Uniquity: a general metric for biotic uniqueness of sites
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Uniquity : a general metric for biotic uniqueness of sites. / Ejrnæs, Rasmus; Frøslev, Tobias Guldberg; Høye, Toke Thomas; Kjøller, Rasmus; Oddershede, Andrea; Brunbjerg, Ane Kirstine; Hansen, Anders Johannes; Bruun, Hans Henrik.
In: Biological Conservation, Vol. 225, 2018, p. 98-105.Research output: Contribution to journal › Journal article › Research › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Uniquity
T2 - a general metric for biotic uniqueness of sites
AU - Ejrnæs, Rasmus
AU - Frøslev, Tobias Guldberg
AU - Høye, Toke Thomas
AU - Kjøller, Rasmus
AU - Oddershede, Andrea
AU - Brunbjerg, Ane Kirstine
AU - Hansen, Anders Johannes
AU - Bruun, Hans Henrik
PY - 2018
Y1 - 2018
N2 - 1. Species richness is unrivalled as the most reported biodiversity metric in ecological and conservation research. Unfortunately, species richness ignores the scale-dependency of biodiversity.2. We propose the metric uniquity, a quantitative and spatially scalable measure of uniqueness of a site based on a species-by-site matrix and a site-by-habitat type classification with area weights for habitat types correcting for sampling biases.3. An example of uniquity is presented using vascular plant data from 130 sites representing a larger region (Denmark). We demonstrate the importance of the scale parameter of uniquity for the prediction of independent uniqueness indices calculated from species distribution data and the number of recorded red listed species.4. We compare the performance of uniquity with the performance of the indices Local Contribution to Beta Diversity (LCBD) and Range Rarity Richness (RRR), and we investigate its sensitivity to small sample size and poorly resolved habitat classification.5. We assess the performance of the uniquity metric applied to DNA metabarcoding data for plants, fungi and eukaryotes from the same set of study sites.6. Uniquity is a strong predictor of site uniqueness based on national distribution data and also correlates neatly with the observed number of red listed species. Uniquity based on DNA metabarcoding corresponds well with the number of red listed species observed.7. Perspective: Uniquity is generally applicable to biotas sampled with comparable effort, including field inventories, trap sampling, and DNA metabarcoding data. To our knowledge uniquity is the first index of uniqueness that explicitly considers spatial scale and sampling biases, while simultaneously accepting non-annotated DNA-data as input. Based on our study we offer general recommendations for further use and testing of uniquity as conservation value metric.
AB - 1. Species richness is unrivalled as the most reported biodiversity metric in ecological and conservation research. Unfortunately, species richness ignores the scale-dependency of biodiversity.2. We propose the metric uniquity, a quantitative and spatially scalable measure of uniqueness of a site based on a species-by-site matrix and a site-by-habitat type classification with area weights for habitat types correcting for sampling biases.3. An example of uniquity is presented using vascular plant data from 130 sites representing a larger region (Denmark). We demonstrate the importance of the scale parameter of uniquity for the prediction of independent uniqueness indices calculated from species distribution data and the number of recorded red listed species.4. We compare the performance of uniquity with the performance of the indices Local Contribution to Beta Diversity (LCBD) and Range Rarity Richness (RRR), and we investigate its sensitivity to small sample size and poorly resolved habitat classification.5. We assess the performance of the uniquity metric applied to DNA metabarcoding data for plants, fungi and eukaryotes from the same set of study sites.6. Uniquity is a strong predictor of site uniqueness based on national distribution data and also correlates neatly with the observed number of red listed species. Uniquity based on DNA metabarcoding corresponds well with the number of red listed species observed.7. Perspective: Uniquity is generally applicable to biotas sampled with comparable effort, including field inventories, trap sampling, and DNA metabarcoding data. To our knowledge uniquity is the first index of uniqueness that explicitly considers spatial scale and sampling biases, while simultaneously accepting non-annotated DNA-data as input. Based on our study we offer general recommendations for further use and testing of uniquity as conservation value metric.
KW - Biodiversity conservation
KW - eDNA
KW - Metabarcoding
KW - Rarity
KW - Red listed species
KW - Vascular plants
KW - Biodiversity
KW - Conservation science
U2 - 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.034
DO - 10.1016/j.biocon.2018.06.034
M3 - Journal article
AN - SCOPUS:85049860798
VL - 225
SP - 98
EP - 105
JO - Biological Conservation
JF - Biological Conservation
SN - 0006-3207
ER -
ID: 200584028