AUTHORS: Ralph Grundel, Noel B. Pavlovic – U.S. Geological Survey
ABSTRACT: How do we set habitat composition goals for landscapes of multiple habitats, especially when some habitats might be of great concern? Should maximizing diversity be the primary goal in prioritizing landscape compositions for conservation? We examined biodiversity patterns for a variety of taxa across part of the Greater Chicago area to understand whether similar landscapes promoted maximization of species richness across taxa. Birds, bees, butterflies, amphibians, reptiles, and plants were assessed. Although there is often an assumption that animal diversity will follow plant diversity, this was not the case. Neither was it true that species diversity was positively correlated among taxa across sites. In part this lack of concordance of species richness among taxa across sites was due to differences in how the taxa responded to their physical environment. Different taxa also expressed varying levels of habitat specialization, contributing to the differences in response to the landscape gradients we examined. We ask to what degree a single landscape can satisfy the needs of multiple taxa and what landscape preference differences might mean for conservation goal setting.
