Journal ArticleDOI
Diversity, disturbance, and sustainable use of Neotropical forests: insects as indicators for conservation monitoring
TLDR
In this paper, a short-cycle indicator group of non-economical insects, whose population levels and resources are readily measured, is evaluated as focal indicator taxa for rapid assessment of changes in Neotropical forest systems.Abstract:
Sustainable use of tropical forest systems requires continuous monitoring of biological diversity and ecosystem functions. This can be efficiently done with ‘early warning‘ (short-cycle) indicator groups of non-economical insects, whose population levels and resources are readily measured. Twenty-one groups of insects are evaluated as focal indicator taxa for rapid assessment of changes in Neotropical forest systems. Composite environmental indices for heterogeneity, richness, and natural disturbance are correlated positively with butterfly diversity in 56 Neotropical sites studied over many years. Various components of alpha, beta and gamma-diversity show typical responses to increased disturbance and different land-use regimes. Diversity often increases with disturbance near or below natural levels, but some sensitive species and genes are eliminated at very low levels of interference. Agricultural and silvicultural mosaics with over 30% conversion, including selective logging of three or more large trees per hectare, show shifts in species composition with irreversible loss of many components of the butterfly community, indicating non-sustainable land and resource use and reduction of future options. Monitoring of several insect indicator groups by local residents in a species-rich Brazilian Amazon extractive reserve has helped suggest guidelines for cologically, economically, and socially sustainable zoning and use regimes.read more
Citations
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Quantifying the biodiversity value of tropical primary, secondary, and plantation forests.
Jos Barlow,Toby A. Gardner,Izonete de Jesus da Silva Araujo,Teresa C. S. Avila-Pires,Alexandre B. Bonaldo,Jennifer Costa,Maria Cristina Esposito,Leandro Valle Ferreira,Joseph E. Hawes,Malva Isabel Medina Hernández,Marinus S. Hoogmoed,Rafael N. Leite,Nancy F. Lo-Man-Hung,Jay R. Malcolm,Marlucia Bonifacio Martins,Luiz Augusto Macedo Mestre,R. Miranda-Santos,A. L. Nunes-Gutjahr,William L. Overal,Luke Parry,Solange Peters,Marco A. Ribeiro-Júnior,M. N. F. da Silva,C. da Silva Motta,Carlos A. Peres +24 more
TL;DR: The results show that, whereas the biodiversity indicator group concept may hold some validity for several taxa that are frequently sampled, it fails for those exhibiting highly idiosyncratic responses to tropical land-use change, highlighting the problems associated with quantifying the biodiversity value of anthropogenic habitats.
Journal ArticleDOI
Ground beetles (Coleoptera: Carabidae) as bioindicators
Johanna Rainio,Jari Niemelä +1 more
TL;DR: It is concluded that carabids are useful bioindicators, but as crucial understanding of their relationship with others species is incomplete, they should be used with caution.
Journal ArticleDOI
Biodiversity indicators: the choice of values and measures
Peter Duelli,Martin K. Obrist +1 more
TL;DR: For biodiversity evaluation in agricultural landscapes, three indices are proposed, each consisting of a basket of concordant indicators that represent the three value systems “conservation”, “ecology” and “biological control”: protection, resilience, ecosystem functioning, based on species diversity.
Journal ArticleDOI
Dung beetles as indicators of change in the forests of northern Borneo
Andrew J. Davis,Jeremy D. Holloway,Hans Huijbregts,Jan Krikken,Ashley H. Kirk-Spriggs,Stephen L. Sutton +5 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors reviewed the use of dung beetles as indicators of environmental change, highlighting the influence of natural forest dynamics on species distributions in primary forest and suggesting new ways in which this can be used to understand and interpret the effects of disturbance such as logging.
Journal ArticleDOI
Using ants as bioindicators in land management: simplifying assessment of ant community responses
TL;DR: This study examined the reliability of a simplified ant assessment protocol designed to be within the capacity of a wide range of land managers, and reproduced virtually all the key findings of the intensive ant survey.
References
More filters
Journal ArticleDOI
Indicators for Monitoring Biodiversity: A Hierarchical Approach
TL;DR: The three primay attributes of biodiversity recognized by Jerry Franklin are expanded into a nested hierarcby that incorporates ele- ments of each attribute at four levels of organization: re- gional landscape, community-ecosystem, population- species, andgenetic.
Journal ArticleDOI
The fungal dimension of biodiversity: magnitude, significance, and conservation
TL;DR: The number of known species in the world is conservatively estimated at 1·5 million; six-times higher than hitherto suggested; this realization has major implications for systematic manpower, resources, and classification.
Journal ArticleDOI
The role of deep roots in the hydrological and carbon cycles of Amazonian forests and pastures
Daniel C. Nepstad,Cláudio José Reis de Carvalho,Eric A. Davidson,Peter H. Jipp,Peter H. Jipp,Paul Lefebvre,Gustavo Hees de Negreiros,Elson D. da Silva,Thomas A. Stone,Susan E. Trumbore,Simone Aparecida Vieira +10 more
TL;DR: In this article, the authors estimate that half of the closed forests of Brazilian Amazonia depend on deep root systems to maintain green canopies during the dry season, and as much as 15% of this deep-soil carbon turns over on annual or decadal timescales.
Related Papers (5)
Biodiversity inventories, indicator taxa and effects of habitat modification in tropical forest
John H. Lawton,David E. Bignell,B. Bolton,G. F. Bloemers,G. F. Bloemers,G. F. Bloemers,Paul Eggleton,Peter Hammond,Mike Hodda,Mike Hodda,Robert D. Holt,T. B. Larsen,N. A. Mawdsley,N. A. Mawdsley,N. A. Mawdsley,Nigel E. Stork,Nigel E. Stork,Diane S. Srivastava,Diane S. Srivastava,Allan D. Watt +19 more