Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness
Expert collection of specimens in the field and further determination of species is the best method for determining species richness. However, the relative paucity of botanists working in Antarctica makes this approach impractical for broad-scale surveys of Antarctic floral biodiversity. Lichens are...
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ftdatacite:10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3306168 2023-05-15T13:53:19+02:00 Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness Casanovas, Paula Lynch, Heather J. Fagan, William F. Naveen, Ron 2016 https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3306168 https://figshare.com/collections/Understanding_lichen_diversity_on_the_Antarctic_Peninsula_using_parataxonomic_units_as_a_surrogate_for_species_richness/3306168 unknown Figshare https://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-0237.1 CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us CC-BY Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences Collection article 2016 ftdatacite https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3306168 https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0237.1 2021-11-05T12:55:41Z Expert collection of specimens in the field and further determination of species is the best method for determining species richness. However, the relative paucity of botanists working in Antarctica makes this approach impractical for broad-scale surveys of Antarctic floral biodiversity. Lichens are the dominant macrophytes of terrestrial Antarctica and, as such, play a fundamental part of the ice-free terrestrial ecosystem. Many distinct ice-free terrestrial habitats in the Antarctic are not represented in the current network of Antarctic protected areas. However, it is difficult to identify appropriate areas for conservation because comprehensive data on distributional patterns of Antarctic flora are not available, and existing data for most Antarctic lichen species are not compiled. Consequently, cost-effective survey methods and surrogates for the prediction of species richness are needed to accelerate assessments of local biodiversity and help select areas for conservation. A combination of a photographic “citizen scientist” approach for the collection of data and the use of parataxonomic unit (PU) richness as a surrogate for species richness, might be a possible solution to effectively collect preliminary information and rapidly build databases on species diversity. We have developed a database and gathered photographic information on lichen occurrences for sites that are frequently visited by tourists. We tested the identification capabilities with a reference data set of Antarctic lichen images from the U.S. National Herbarium. We showed that all species used in this test can be detected and that, for 74% of the images, all classifiers were able to identify the genus of the specimen. Twenty-nine sites were photographically surveyed by researchers and tourists between 2009/2010 and 2011/2012 in the Antarctic Peninsula region. We estimated PU richness as a proxy for species richness for each of the 29 sites surveyed and provide two examples of potential applications. These surveys provide preliminary information for identifying areas for protection and priorities for future research. Article in Journal/Newspaper Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic |
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Open Polar |
collection |
DataCite Metadata Store (German National Library of Science and Technology) |
op_collection_id |
ftdatacite |
language |
unknown |
topic |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences |
spellingShingle |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences Casanovas, Paula Lynch, Heather J. Fagan, William F. Naveen, Ron Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
topic_facet |
Environmental Science Ecology FOS Biological sciences |
description |
Expert collection of specimens in the field and further determination of species is the best method for determining species richness. However, the relative paucity of botanists working in Antarctica makes this approach impractical for broad-scale surveys of Antarctic floral biodiversity. Lichens are the dominant macrophytes of terrestrial Antarctica and, as such, play a fundamental part of the ice-free terrestrial ecosystem. Many distinct ice-free terrestrial habitats in the Antarctic are not represented in the current network of Antarctic protected areas. However, it is difficult to identify appropriate areas for conservation because comprehensive data on distributional patterns of Antarctic flora are not available, and existing data for most Antarctic lichen species are not compiled. Consequently, cost-effective survey methods and surrogates for the prediction of species richness are needed to accelerate assessments of local biodiversity and help select areas for conservation. A combination of a photographic “citizen scientist” approach for the collection of data and the use of parataxonomic unit (PU) richness as a surrogate for species richness, might be a possible solution to effectively collect preliminary information and rapidly build databases on species diversity. We have developed a database and gathered photographic information on lichen occurrences for sites that are frequently visited by tourists. We tested the identification capabilities with a reference data set of Antarctic lichen images from the U.S. National Herbarium. We showed that all species used in this test can be detected and that, for 74% of the images, all classifiers were able to identify the genus of the specimen. Twenty-nine sites were photographically surveyed by researchers and tourists between 2009/2010 and 2011/2012 in the Antarctic Peninsula region. We estimated PU richness as a proxy for species richness for each of the 29 sites surveyed and provide two examples of potential applications. These surveys provide preliminary information for identifying areas for protection and priorities for future research. |
format |
Article in Journal/Newspaper |
author |
Casanovas, Paula Lynch, Heather J. Fagan, William F. Naveen, Ron |
author_facet |
Casanovas, Paula Lynch, Heather J. Fagan, William F. Naveen, Ron |
author_sort |
Casanovas, Paula |
title |
Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
title_short |
Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
title_full |
Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
title_fullStr |
Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
title_full_unstemmed |
Understanding lichen diversity on the Antarctic Peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
title_sort |
understanding lichen diversity on the antarctic peninsula using parataxonomic units as a surrogate for species richness |
publisher |
Figshare |
publishDate |
2016 |
url |
https://dx.doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3306168 https://figshare.com/collections/Understanding_lichen_diversity_on_the_Antarctic_Peninsula_using_parataxonomic_units_as_a_surrogate_for_species_richness/3306168 |
geographic |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic |
geographic_facet |
Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula The Antarctic |
genre |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica |
genre_facet |
Antarc* Antarctic Antarctic Peninsula Antarctica |
op_relation |
https://dx.doi.org/10.1890/13-0237.1 |
op_rights |
CC-BY http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/us |
op_rightsnorm |
CC-BY |
op_doi |
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.c.3306168 https://doi.org/10.1890/13-0237.1 |
_version_ |
1766258357507719168 |