[PCA] NEWS: Testing Surrogacy Assumptions
Olivia Kwong
plant at plantconservation.org
Tue Jan 29 08:35:05 CST 2013
Testing Surrogacy Assumptions: Can Threatened and Endangered Plants Be
Grouped by Biological Similarity and Abundances?
http://www.plosone.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pone.0051659
Abstract
There is renewed interest in implementing surrogate species approaches in
conservation planning due to the large number of species in need of
management but limited resources and data. One type of surrogate approach
involves selection of one or a few species to represent a larger group of
species requiring similar management actions, so that protection and
persistence of the selected species would result in conservation of the
group of species. However, among the criticisms of surrogate approaches is
the need to test underlying assumptions, which remain rarely examined. In
this study, we tested one of the fundamental assumptions underlying use of
surrogate species in recovery planning: that there exist groups of
threatened and endangered species that are sufficiently similar to warrant
similar management or recovery criteria. Using a comprehensive database of
all plant species listed under the U.S. Endangered Species Act and
tree-based random forest analysis, we found no evidence of species groups
based on a set of distributional and biological traits or by abundances
and patterns of decline. Our results suggested that application of
surrogate approaches for endangered species recovery would be unjustified.
Thus, conservation planning focused on individual species and their
patterns of decline will likely be required to recover listed species.
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