Limnetica 34

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Crustacean diversity and conservation value indexes in pond assessment: implications for rare and relict species

María Sahuquillo & María Rosa Miracle
2015
34
2
333-348
DOI: 
10.23818/limn.34.26

Ponds are important for the conservation of biodiversity. In order to safeguard them, it is essential to identify the habitats that sustain relict, rare or vulnerable species. This tactic has been utilized in communities of higher organisms but is rarely employed in pond crustacean communities, which are evaluated by species richness or diversity indexes in which all species are weighted equally. We have examined crustacean diversity in relation to environmental gradients in 150 Mediterranean ponds and propose a crustacean conservation value index (CVVI) for ponds. Under this index, species are scored based on the relictness and biogeographical significance of the taxonomic group to which they belong, as well as on their rarity or endemicity. In our study, permanent ponds showed a higher accumulated number of crustacean species than temporary ponds; however, local species richness was not consistently higher in permanent ponds, and the highest species richness was in fact found in temporary ponds. However, when ponds were subdivided by type into three groups of temporary ponds and two groups of permanent ones, species richness and diversity parameters tended to increase with an increasing degree of stability in both temporary and permanent ponds. In contrast, the accumulated CCVI was more than three times higher for groups of temporary ponds. A comparison of CCVIs revealed the importance and singularity of temporary pond fauna, indicating that species richness must not be the only criterion used to prioritize the conservation of habitats. Within a homogeneous pond typology, species richness could be a useful parameter for identifying priority habitats; however, the conservation value index per species includes other aspects of biodiversity more suitable to preserve locations with ancestral or original regional fauna. These fauna are currently endangered and should be prioritized for conservation, as increasing human activity favors the opportunistic and invasive species that are displacing them.

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