Unabated urbanization has led to environmental degradation and subsequent biodiversity loss across the globe. As an outcome of unmitigated land use, multi-jurisdictional agencies have developed land use plans that attempt to protect threatened or endangered species across selected areas by which some trade-offs between harm to species and additional conservation approaches are allowed among the partnering organizations. Typical conservation plans can be created to focus on single or multiple species, and although they may protect a species or groups of species, they may not account for biodiversity or its protection across the given area. We applied an approach that clustered deductive habitat models for terrestrial vertebrates into metrics that serve as surrogates for biodiversity and relate to ecosystem services. In order to evaluate this process, we collaborated with the partnering agencies who are creating a Multi-Species Habitat Conservation Plan in southern California and compared it to the entire Mojave Desert Ecoregion. We focused on total terrestrial vertebrate species richness and taxon groupings representing amphibians, birds, mammals, and reptiles, and two special status species using the Normalized Index of Biodiversity (NIB). The conservation planning area had a lower NIB and was less species rich than the Mojave Desert Ecoregion, but the Mojave River riparian corridor had a higher NIB and was more species-rich, and while taxon analysis varied across the geographies, this pattern generally held. Additionally, we analyzed desert tortoise (Gopherus agassizii) and desert kit fox (Vulpes macrotis arsipus) as umbrella species and determined that both species are associated with increased NIB and large numbers of species for the conservation area. Our process provided the ability to incorporate value-added surrogate information into a formal land use planning process and used a metric, NIB, which allowed comparison of the various planning areas and geographic units. Although this process has been applied to Apple Valley, CA, and other geographies within the U.S., the approach has practical application for other global biodiversity initiatives.

中文翻译：

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将生物多样性指标用作栖息地保护计划的替代物

有增无减的城市化已导致全球环境退化和随后的生物多样性丧失。作为充分利用土地的结果，多辖区机构已经发展 试图在选定区域内保护受威胁或濒危物种的土地利用计划，允许合作组织在对物种的伤害和其他保护方法之间进行一些权衡。可以制定典型的保护计划以关注单个或多个物种，尽管它们可以保护一个物种或一组物种，但它们可能没有考虑到整个给定区域的生物多样性或其保护。我们应用了一种方法，将陆生脊椎动物的演绎栖息地模型聚类为作为生物多样性替代指标并与生态系统服务相关的指标。为了评估这一过程，我们与正在南加州制定多物种栖息地保护计划的合作机构合作，并将其与整个莫哈韦沙漠生态区进行了比较。我们使用标准化生物多样性指数 (NIB) 专注于代表两栖动物、鸟类、哺乳动物和爬行动物的总陆地脊椎动物物种丰富度和分类群，以及两种特殊地位的物种。与莫哈韦沙漠生态区相比，保护区规划区的 NIB 较低，物种丰富度较低，但莫哈韦河沿岸走廊的 NIB 较高，物种更加丰富，虽然不同地区的分类群分析有所不同，但这种模式普遍存在。此外，我们分析了沙漠龟（但莫哈韦河沿岸走廊的 NIB 更高，物种更丰富，虽然不同地区的分类群分析有所不同，但这种模式普遍存在。此外，我们分析了沙漠龟（但莫哈韦河沿岸走廊的 NIB 更高，物种更丰富，虽然不同地区的分类群分析有所不同，但这种模式普遍存在。此外，我们分析了沙漠龟（Gopherus agassizii ) 和沙漠狐狸 ( Vulpes macrotis arsipus ) 作为保护伞物种，并确定这两种物种都与保护区的 NIB 增加和大量物种有关。我们的流程提供了将增值替代信息纳入正式土地利用规划流程的能力，并使用了一个指标 NIB，它允许比较各种规划区域和地理单位。尽管此过程已应用于加利福尼亚州苹果谷和美国境内的其他地区，但该方法已实际应用于其他全球生物多样性倡议。