Indicator groups and congruence of assemblage similarity, species richness and environmental relationships in littoral macroinvertebrates |
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Authors: | Jani Heino Kimmo T Tolonen Juho Kotanen Lauri Paasivirta |
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Institution: | 1. Research Programme for Biodiversity, Finnish Environment Institute, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 413, 90014, Oulu, Finland 2. Department of Biology, University of Oulu, P.O. Box 3000, 90014, Oulu, Finland 3. Department of Biological and Environmental Sciences, University of Jyv?skyl?, P.O. Box 35, 40014, Jyv?skyl?, Finland 4. South Savo Regional Environment Centre, J??k?rinkatu 14, 50100, Mikkeli, Finland 5. Ruuhikoskenkatu 17, 24240, Salo, Finland
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Abstract: | The rapid decrease of biodiversity and limited resources for surveying it have forced researchers to devise short-cuts for
biodiversity surveys and conservation planning. These short-cuts include environmental surrogates, higher taxon surrogates,
indicator species and indicator groups. We considered indicator groups as surrogates for wholesale biodiversity and cross-taxon
congruence in biodiversity patterns in littoral macroinvertebrates of boreal lakes. Despite the fact that we considered indicator
groups amongst a wide variety of taxa, such as two-winged flies, mayflies, caddisflies, beetles, bugs and molluscs, none of
the proposed groups possessed all of the qualities of a good indicator taxon for biodiversity surveys and conservation planning.
We found generally weak, yet typically significant, relationships between the proposed indicator groups and remaining taxa
in both species richness and assemblage similarity. Low congruence was paralleled by somewhat differing relationships of the
taxonomic groups to various environmental features of lakes. Furthermore, the relationships of most indicator groups to the
environmental features of lakes were not particularly strong. The present findings are unfortunate, because indicator groups
did not perform well in predicting the wholesale biodiversity of littoral macroinvertebrates. Thus, there appears to be no
short-cut for considering all groups of macroinvertebrates in biodiversity surveys, conservation planning and characterisation
of environmental relationships of lake littoral assemblages. |
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