Higher-taxa as surrogates for species richness in terrestrial heteropterans of Southern Argentinian grasslands

MARRERO, H.; ZALBA, S.M.; CARPINTERO, D.

Frontiers in Biodiversity Studies.

I. K. International Publishing House Pvt. Ltd.

Lugar: Nueva Delhi; Año: 2012; p. 112 - 117

One of the main restrictions in using insects as biodiversity indicators is the difficulty in identifying specimens to the species level. Using richness of higher taxa, such as families or genera, as a substitute for species richness is one of the more promising methods for getting around this limitation. This alternative assumes that the number of taxa in a higher category would represent species appropriately and could be used to evaluate differences in diversity in different habitats or at different times. Knowlegde concerning arthropod diversity in the Neotropics is particularly poor, especially in grassland habitats which have been of lesser interest to specialists. In this study linear and log-log regression analyses were used to evaluate the representativity of family and genus richness of ground heteroptera as indicators of species abundance in natural grassland. Data was obtained from an intensive survey carried out in montane grassland in southern Buenos Aires province (Argentina). The usefulness of higher taxa was analysed for different capture techniques in combination and separately. The results obtained indicate that family richness is a particularly appropriate and practical indicator for evaluating the number of species in this group.