Living and dead bivalves are congruent surrogates for whole benthic macroinvertebrate communities in Puget Sound

To integrate paleoecological data with the “whole fauna” data used in biological monitoring, analyses usually must focus on the subset of taxa that are inherently preservable, for example by virtue of biomineralized hardparts, and those skeletal remains must also be identifiable in fragmentary or otherwise imperfect condition, thus perhaps coarsening analytical resolution to the genus or family level. Here we evaluate the ability of readily preserved bivalves to reflect patterns of compositional variation from the entire infaunal macroinvertebrate fauna as typically sampled by agencies in ocean monitoring, using data from ten long-established subtidal stations in Puget Sound, Washington State. Similarity in compositional variation among these stations was assessed for five taxonomic subsets (the whole fauna, polychaetes, malacostracans, living bivalves, dead bivalves) at four levels of taxonomic resolution (species, genera, families, orders) evaluated under four numerical transformations of the original count data (proportional abundance, square root- and fourth root-transformation, presence-absence). Using the original matrix of species-level proportional abundances of the whole fauna as a benchmark of “compositional variation,” we find that living and dead bivalves had nearly identical potential to serve as surrogates of the whole fauna; they were further offset from the whole fauna than was the polychaete subset (which dominates the whole fauna), but were far superior as surrogates than malacostracans. Genus- and family-level data were consistently strong surrogates of species-level data for most taxonomic subsets, and correlations declined for all subsets with increasing severity of data transformation, although this effect lessened for subsets with high community evenness. The strong congruence of death assemblages with living bivalves, which are themselves effective surrogates of compositional variation in the whole fauna, is encouraging for using bivalve dead-shell assemblages to complement conventional monitoring data, notwithstanding strong natural environmental gradients with potential to bias shell preservation.

Composition and diversity of butterflies (Lepidoptera, Papilionoidea) along an atmospheric pollution gradient in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, Mexico

This study compares the variation of richness, abundance and diversity of butterfly species along an atmospheric pollution gradient and during different seasons in the Monterrey Metropolitan Area, Mexico. Likewise, we analyse the influence of environmental variables on the abundance and richness of butterfly species and quantify the indicator species for each atmospheric pollution category. Based on spatial analysis of the main atmospheric pollutants and the vegetation cover conditions, four permanent sampling sites were delimited. The sampling was carried out monthly in each of the sites using aerial entomological nets and ten Van Someren-Rydon traps during May 2018 to April 2019. A total of 8,570 specimens belonging to six families and 209 species were collected. Both species richness and abundance were significantly different between all sites, except for the comparison between the moderate contamination site and the high contamination site; diversity decreased significantly with increasing levels of contamination. The seasonality effect was absent on species richness; however, for species abundance the differences between dry season and rainy season were significant in each site excepting the moderate contamination site. Regarding diversity, the seasonal effect showed different distribution patterns according to each order. Relative humidity, vegetation cover and three pollution variables were highly correlated with both abundance and species richness. From the total number of species found, only 47 had a significant indicator value. This study constitutes the first faunistic contribution of butterflies as indicators of the environmental quality of urban areas in Mexico, which will help in the development of strategies for the management, planning and conservation of urban biodiversity.

Wildlife usage indicates increased similarity between reclaimed upland habitat and mature boreal forest in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region of Alberta, Canada

While there is no denying that oil sands development in the Athabasca Oil Sands Region (AOSR) has large impacts upon the habitat it disturbs, developers are legally required to return this land to “an equivalent land capability.” While still early in the process of reclamation, land undergoing reclamation offers an opportunity to study factors influencing reclamation success, as well as how reclaimed ecosystems function. As such, an Early Successional Wildlife Dynamics (ESWD) program was created to study how wildlife return to and use reclaimed upland boreal habitat in the AOSR. Wildlife data comprising 182 taxa of mammals, birds, and amphibians, collected between 2011 and 2017 and from five oil sands leases, were compared from multiple habitat types (burned [BRN], cleared [CLR], compensation lakes [COMP], logged [LOG], mature forest [MF], and reclaimed sites [REC]). Overall, similarity of wildlife communities in REC and MF plots varied greatly, even at 33 years since reclamation (31–62% with an average of 52%). However, an average community similarity of 52% so early in the successional process suggests that current reclamation efforts are progressing towards increased similarity compared to mature forest plots. Conversely, our data suggest that REC plots are recovering differently than plots impacted by natural (BRN) or other anthropogenic disturbances (LOG), which is likely due to differences associated with soil reconstruction and development on reclaimed plots. Regardless of the developmental trajectory of reclaimed habitats, progression towards increased wildlife community similarity at REC and MF plots is apparent in our data. While there is no expectation that reclaimed upland habitats will resemble or function identically to naturally occurring boreal forest, the degree of similarity observed in our study suggests that comparable ecological functionality is possible, increasing the probability that oil sands operators will be able to fulfill their regulatory requirements and duty to reclaim regarding wildlife and wildlife habitat.

Assessing Three Sampling Methods to Survey and Monitor Ground Beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) in Riparian Cloud Forests

Understanding how biodiversity is distributed across space and time is one of the main challenges of biological conservation. Moreover, the choice of an adequate sampling methodology is crucial since this must provide an efficient overview of species diversity. We assessed the effectiveness and complementarity of three sampling methods (hand collection [HC], pitfall trapping [PT], and light trapping [LT]) for collecting ground beetles, which are known as a robust ecological indicator sensitive to habitat modifications. Our results varied in the number of species and abundance thereof caught by each sampling method. Both HC and LT were the most efficient and showed the highest species complementarity. HC recorded the highest number of ground beetle individuals, whereas the largest number of species were recorded with LT, but most represented by few individuals. Furthermore, the results revealed that PT do not work efficiently to provide reliable inventories in the remnant riparian cloud forests, which are characterized to be a highly heterogeneous environment. Our results might provide guidelines to choose the most efficient standardized sampling protocol for future inventory and monitoring of ground beetle (Coleoptera: Carabidae) diversity as a tool for the conservation planning in this threatened ecosystem.

Impacts of future climate and land cover changes on threatened mammals in the semi-arid Chinese Altai Mountains

Dryland biodiversity plays important roles in the fight against desertification and poverty, but is highly vulnerable to the impacts of environmental change. However, little research has been conducted on dual pressure from climate and land cover changes on biodiversity in arid and semi-arid environments. Concequntly, it is crutial to understand the potential impacts of future climate and land cover changes on dryland biodiversity. Here, using the Chinese Altai Mountains as a case study area, we predicted the future spatial distributions and local assemblages of nine threatened mammal species under projected climate and land cover change scenarios for the period 2010-2050. The results show that remarkable declines in mammal species richness as well as high rates of species turnover are seen to occur across large areas in the Chinese Altai Mountains, highlighting an urgent need for developing protection strategies for areas outside of current nature reserve network. The selected mammals are predicted to lose more than 50% of their current ranges on average, which is much higher than species' range gains (around 15%) under future climate and land cover changes. Most of the species are predicted to contract their ranges while moving eastwards and to higher altitudes, raising the need for establishing cross-border migration pathways for species. Furthermore, the inclusion of land cover changes had notable effects on projected range shifts of individual species under climate changes, demonstrating that land cover changes should be incorporated into the assessment of future climate impacts to facilitate biodiversity conservation in arid and semi-arid environments.

Effectiveness of vegetation-based biodiversity offset metrics as surrogates for ants

Biodiversity offset schemes are globally popular policy tools for balancing the competing demands of conservation and development. Trading currencies for losses and gains in biodiversity value at development and credit sites are usually based on several vegetation attributes combined to yield a simple score (multimetric), but the score is rarely validated prior to implementation. Inaccurate biodiversity trading currencies are likely to accelerate global biodiversity loss through unrepresentative trades of losses and gains. We tested a model vegetation multimetric (i.e., vegetation structural and compositional attributes) typical of offset trading currencies to determine whether it represented measurable components of compositional and functional biodiversity. Study sites were located in remnant patches of a critically endangered ecological community in western Sydney, Australia, an area representative of global conflicts between conservation and expanding urban development. We sampled ant fauna composition with pitfall traps and enumerated removal by ants of native plant seeds from artificial seed containers (seed depots). Ants are an excellent model taxon because they are strongly associated with habitat complexity, respond rapidly to environmental change, and are functionally important at many trophic levels. The vegetation multimetric did not predict differences in ant community composition or seed removal, despite underlying assumptions that biodiversity trading currencies used in offset schemes represent all components of a site's biodiversity value. This suggests that vegetation multimetrics are inadequate surrogates for total biodiversity value. These findings highlight the urgent need to refine existing offsetting multimetrics to ensure they meet underlying assumptions of surrogacy. Despite the best intentions, offset schemes will never achieve their goal of no net loss of biodiversity values if trades are based on metrics unrepresentative of total biodiversity.

Ecological and Economic Importance of Bats (Order Chiroptera)

Order Chiroptera is the second most diverse and abundant order of mammals with great physiological and ecological diversity. They play important ecological roles as prey and predator, arthropod suppression, seed dispersal, pollination, material and nutrient distribution, and recycle. They have great advantage and disadvantage in economic terms. The economic benefits obtained from bats include biological pest control, plant pollination, seed dispersal, guano mining, bush meat and medicine, aesthetic and bat watching tourism, and education and research. Even though bats are among gentle animals providing many positive ecological and economic benefits, few species have negative effects. They cause damage on human, livestock, agricultural crops, building, and infrastructure. They also cause airplane strike, disease transmission, and contamination, and bite humans during self-defense. Bat populations appear to be declining presumably in response to human induced environmental stresses like habitat destruction and fragmentation, disturbance to caves, depletion of food resources, overhunting for bush meat and persecution, increased use of pesticides, infectious disease, and wind energy turbine. As bats are among the most overlooked in spite of their economical and ecological importance, their conservation is mandatory.

How taxonomic diversity, community structure, and sample size determine the reliability of higher taxon surrogates

Ecologists and paleontologists often rely on higher taxon surrogates instead of complete inventories of biological diversity. Despite their intrinsic appeal, the performance of these surrogates has been markedly inconsistent across empirical studies, to the extent that there is no consensus on appropriate taxonomic resolution (i.e., whether genus- or family-level categories are more appropriate) or their overall usefulness. A framework linking the reliability of higher taxon surrogates to biogeographic setting would allow for the interpretation of previously published work and provide some needed guidance regarding the actual application of these surrogates in biodiversity assessments, conservation planning, and the interpretation of the fossil record. We developed a mathematical model to show how taxonomic diversity, community structure, and sampling effort together affect three measures of higher taxon performance: the correlation between species and higher taxon richness, the relative shapes and asymptotes of species and higher taxon accumulation curves, and the efficiency of higher taxa in a complementarity-based reserve-selection algorithm. In our model, higher taxon surrogates performed well in communities in which a few common species were most abundant, and less well in communities with many equally abundant species. Furthermore, higher taxon surrogates performed well when there was a small mean and variance in the number of species per higher taxa. We also show that empirically measured species-higher-taxon correlations can be partly spurious (i.e., a mathematical artifact), except when the species accumulation curve has reached an asymptote. This particular result is of considerable practical interest given the widespread use of rapid survey methods in biodiversity assessment and the application of higher taxon methods to taxa in which species accumulation curves rarely reach an asymptote, e.g., insects.