Atajos para medir la diversidad biológica. Un ejemplo con especies indicadoras vs. Parámetros edáficos en prados de la Reserva de la Biosfera de Urdaibai

Abstract

It is difficult to summarize the concept of biodiversity in a simple number, but the observedor estimated number of species, and the Shannon index (or some transformation), have beenused with this purpose. However, to accurately and precisely determine these parameters, a hightaxonomic knowledge of the group of organisms to study and large resource quantities (effort,time and money) are needed. Are there alternative, faster and cheaper methods (i.e., “shortcuts”),to estimate biological diversity? In this paper we assess the application of indicatorspecies (Plantago lanceolata, Ranunculus acris, Trifolium repens, Agrostis capillaris and Loliumperenne), and soil physico-chemical parameters (pH, organic matter, nitrogen and phosphorus),to build empirical models in order to estimate floristic diversity in plant assemblages inhabitingAtlantic meadows in the Urdaibai Biosphere Reserve (Basque Country). To this end, we usemodern variable-selection and multimodel inference methods. Results evidence that with onlythe abovementioned 5 plant species, good and very good (R2 = 47.8–90.7%) averaged modelsof the floristic diversity of each meadow can be obtained. Results are discussed taking into accountthe predictive power of the models and their plausible application to monitor spatial or temporalchanges in biodiversity.