Selecting Marine Reserves Using Habitats and Species Assemblages as Surrogates for Biological Diversity

Abstract

We compare the value of using habitat categories and species assemblages as surrogates for marine biological diversity in the context of choosing a set of representative areas for a marine reserve network. Habitat categories were based on interpretation of aerial photographs and maps, and on local knowledge. Species assemblages were created from comprehensive survey data on 977 taxa (mainly species), derived from an intensive threeyear study of a temperate marine embayment, and classified into plant, fish, and invertebrate assemblages. Reserves were selected using a heuristic iterative algorithm to simulate a marine reserve network based on 10-80% representation of each surrogate. The effectiveness of each surrogate was evaluated by comparing the number of taxa that would be coincidentally included in each simulated reserve for the bay. Areas selected to represent 10% or 20% of the surrogates were best chosen using fish or invertebrate assemblages, because by spatial coincidence, they included 60-80% of all available taxa. However, areas selected to represent Ն40% of the surrogates were generally best derived from habitat categories, because they included Ն93% of all available taxa. Plant assemblages were generally poor surrogates for overall species richness. These findings suggest that habitatlevel surrogates may be a highly cost-effective method for initial identification of highpriority areas to manage marine diversity of coastal ecosystems.

Surrogate taxa and fossils as reliable proxies of spatial biodiversity patterns in marine benthic communities

“…Although b-diversity patterns vary among ecosystems and organisms [5,63], the outcomes of this study are consistent with previous studies demonstrating that subset-taxa surrogates perform well [15], and that cross-taxa surrogates provide congruent representations of compositional turnover [16]. These results tentatively indicate that spatial ecological analyses restricted to one group of marine benthic organisms may produce meaningful proxies for assessing spatial patterns estimated by multiple groups, a potentially powerful tool in conservation planning [17]. rspb.royalsocietypublishing.org Proc.…”

“…Whereas previous studies have provided critical insights into spatial structuring of ecosystems, it remains unclear whether heterogeneities manifested within single taxonomic groups reflect b-diversity of communities [14]. Yet the use of a single taxon, or biological surrogate, to estimate biodiversity is becoming increasingly important in marine conservation because of the costs of marine biodiversity surveys, undescribed species, and challenging species identifications [15][16][17]. Although empirical assessments of 'entire communities' are not feasible, it is viable to collect multi-taxic data (multiple phyla) to evaluate the effectiveness of surrogate taxa (e.g.…”

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

“…Furthermore, the problem is growing as these data are increasingly recognized as a key input into systematic and cost-effective conservation planning (Balmford andGaston 1999, Margules andPressey 2000). There are a few examples where excellent spatial data are available for bird (Williams et al 1996) and temperate marine species (Ward et al 1999), but most conservation planning has to be accomplished with an incomplete map of species distributions. 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).…”

A synecological framework for systematic conservation planning

“…In addition, other authors suggest that the use of broad-scale biodiversity attributes can facilitate the study of the most poorlyunderstood species and assemblages, such as invertebrates (Ward et al 1999;Mac Nally et al 2002), and that strategy should concentrate not on pattern but on processes. More information should be gathered on the ecological role of species, and their relevance in nutrient cycles and energy flows (Kareiva and Marvier 2003) and population size should be taken into consideration in the design of conservation strategies.…”

“…Conservation decisions still have to be made in spite of bias and gaps in species information. Methods incorporating both types of data would establish promising conservation strategies (Ward et al 1999;Cowling et al 2003b;Lombard et al 2003), while using a complete and complementary set of biodiversity surrogates would guarantee a better selection (Pressey 2004). Therefore, available taxonomic and distribution information should be combined with environment, land type and vegetation data to take advantage of advances in predictive modelling.…”