As the climate changes and ecosystems shift toward novel combinations of species, the methods and metrics of conservation science are becoming less species-centric. To meet this growing need, marine conservation paleobiologists stand to benefit from the addition of new, taxon-free benthic indices to the live–dead analysis tool kit. These indices, which were developed to provide actionable, policy-specific data, can be applied to the readily preservable component of benthic communities (e.g., mollusks) to assess the ecological quality status of the entire community. Because these indices are taxon-free, they remain applicable even as the climate changes and novel communities develop—making them a potentially valuable complement to traditionally applied approaches for live–dead analysis, which tend to focus on maintaining specific combinations of species under relatively stable environmental conditions. Integrating geohistorical data with these established indices has potential to increase the salience of the live–dead approach in the eyes of resource managers and other stakeholders.

中文翻译：

---

增加人类世海洋活死数据的显着性

随着气候变化和生态系统转向新的物种组合，保护科学的方法和指标正变得越来越不以物种为中心。为了满足这一日益增长的需求，海洋保护古生物学家将受益于在活死分析工具包中添加新的、无分类的底栖生物指数。这些指数旨在提供可操作的政策特定数据，可应用于底栖群落（例如软体动物）中易于保存的组成部分，以评估整个群落的生态质量状况。由于这些指数是无分类的，即使在气候变化和新社区发展时它们仍然适用——这使它们成为传统应用活死分析方法的潜在有价值的补充，这往往侧重于在相对稳定的环境条件下维持特定的物种组合。将地质历史数据与这些已建立的指数相结合，有可能增加生死法在资源管理者和其他利益相关者眼中的重要性。