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An Integrated Indicator of Biodiversity in Agricultural Ponds: Definition and Validation

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Integrative Observations and Assessments

Part of the book series: Ecological Research Monographs ((APBON))

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Abstract

One of the promising approaches to monitoring biodiversity is assessing the status of pressures driving the biodiversity state. To achieve this, we need to identify the principal pressures that cause simultaneous biodiversity loss across taxonomic groups and clarify how multiple pressures act synergistically or at least simultaneously to decrease biodiversity in the focal ecosystem. Here, we introduce a framework for an integrated biodiversity indicator that takes into consideration the estimated relative importance of multiple pressures. The indicator is defined as a function of the pressure(s) and is parameterized to explain a number of individual states of biodiversity. We showed that the framework can be successfully applied to a real ecosystem, a series of 64 agricultural ponds. We focused on macrophytes, Odonata, and benthic macroinvertebrates as the individual states of biodiversity of the ponds and on three types of pressure: eutrophication, habitat destruction, and invasive alien species. We then evaluated the relationships among pressures with direct effects and the individual states of biodiversity and used a hierarchical Bayesian approach to calculate the integrated biodiversity indicator. We found that the integrated indicator could explain the behaviors of several individual states of biodiversity. To demonstrate the applicability of our approach, we adapted the integrated indicator to another dataset of 35 different agricultural ponds in which the integrated indicator was calculated using the relative importance of multiple pressures estimated from the previous 64-pond study. We found that we could successfully extrapolate the integrated indicator to the 35 agricultural ponds. These results demonstrate the advantages of the framework in providing a more practical method for assessing biodiversity in freshwater lentic environments and in quantifying the relative importance of the major threats to biodiversity to prioritize strategies in conservation planning and policy making.

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Acknowledgments

We thank T. Aoki, M. Nakagawa [National Institute for Environmental Studies, Tsukuba (NIES)], and S. Higuchi (Kobe University) for field assistance and water analysis. We are grateful to H. Ito (NIES), K. Satake (NIES), and R. Ueno (NIES) for their advice on the analyses of aquatic invertebrates. We also thank M. Akasaka (Tokyo University of Agriculture and Technology), S.S. Matsuzaki (NIES), and J. Nishihiro (University of Tokyo) for their critical and constructive comments on an earlier version of the manuscript. This study was supported, in part, by a grant from the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (to N. T.; no. 21310151) and by the Environment Research and Technology Development Fund (S9-4) of the Ministry of the Environment, Japan.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Environmental Biology and Ecosystem Studies, National Institute for Environmental Studies, Ibaraki, Japan

    Shinya Ishida, Taku Kadoya & Noriko Takamura

Authors
  1. Shinya Ishida
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  2. Taku Kadoya
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  3. Noriko Takamura
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Corresponding author

Correspondence to Taku Kadoya .

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Editors and Affiliations

  1. Center for Ecological Research, Kyoto University, Otsu, Shiga, Japan

    Shin -ichi Nakano

  2. Department of Biology Center for Asian Conservation Ecology, Kyushu University, Fukuoka, Japan

    Tetsukazu Yahara

  3. Graduate School of Life Sciences, Tohoku University, Sendai, Miyagi, Japan

    Tohru Nakashizuka

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Ishida, S., Kadoya, T., Takamura, N. (2014). An Integrated Indicator of Biodiversity in Agricultural Ponds: Definition and Validation. In: Nakano, Si., Yahara, T., Nakashizuka, T. (eds) Integrative Observations and Assessments. Ecological Research Monographs(). Springer, Tokyo. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-4-431-54783-9_15

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