Cross-taxon surrogacy of biodiversity in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya
Introduction
Exploring distribution of biological diversity and the extent of surrogacy among different sets of organisms are importantly challenging scientific problems in conservation biology (UNEP, 1992, Heywood, 1995, Faith & Walker, 1996, Gaston, 1996, Gaston, 2000, Negi, 1999). The problem has been particularly investigated in the context of designing efficient programs of monitoring biodiversity and setting out conservation priorities (Pollard & Yates, 1993, Oliver & Beattie, 1993, Balmford & Long, 1995, Gadgil, 1996, Howard et al., 1998, Swengel & Swengel, 1999, Myers et al., 2000). In these contexts, there is a need to assess the extent to which high levels of diversity are correlated among different taxonomic groups in different bio-geographical regions. The organismic groups may be distinctive taxa such as ants and flowering plants, or nested taxonomic groups such as liverworts, mosses and bryophytes. By and large, no consistent levels of positive correlations have been found among distinct taxa, at levels of different types of habitats, such as forests with different levels of human disturbance, or large geographical regions, such as different grids into which the British Isles are divided (Prendergast et al., 1993, Lawton et al., 1998, Kunte et al., 1999, Pharo et al., 1999). As may be expected, higher, though variable, levels of correlations have been recorded among groups within a nested taxonomic hierarchy at different spatial scales (Noss, 1990, Williams & Gaston, 1994, Andersen, 1995). This is because organisms within such a hierarchy have similar responses to a variety of environmental parameters. In fact, one may postulate that the extent of correlation in levels of diversity in different habitats or geographical locales among different taxa would depend upon similarities or differences in their responses to biotic as well as abiotic parameters and mutualistic, competitive, or antagonistic (prey–predator, host–parasite) relationships amongst the different taxa. In the present study, an attempt is made to explore the possible influence of such factors by looking at five distinctive groups of organisms with variable levels of differences in their responses to environmental parameters and types of biotic interactions. The groups under investigation include macrolichens, mosses, liverworts, woody plants and ants. The lichens and bryophytes accounting for the first three groups occur on soil, rock and wood substrates. Shrubs and trees primarily growing on soil serve as wood substrate for macrolichens and mosses. The ants prefer drier soils underneath rocks, logs and thick moss beds for nesting whereas terricolous liverworts exclusively prefer wet soil. Owing to these habitat preferences, patterns of diversity of macrolichens, mosses and woody plants may be expected to be positively correlated, but be uncorrelated, or perhaps even be negatively correlated with those of liverworts and ants. Another hypothesis of interest may be postulated as while macrolichens and mosses extensively use live woody substrates, they may not be species specific. So while the species richness (α-diversity) of macrolichens and mosses may be positively correlated with that of woody plants, their levels of species turnover (β-diversity) may show little correlation. This investigation further addresses the environmental variables including the local land use factors that may explain significant variation in species richness and turnover in one group of organisms also explaining the variations in other surrogate groups. For example, livestock grazing, excessive lopping and fuel wood collection, especially for sustaining growing tourism in the area urgently needs to be regulated with high priority. If we do not control and monitor such land use patterns and their biodiversity implications, future generation will have to face with local extinction of many species, including wood loving macrolichens and mosses, some of which are medicinal and critical for the survival of the highly endangered Musk deer in the higher Himalaya (Negi, 1996, Negi, 1999, Negi, 2000a, Negi & Gadgil, 1996).
Section snippets
Study area
The study area (30°20′ N–30°35′N latitude; 79°10′ E–79°20′E longitude) is located in Chamoli district of Uttaranchal state in the Indian Garhwal Himalaya (Fig. 1). The mountainous landscape with steep to moderate slopes spreads over 500 sq km with elevation ranging between 1400 and 3700 m above mean sea level. The weathering bedrock that provides the bulk of the loose material in these mountains is crystalline and metamorphic with sedimentary deposits formed during the Paleaozoic (Ganser, 1964,
α-diversity
This investigation involving sampling of a total area of 6500 sq m yielded 13 families with 15 genera and 85 species of macrolichens, 34 families with 87 genera and 177 species of mosses, 13 families with 15 genera and 19 species of liverworts, 15 families with 19 genera and 24 species of wood plants and four sub-families with 18 genera and 26 species of ants. Average species richness of macrolichens at a plot was 18.15±1.60 (S.E.) with an average of 36.15±2.22 for moss species and 3.38±1.67
Discussion
The study attempted to identify surrogates across and within taxonomic groups to simplify the task of landscape level biodiversity assessment and monitoring. In India, biodiversity surveys are rarely comprehensive enough to sample and identify all the species in a given area. This is mainly because numbers of species are generally very high and the identification is time consuming. Moreover the species level taxonomy of Indian taxa, particularly in ants and lower plant groups, is poorly
Acknowledgements
This study would not have been complete without taxonomic support of Drs. D. K. Upreti, Nehal Aziz, Virendra Nath, Ashish Asthana, Ms. Padmini Nair. Bharat Singh Rawat assisted in the field work and Srinidhi and Robert in computer programming and simulations. Dr. N.V. Joshi enlightened us on statistical analysis. We thank Padmashri Chandi Prasad Bhatt and other members of DGSM for their cooperation during the field surveys. Financial support by the Ministry of Environment and Forests and
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