School of Environmental and Life Sciences, University of Newcastle, Central Coast Campus, PO Box 127, Ourimbah, NSW, Australia.
Environ Monit Assess. 2013 Apr;185(4):3477-92. doi: 10.1007/s10661-012-2804-9. Epub 2012 Aug 10.
Increasing pressures on global biodiversity and lack of data on the number and abundance of species have motivated conservation planners and researchers to use more readily available information as proxies or surrogates for biodiversity. "Habitat" is one of the most frequently used surrogates but its assumed value in marine conservation planning is not often tested. The present study developed and tested three alternative habitat classification schemes of increasing complexity for a large estuary in south-east Australia and tested their effectiveness in predicting spatial variation in macroinvertebrate biodiversity and selecting estuarine protected areas to represent species. The three habitat classification schemes were: (1) broad-scale habitats (e.g., mangroves and seagrass), (2) subdivision of each broad-scale habitat by a suite of environmental variables that varied significantly throughout the estuary, and (3) subdivision of each broad-scale habitat by the subset of environmental variables that best explained spatial variation in macroinvertebrate biodiversity. Macroinvertebrate assemblages differed significantly among the habitats in each classification scheme. For each classification scheme, habitat richness was significantly correlated with species richness, total density of macroinvertebrates, assemblage dissimilarity, and summed irreplaceability. However, in a reserve selection process designed to represent examples of each habitat, no habitat classification scheme represented species significantly better than a random selection of sites. Habitat classification schemes may represent variation in estuarine biodiversity; however, the results of this study suggest they are inefficient in designing representative networks of estuarine protected areas.
全球生物多样性面临的压力不断增加，物种的数量和丰度数据也十分缺乏，这促使保护规划者和研究人员利用更易获取的信息作为生物多样性的替代指标或代理。“生境”是最常被使用的替代指标之一，但它在海洋保护规划中的假定价值并不经常被检验。本研究针对澳大利亚东南部的一个大型河口，开发并测试了三种替代生境分类方案，其复杂程度逐渐增加，并测试了它们在预测大型底栖无脊椎动物生物多样性的空间变化和选择代表物种的河口保护区方面的有效性。这三种生境分类方案分别是：（1）广泛的生境（如红树林和海草）；（2）根据在整个河口变化显著的一系列环境变量对每个广泛的生境进行细分；（3）根据能最好地解释大型底栖无脊椎动物生物多样性空间变化的环境变量子集对每个广泛的生境进行细分。在每个分类方案中，生境的大型底栖无脊椎动物群落都有显著差异。对于每个分类方案，生境丰富度与物种丰富度、大型底栖无脊椎动物的总密度、群落相似性和综合不可替代性显著相关。然而，在一个旨在代表每个生境的保护区选择过程中，没有任何生境分类方案能比随机选择的地点更能代表物种。生境分类方案可以代表河口生物多样性的变化；然而，本研究的结果表明，它们在设计具有代表性的河口保护区网络方面效率低下。
