Insects are commonly used as bioindicators for assessing ecosystem restoration, but such assessments are potentially influenced by sampling intensity. Uncommon species are often late colonizers of sites undergoing restoration, so that sampling that is effective for only common species can under‐represent differences between rehabilitation and reference sites. We found that differences in observed ant species richness and composition between rehabilitation and reference sites at a northern Australian uranium mine increased markedly with increasing sampling intensity (through repeat sampling), reflecting differences in the numbers of uncommon species. Ensuring appropriately high sampling intensity is important in assessments of restoration success using insect bioindicators.

中文翻译：

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在评估生态系统恢复时抽样强度的重要性：澳大利亚北部的蚂蚁作为生物指标

昆虫通常被用作评估生态系统恢复的生物指标，但是这种评估可能会受到采样强度的影响。稀有物种通常是正在恢复的站点的后期定居者，因此仅对常见物种有效的采样可能不足以代表恢复站点和参考站点之间的差异。我们发现，随着采样强度的增加（通过重复采样），在澳大利亚北部铀矿的恢复站点和参考站点之间观察到的蚂蚁物种丰富度和组成方面的差异显着增加，反映出罕见物种数量的差异。确保适当高的采样强度对于使用昆虫生物指示剂评估恢复成功至关重要。