Understorey bird assemblages in selected environmentally sensitive areas (ESA) of Selangor, Peninsular Malaysia

Environmentally Sensitive Areas (ESA) refer to areas that are of critical importance in terms of ecosystem services such as goods, services and life-support systems, such as water purification, pest control and erosion regulation. In addition, they also refer to areas that harbour the wealth of the nation's biodiversity. However, the classification of ESA in Malaysia is incomprehensible and lacks weightage on biological elements as the current classification is more centred on physical attributes. In order to enhance the existing classification of ESA by introducing biological elements, biological data are urgently required, especially for forest reserves and protected habitat. Hence, we conducted understorey birds surveys in three ESA rank II permanent forest reserves, located in northern Selangor as baseline information to strengthen the ESA classification. The surveys were carried out using mist-netting in three 400 m × 200 m plots. Alpha diversity indices were calculated and showed a significant difference in terms of diversity, composition and biomass of understorey birds between investigated sites. Analysis of similarity (ANOSIM) showed that bird assemblages from forest reserves designated as ESA rank II in Selangor, based on disturbances levels, have weakly diverged and SIMPER analysis has identified six species that contributed to 60% of the differences amongst the bird assemblages. The finding provides the first insight into understorey birds of the study sites and the importance of conserving and preserving ESA of permanent forest reserves, especially the small and fragmented forests.

Performance of richness estimators for invertebrate inventories in reservoirs

Biological inventories combined with the estimation of species richness represent a useful tool for the analysis of the pattern of species distribution in different regions. This study aimed to (i) comparatively evaluate the performance of non-parametric richness estimators for invertebrate inventories in reservoirs between ecoregions and (ii) to assess whether the efficiency (bias, precision and accuracy indices) of the estimators is altered when applied to sites from different ecoregions. The study was conducted in the ecoregions Central Pediplano of the Borborema Plateau (Paraíba River basin) and Northern Sertaneja Depression (Piranhas-Assu River basin), semiarid region of Brazil. Six reservoirs were selected and benthic macroinvertebrates were sampled at 141 sites distributed along the littoral zone, in 4 periods (June, September, December 2014 and March 2015). The organisms were identified to the family level, except for Chironomidae, identified to the genus level. We comparatively analyzed six non-parametric richness estimators: Jackknife 1, Jackknife 2, Chao1, Chao 2, ICE, and Bootstrap, and three performance indicators: bias, precision, and accuracy. ICE and Jackknife 2 had more stable results for total species richness, but with different performance between ecoregions for bias, precision, and accuracy. Variation in performance of the estimators may be associated with differences in species richness and frequency between ecoregions. ICE and Jackknife 2 proved to be the best estimators for biological inventories of aquatic invertebrates in reservoirs in studies comparing data from different ecoregions, due to accuracy and precision, while Bootstrap is the least indicated, given greater bias and less accuracy and precision.

Variation in herpetofauna detection probabilities: implications for study design

Population monitoring is fundamental for informing management decisions aimed at reducing the rapid rate of global biodiversity decline. Herpetofauna are experiencing declines worldwide and include species that are challenging to monitor. Raw counts and associated metrics such as richness indices are common for monitoring populations of herpetofauna; however, these methods are susceptible to bias as they fail to account for varying detection probabilities. Our goal was to develop a program for efficiently monitoring herpetofauna in southern Texas. Our objectives were to (1) estimate detection probabilities in an occupancy modeling framework using trap arrays for a diverse group of herpetofauna and (2) to evaluate the relative effectiveness of funnel traps, pitfall traps, and cover boards. We collected data with 36 arrays at 2 study sites in 2015 and 2016, for 2105 array-days resulting in 4839 detections of 51 species. We modeled occupancy for 21 species and found support for the hypothesis that detection probability varied over our sampling duration for 10 species and with rainfall for 10 species. For herpetofauna in our study, we found 14 and 12 species were most efficiently captured with funnel traps and pitfall traps, respectively, and no species were most efficiently captured with cover boards. Our results show that using methods that do not account for variations in detection probability are highly subject to bias unless the likelihood of false absences is minimized with exceptionally long capture durations. For monitoring herpetofauna in southern Texas, we recommend using arrays with funnel and pitfall traps and an analytical method such as occupancy modeling that accounts for variation in detection.

Functional Diversity in Ferns Is Driven by Species Richness Rather Than by Environmental Constraints

Functional traits determine how species interact with their abiotic and biotic environment. In turn, functional diversity describes how assemblages of species as a whole are adapted to their environment, which also determines how they might react to changing conditions. To fully understand functional diversity, it is fundamental to (a) disentangle the influences of environmental filtering and species richness from each other, (b) assess if the trait space saturates at high levels of species richness, and (c) understand how changes in species numbers affect the relative importance of the trait niche expansion and packing. In the present study, we determined functional diversity of fern assemblages by describing morphological traits related to resource acquisition along four tropical elevational transects with different environmental conditions and species richness. We used several functional diversity indices and their standardized effect size to consider different aspects of functional diversity. We contrasted these aspects of functional diversity with climate data and species richness using linear models and linear mixed models. Our results show that functional morphological trait diversity was primarily driven by species richness and only marginally by environmental conditions. Moreover, increasing species richness contributed progressively to packing of the morphological niche space, while at the same time decreasing morphological expansion until a saturation point was reached. Overall, our findings suggest that the density of co-occurring species is the fundamental driving force of morphological niche structure, and environmental conditions have only an indirect influence on fern resource acquisition strategies.

The MacKinnon Lists Technique: An efficient new method for rapidly assessing biodiversity and species abundance ranks in the marine environment

Widespread and ever-increasing anthropogenic impacts in the marine environment are driving a need to develop more efficient survey methods for monitoring changes in marine biodiversity. There is a particular urgent need for survey methods that could more rapidly and effectively detect change in species richness, abundance and community composition. Here, test the suitability of the Mackinnon Lists Technique for use in the marine environment by testing its effectiveness for rapid assessment of fish communities. The MacKinnon Lists Technique is a time-efficient and cost-effective sampling method developed for studying avian tropical biodiversity, in which several list samples of species can be collected from a single survey. Using the well-established MaxN approach on data from deployments of a Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems for comparison, we tested the suitability of the MacKinnon Lists Technique for use in marine environments by analysing tropical reef fish communities. Using both methods for each data set, differences in community composition between depths and levels of protection were assessed. Both methods were comparable for diversity and evenness indices with similar ranks for species. Multivariate analysis showed that the MacKinnon Lists Technique and MaxN detected similar differences in community composition at different depths and protection status. However, the MacKinnon Lists Technique detected significant differences between factors when fewer videos (representing reduced survey effort) were used. We conclude that the MacKinnon Lists Technique is at least as effective as the widely used MaxN method for detecting differences between communities in the marine environment and suggest can do so with lower survey effort. The MacKinnon Lists Technique has the potential to be widely used as an effective new tool for rapid conservation monitoring in marine ecosystems.

PERFIL DA FAUNA DE VESPAS PARASITÓIDES (INSECTA, HYMENOPTERA) EM UMA ÁREA DE MATA ATLÂNTICA DO PARQUE ESTADUAL DE PEDRA AZUL, DOMINGOS MARTINS, ESPÍRITO SANTO, BRASIL

RESUMO Este trabalho teve como objetivo conhecer a fauna de vespas parasitóides ocorrentes em área de Mata Atlântica no Parque Estadual de Pedra Azul, Espírito Santo, Brasil. Foram coletadas 1.997 vespas parasitóides pertencentes a 28 famílias através de 16 armadilhas Malaise expostas por 14 dias. As famílias Diapriidae, Platygastridae e Bethylidae apresentaram as maiores abundâncias relativas (26,54%, 11,47% e 10,72%, respectivamente). Quatorze famílias apresentaram abundância relativa inferior a 1%. A subfamília Charipinae (Figitidae) é registrada pela primeira vez para o Estado do Espírito Santo. É apresentada lista de gêneros e espécies de algumas famílias