were found on more than one land-system type, suggesting that a large proportion of the plant, arthropod, and microbial biodiversity may be characterized by widespread species with low fidelity to particular land systems. Significant relationships between geographic distance among sites and differences among assemblages were revealed for all taxa except the microbiota. Therefore, as sites on the same land system were located farther apart, the assemblages at those sites became more different. This finding strongly suggests that conservation planning based on land-system diversity should also sample the geographic range occupied by each land system. Land-system isolation was not revealed to be a significant source of variation in assemblage composition. Our research finds support for environmental surrogates for biodiversity in conservation planning, specifically the use of land systems and similarly derived land classifications. However, the need for explicit modeling of geographic distance in conservation planning is clearly indicated.

Tree species of South America central savanna: endemism, marginal areas and the relationship with other biomes

“…This number corresponds to more than 11% of the Cerrado's biodiversity (Mendonça et al 2008), which makes this group highly relevant to the understanding of the biome's patterns and processes. In addition, vegetation has a major role in acting as a biodiversity surrogate when there is little data available for other taxonomic groups (Lombard et al 2003;Oliver et al 2004;Di Minin & Moilanen 2014; but see Stoms et al 2005).…”

Tropical Coastal Habitats as Surrogates of Fish Community Structure, Grazing, and Fisheries Value

“…Given the almost inevitable limitations of available data, the use of surrogates for species diversity is attractive, although there are significant limitations (Ferrier 2002, Brooks et al 2004). Generally, surrogates may be taxonomic, where known patterns of one taxa are used to infer patterns in other taxa, or environmental, where abiotic and biotic variables are believed to provide information on the spatial distribution of species (Oliver et al 2004). Environmental surrogacy is commonly used synonymously with the consideration of landscape patches (e.g., habitats or land classes), but also incorporates approaches such as environmental diversity (Faith and Walker 1996).…”

“…While interhabitat differences, such as the species present or the abundances of species, among ecological communities are assumed when mapping habitats, intra-habitat heterogeneity (i.e., differences among patches of the same habitat) will reduce the efficacy of habitat maps as surrogates of biodiversity. Despite its importance when habitats are used as surrogates, intra-habitat beta diversity is rarely quantified empirically (but see Oliver et al 2004 for an exception including multiple taxa), and conservation planners are forced to consider different patches of the same habitat as identical (Ferrier 2002). Intra-habitat variation was, therefore, the focus of this study.…”

Multiple hypotheses testing of fish incidence patterns in an urbanized ecosystem

“…Distance among lakes was incorporated because natural dispersion of fishes from one lake to another lake is most likely to occur when the lakes are in close proximity (Oliver et al 2004). It may have been possible for some species of fish to move among urban lakes during spates when some lakes become connected by flowing runoff.…”