Hill, MJ, White, JC, Biggs, J et al. (6 more authors) (2021) Local contributions to beta-diversity in urban pond networks: implications for biodiversity conservation and management. Diversity and Distributions, 27 (5). pp. 887-900. ISSN 1366-9516
Abstract
Aim
An understanding of how biotic communities are spatially organized is necessary to identify and prioritize habitats within landscape-scale biodiversity conservation. Local contribution to beta diversity (LCBD) identifies individual habitats that make a significant contribution to beta diversity and may have important practical implications, particularly for conservation of habitat networks. In this study, we develop and apply a conservation prioritization approach based on LCBD in aquatic invertebrate communities from 132 ponds.
Location
Five urban settlements in the UK: Halton, Loughborough, Stockport, Birmingham and Huddersfield.
Methods
We partition LCBD into richness difference (nestedness: RichDiffLCBD) and species replacement (turnover: ReplLCBD) and identify key environmental variables driving LCBD. We examine LCBD at two scales relevant to conservation planning: within urban settlements and nationally across the UK.
Results
Significant differences in LCBD values were recorded among the five settlements. In four of the five urban settlements studied, pond sites with the greatest LCBD values typically showed high replacement values. Significant LCBD sites and sites with high taxonomic diversity together supported more of the regional species pool (70%–97%) than sites with high taxonomic diversity alone (54%–94%) or what could be protected by the random selection of sites. LCBD was significantly associated with vegetation shading, surface area, altitude and macrophyte cover.
Main conclusions
Conservation prioritization that incorporates LCBD and sites with high taxonomic diversity improves the effectiveness of conservation actions within pond habitat networks, ensures sites supporting high biodiversity are protected and provides a method to define a spatial network of protected sites. Identifying new, effective conservation approaches, particularly in urban areas where resources may be scarce and conflicts regarding land use exist, is essential to ensure biodiversity is fully supported, and detrimental anthropogenic effects are reduced.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2021 The Authors. Diversity and Distributions published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. |
Keywords: | conservation; ecological uniqueness; LCBD; spatial patterns; taxonomic richness; urban ecology |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Biological Sciences (Leeds) > School of Biology (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 19 Jan 2021 11:14 |
Last Modified: | 25 Jun 2023 22:33 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | Wiley Open Access |
Identification Number: | 10.1111/ddi.13239 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:170114 |