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Evaluating Policy-Relevant Surrogate Taxa for Biodiversity Conservation: a Case Study from British Columbia

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Evaluating Policy-Relevant Surrogate Taxa for Biodiversity Conservation: a Case Study from British Columbia Canadian Journal of Zoology Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia Journal: Canadian Journal of Zoology Manuscript ID cjz-2019-0178.R1 Manuscript Type: Note Date Submitted by the 24-Sep-2019 Author: Complete List of Authors: Falconer, Sarah; University of British Columbia Okanagan, Biology Ford, Adam; University of British Columbia Okanagan, Biology Is your manuscript invited for consideration in a Special Not applicableDraft (regular submission) Issue?: WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT < Discipline, conservation, game species, Keyword: HABITAT < Habitat, indicator species https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Page 1 of 37 Canadian Journal of Zoology Evaluating policy-relevant surrogate taxa for biodiversity conservation: a case study from British Columbia Sarah Falconer a, Adam T. Ford a,b a Department of Biology, The University of British Columbia - Okanagan Campus, 1177 Research Road, Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada V1V 1V7 b Corresponding author: [email protected] Draft https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Canadian Journal of Zoology Page 2 of 37 2 Abstract Conservation efforts often lead to a small proportion of species receiving a disproportionate amount of attention. This bias in finding may help or hinder broader goals of biodiversity conservation depending on the surrogacy value of the well-funded species. Surrogate species are selected to represent other taxa in a shared environment when it would be costly or impractical to obtain information on individual taxa. We compared the surrogacy value of common groups of taxa implicated in conservation – game species, carnivores, non-game species, and other species. Using a publicly available dataset of species-habitat associations, we compared the surrogacy value for 1012 species and 64 habitat types in British Columbia. We used a conditional entropy metric to quantify pairwise associations betweenDraft species via their occurrence in different habitat types. Our analysis reveals that game and non-game species surrogacy groups do not significantly differ in either the frequency of captured pairwise associations or their coverage of species. These results suggest that funding game species conservation is likely conferring some benefits to non-game species, but optimal habitat-based conservation outcomes will come from a combination of taxa. This analysis provides an important step in influencing management decisions for the preservation of biodiversity in British Columbia. Keywords: conservation, game species, habitat, indicator species, wildlife management https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Page 3 of 37 Canadian Journal of Zoology 3 Introduction There is widespread, human-induced losses of biodiversity and wildlife population declines driven by overexploitation, climate change, diseases, and invasive species (Dirzo et al. 2014). Habitat loss however, is considered the most important contemporary driver of species declines (Tilman et al. 1994; Hanski 2011; Newbold et al. 2015). The human footprint is spreading (Venter et al. 2016), giving rise to range contractions (Shackelford et al. 2018), changing animal behavior (Gaynor et al. 2018; Tucker et al. 2018), and altered evolutionary trajectories for wildlife (Otto 2018). To counter these declines, global efforts are being made to prioritize both species and habitats for protection (Martin et al. 2018). Implementing habitat protectionDraft often involves trade-offs among target species and other values derived from land (Bottrill et al. 2008). Habitat protections typically reduce opportunity to use land for urbanization, agriculture, or extractive resources, which means that social, economic, and political pressures minimize the amount of land allocated for protection. Moreover, the diverse life-history needs of different taxa means that protections targeted at one species will not necessarily confer benefits to other species (Hermoso et al. 2013; Barnes et al. 2018; Heim et al. 2019). In addition, relationships between habitat and fitness are unknown for most species, making protection of habitats that enhance population viability elusive for managers (Fahrig 2001). For these reasons, it will be very challenging to implement habitat protection for all species – prioritization may be needed to maximize the benefits of limited conservation resources (Martin et al. 2018). https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Canadian Journal of Zoology Page 4 of 37 4 The use of surrogate species in conservation is a common approach to prioritize species, and therefore maximize conservation outcomes with limited funds. A surrogate species is any species that is selected to represent another, or several others, in a shared environment (Caro 2010). Surrogate species are usually perceived to share characteristics that are unknown in other target species, and it would be costly or impractical to obtain that information (Landres et al. 1988; Caro et al. 1999; Rodrigues and Brooks 2007; Caro 2010; Nekaris et al. 2015). Conceptually, this definition of conservation surrogates includes umbrella species, which are used to indicate the extent or type of habitat to be protected (Nekaris et al. 2015), flagship species, which are selected because they attract public attention (Jepson and Barua 2015; Nekaris et al. 2015), and indicator species, which are species that have characteristicsDraft that can serve as a proxy for another species that might be too difficult to measure directly (Landres et al. 1988). Surrogate species are also used in natural resources and environmental monitoring to estimate or track changes to ecosystems (Muir et al. 2011; Campbell et al. 2019). Though the use of surrogate species is widespread in conservation and resource management, the manner in which this concept is commonly applied has important limitations. First, it is often not clear how representative a surrogate species is for broader ecological conditions, as relationships or co-occurrence patterns are often assumed (Andelman and Fagan 2000; Caro 2010; Hermoso et al. 2013; Campbell et al. 2019; Henry et al. 2019). Second, species identified or presumed to have high surrogacy value may not align with the knowledge and infrastructure of existing conservation funding mechanisms or established ecological knowledge (Schweizer et al. 2014). For example, an obscure species may accurately predict the occurrence of other species (i.e., it is a https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Page 5 of 37 Canadian Journal of Zoology 5 strong indicator), but there may be limited information on the life history of the obscure species that would help inform management. Conversely, species with established funding streams may be common, and so underappreciated for their potential role as conservation surrogates (Neeson et al. 2018). Third, many existing tests of surrogate species focus on a subset of taxa, such as fishes and mollusks (Stewart et al. 2018), birds (Morelli et al. 2017), and vertebrates (Meurant et al. 2018), with limited inferences between plants, animals, and other higher-order taxonomic groups. These taxonomic foci may not conform to existing conservation infrastructure, such as engagement campaigns or agency expertise. Funding and knowledge for wildlife management in North America typically focuses on game species (i.e., those Draftharvested for recreation and subsistence hunting), which have a high profile but whose populations are not usually at risk (Jacobson et al. 2007; Dalrymple et al. 2012). For example, in the USA, state wildlife agencies dedicate only about 2 percent of their revenue to non-game species (Scheffer 1973), though endangered species managed by or in conjunction with game management agencies may affect this estimate (Restani and Marzluff 2002; Jacobson et al. 2010). Funding for game species may contribute towards general wildlife management budgets and have spill-over benefits for non-hunted species (Jacobson et al. 2007). However, in other cases, funding for conservation of game species diverts funding for direct conservation of non-game species (Darimont et al. 2018). In spite of the criticisms to this funding model (Artelle et al. 2018a; 2018b) it is not clear if these funding biases are actually problematic from the perspective of restoring and conserving biodiversity. https://mc06.manuscriptcentral.com/cjz-pubs Canadian Journal of Zoology Page 6 of 37 6 In addition to funding models associated with consumptive users, non- government conservation organizations often focus on a subset of biodiversity to advance their campaigns. Large mammals in general, and carnivores specifically, feature prominently on the covers of conservation magazines (Clucas et al. 2008), even if their ecological roles are frequently overstated (Allen et al. 2017). Quantifying the surrogacy value among game, non-game, and other species is an important step towards maximizing conservation outcomes from existing wildlife management and conservation infrastructure. Using a matrix of categorical species-habitat associations, we derived a surrogacy metric by examining the degree to which large game species, large carnivores, and other species overlap in their habitat associationsDraft with terrestrial non-game species. In addition to game and carnivore guilds, we also evaluated the surrogacy value of non-game species, iterating the number of species in the surrogacy group to optimize the strength and coverage of species-habitat associations. We suggest that greater overlap in the habitat
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