title: How to describe species richness patterns for bryophyte conservation?
abstract: A large amount of data for inconspicuous taxa is stored in natural history collections; however, this information is often neglected for biodiversity patterns studies. Here, we evaluate the performance of direct interpolation of museum collections data, equivalent to the traditional approach used in bryophyte conservation planning, and stacked species distribution models (S-SDMs) to produce reliable reconstructions of species richness patterns, given that differences between these methods have been insufficiently evaluated for inconspicuous taxa. Our objective was to contrast if species distribution models produce better inferences of diversity richness than simply selecting areas with the higher species numbers. As model species, we selected Iberian species of the genus Grimmia (Bryophyta), and we used four well-collected areas to compare and validate the following models: 1) four Maxent richness models, each generated without the data from one of the four areas, and a reference model created using all of the data and 2) four richness models obtained through direct spatial interpolation, each generated without the data from one area, and a reference model created with all of the data. The correlations between the partial and reference Maxent models were higher in all cases (0.45 to 0.99), whereas the correlations between the spatial interpolation models were negative and weak (-0.3 to -0.06). Our results demonstrate for the first time that S-SDMs offer a useful tool for identifying detailed richness patterns for inconspicuous taxa such as bryophytes and improving incomplete distributions by assessing the potential richness of under-surveyed areas, filling major gaps in the available data. In addition, the proposed strategy would enhance the value of the vast number of specimens housed in biological collections.
authors.affiliation: CIBIO/InBio Centro de Investigação em Biodiversidade e Recursos Genéticos da Universidade do Porto Campus Agrário de Vairão 4485-661 Vairão Portugal.
authors.forename: Helena
authors.initials: H
authors.lastname: Hespanhol
authors.affiliation: Real Jardín Botánico (CSIC) Plaza de Murillo 2 28014 Madrid Spain.
authors.forename: Katia
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Cezón
authors.affiliation: Centro Universitario de Mérida Universidad de Extremadura 06800 Mérida Spain.
authors.forename: Ángel M
authors.initials: ÁM
authors.lastname: Felicísimo
authors.affiliation: Real Jardín Botánico (CSIC) Plaza de Murillo 228014 Madrid Spain; Universidad Tecnológica Indoamérica Bolívar 20-35 Ambato Ecuador.
authors.forename: Jesús
authors.initials: J
authors.lastname: Muñoz
authors.affiliation: Department of Ecology & Evolution University of Lausanne Biophore Building 1015 Lausanne Switzerland.
authors.forename: Rubén G
authors.initials: RG
authors.lastname: Mateo
keywords: Biodiversity conservation; biological collections; bryophytes; richness models; species distribution models