USDA Forest Service Rocky Mountain Research Station, Missoula MT 59801, USA.
Conserv Biol. 2010 Jun;24(3):830-40. doi: 10.1111/j.1523-1739.2009.01396.x. Epub 2010 Jan 7.
Indicator species concepts have a long history in conservation biology. Arguments in favor of these approaches generally stress expediency and assume efficacy. We tested the premise that the abundance patterns of one species can be used to infer those of other species. Our data consisted of 72,495 bird observations on 55 species across 1046 plots distributed across 30 sub basins. We analyzed abundance patterns at two spatial scales (plot and sub basin) and for empirical and a priori grouping. There were few significant indicator relationships at either scale or under either grouping rule, and those few we found did not explain a substantial portion of the abundance of other species. Coupled with the lack of proven efficacy for species surrogacy in the literature, our results indicate the utility of indicators and similar types of surrogate approaches must be demonstrated rather than assumed.
指示物种的概念在保护生物学中有着悠久的历史。支持这些方法的论据通常强调的是方便快捷，并假定其有效。我们检验了这样一个前提，即一个物种的丰度模式可以用来推断其他物种的丰度模式。我们的数据包括在 30 个子流域分布的 1046 个样地中对 55 个物种进行的 72495 次鸟类观测。我们在两个空间尺度（样地和子流域）上分析了丰度模式，并进行了经验和先验分组。在任何尺度或分组规则下，都很少有显著的指示物种关系，而我们发现的少数关系并不能解释其他物种丰度的很大一部分。结合文献中物种替代物缺乏经过验证的功效，我们的结果表明，指示物种和类似的替代方法的效用必须加以证明，而不是假设。
