Reliability of a Higher-Taxon Approach to Richness, Rarity, and Composition Assessments at the Local Scale

Abstract:  A promising shortcut for quantifying species patterns is to use genera and families as surrogates of species. At large spatial scales, concurrence between patterns of richness, rarity, and composition of species and higher taxa is generally high. Only a few researchers, however, have examined this relationship at the local scale, which is frequently the relevant scale in land-use conflicts. We investigated the reliability of the higher-taxon approach in assessing patterns of species richness, rarity, and composition at the local scale. We studied diversity patterns of three commonly used surrogate taxa: vascular plants, ground-dwelling beetles, and moths. We conducted year-round field surveys for these taxa in the Jerusalem Mountains and the Judean foothills, Israel. Richness and composition of species were highly correlated with richness and composition of genera for all taxa. At the family level, correlations with richness and composition of species were much lower. Excluding monotypic genera and families did not affect these relations. Rarity representation based on higher taxa varied considerably depending on the taxon, and rarity scale and was weaker compared with richness and composition representation. Cumulative richness curves of species and genera showed similar patterns, leveling off at equivalent sampling efforts. Genus-level assessments were a reliable surrogate for local patterns of species richness, rarity, and composition, but family-level assessments performed poorly. The advantage of using coarse taxonomic scales in local diversity surveys is that it may decrease identification time and the need for experts, but it will not reduce sampling effort.     

Dynamic changes in microbial activity and community structure during biodegradation of petroleum compounds： A laboratory experiment

With 110-d incubation experiment in laboratory,the responses of microbial quantity,soil enzymatic activity,and bacterial community structure to different amounts of diesel fuel amendments were studied to reveal whether certain biological and biochemical characteristics could serve as reliable indicators of petroleum hydrocarbon contamination in meadow-brown soil,and use these indicators to evaluate the actual ecological impacts of 50-year petroleum-refining wastewater irrigation on soil function in Sbenfu irrigation area.Results showed that amendments of≤1000 mg/kg diesel fuel stimulated the growth of aerobic beterotrophic bacteria,and increased the activity of soil dehydrogenase,hydrogenperoxidase,polypbenol oxidase and substrate-induced respiration.Soil bacterial diversity decreased slightly during the first 15 d of incubation and recovered to the control level on day 30.The significant decrease of the colony forming units of soil actinomyces and filamentous fungi can be taken as the sensitive biological indicators of petroleum contamination when soil was amended with≥5000 mg/kg diesel fuel.The sharp decrease in urease activity was recommended as the most sensitive biochemical indicator of heavy diesel fuel contamination.The shifts in community structure to a community documented by Sphingomonadaceae withinα-subgroup of Proteobacteria could be served as a sensitive and precise indicator of diesel fuel contamination.Based on the results described in this paper,the soil function in Shenfu irrigation area was disturbed to some extent.