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A Test of the Value of Higher taxa as Surrogates for Species in Marine Reserve Selection

William Gladstone and Tim Alexande

University Of Newcastle, OURIMBAH, AUSTRALIA

Theme: TH2

Efforts to identify and select marine reserves are potentially constrained by limited information on marine biodiversity. Surrogates for species-level biodiversity have been advocated as a solution, although there have been limited tests of this approach in marine systems. One potential approach is the use of higher taxonomic categories (e.g. genera, families) as surrogates for species-level richness. This study evaluates the potential for higher taxa to act as surrogates for species in marine reserve selection at the scale of the bioregion (the planning unit for marine reserve selection in Australia). The study is based on species inventories collected from a sample of locations in the Hawkesbury Shelf bioregion of south-east Australia. The value of higher taxa as surrogates was tested by determining the %age of all species included in reserves selected on the basis of genus and family-level data. There were significant relationships between the number of species at each location and the number of genera and families. The set of reserves identified from genus-level data captured close to 98% of all species. The set of reserves identified from family-level data captured around 94% of all species. There were changes in the irreplaceability values of some locations depending on whether species, genera, or family-level data were used. Overall, using data of higher taxonomic level for reserve selection led to a reduction in the number of irreplaceable locations from 11 (using species-level data), to 10 (using genus-level data), and to 9 (using family-level data). Despite these changes, there was a significant positive correlation between the irreplaceability values of locations for species and genera, and between the irreplaceability values of locations for species and families. These results suggest that higher taxa are a potentially useful surrogate for species in selection of intertidal marine reserves at the scale of the bioregion. However the limited number of studies from other locations and at different management scales indicates that further studies are warranted.