Abstract Umbrella species are typically chosen because they are expected to confer protection for other species assumed to have similar ecological requirements. Despite its popularity and substantial history, the value of the umbrella species concept has come into question because umbrella species chosen using heuristic methods, such as body or home range size, are not acting as adequate proxies for the metrics of interest: species richness or population abundance in a multi-species community for which protection is sought. How species associate with habitat across ecological scales has important implications for understanding population size and species richness, and therefore may be a better proxy for choosing an umbrella species. We determined the spatial scales of ecological neighborhoods important for predicting abundance of 8 potential umbrella species breeding in Nebraska using Bayesian latent indicator scale selection in N-mixture models accounting for imperfect detection. We compare the conservation value measured as collective avian abundance under different umbrella species selected following commonly used criteria and selected based on identifying spatial land cover characteristics within ecological neighborhoods that maximize collective abundance. Using traditional criteria to select an umbrella species resulted in sub-maximal expected collective abundance in 86% of cases compared to selecting an umbrella species based on land cover characteristics that maximized collective abundance directly. We conclude that directly assessing the expected quantitative outcomes, rather than ecological proxies, is likely the most efficient method to maximize the potential for conservation success under the umbrella species concept.

中文翻译：

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生态社区作为伞形物种选择的框架

摘要 通常选择伞形物种是因为它们有望为假定具有相似生态要求的其他物种提供保护。尽管它很受欢迎并且有着悠久的历史，但伞形物种概念的价值受到了质疑，因为使用启发式方法选择的伞形物种，例如身体或家庭范围的大小，并不能充分代表感兴趣的指标：物种丰富度或种群在寻求保护的多物种社区中的丰度。物种如何在生态尺度上与栖息地相关联，对于理解种群规模和物种丰富度具有重要意义，因此可能是选择保护伞物种的更好代表。我们确定了生态邻域的空间尺度，这对于预测内布拉斯加州 8 种潜在伞形物种繁殖的丰度很重要，在 N 混合模型中使用贝叶斯潜在指标尺度选择来解释不完美检测。我们比较了根据常用标准选择的不同伞形物种下的集体鸟类丰度测量的保护价值，并根据确定生态邻域内最大化集体丰度的空间土地覆盖特征进行选择。与根据直接最大化集体丰度的土地覆盖特征选择伞形物种相比，使用传统标准选择伞形物种在 86% 的情况下导致次最大预期集体丰度。