PARENT SESSION
Contributed Oral Session 105: Rare, Threatened, and Endangered Species: Fauna; Management
Wednesday, August 10, 1:30 PM - 5:00 PM, Meeting Room 522 A, Level 5, Palais des congrès de Montréal
Rare species as ecological indicators: a limit to their usefulness?
O'Malley, Rachel*,1, Bean, Caitlin1, Chu, Jennifer1, Hill, Kirsten1, 1 Environmental Studies, San Jose, CA
ABSTRACT- The practice of using sensitive indicator species to reflect the conservation status of imperiled ecosystems has informed the substance of much conservation planning in recent years. Significant attention in the academic literature has also been devoted to developing multispecies indicators of conservation success. The Zayante sandhills in Santa Cruz County, California, would appear to conform well to such indicator-driven assessments: all endemic species in the region appear to be edaphic specialists and they have been ecologically and evolutionarily isolated in relatively small remaining fragments of suitable soils and climate for thousands of years. Identification of areas to protect within the Zayante sandhills has certainly benefited from the use of key sensitive species as ecological indicators. Subsequent management of these sites, however, may prove less tractable to this approach. This study examines habitat needs for three rare and protected animals in the Zayante sandhills, the Zayante band-winged grasshopper Trimerotropis infantilis, the Mount Hermon June beetle Polyphylla barbata, and the Santa Cruz Kangaroo Rat Dipodomys venustus venustus, to assess whether single or multispecies metrics are useful for developing management strategies for this system. Results indicate that a combination of overt conflicts in habitat needs among the target species and small-scale differentiation in soil type, microhabitat and plant assemblages within the overall sandhills ecosystem render single or multispecies indicators inappropriate. Rather, the importance of detailed, species-specific ecological data to ecosystem recovery is highlighted.
Key words: multispecies conservation, invertebrate conservation, indicator species, sandhills