Dynamics-based characterisation and classification of biodiversity indicators

Various biodiversity indicators, such as species richness, total
abundance, and species diversity indices, have been developed to capture
the state of ecological communities over space and time. As biodiversity
is a multifaceted concept, it is important to understand the dimension of
biodiversity reflected by each indicator for successful conservation and
management. Here we utilised the responsiveness of biodiversity
indicators’ dynamics to environmental changes (i.e. environmental
responsiveness) as a signature of the dimension of biodiversity. We
present a method for characterising and classifying biodiversity
indicators according to environmental responsiveness and apply the
methodology to monitoring data for a marine fish community under
intermittent anthropogenic warm water discharge. Our analysis showed that
ten biodiversity indicators can be classified into three super-groups
based on the dimension of biodiversity that is reflected. Group I (species
richness and community mean of centre of distribution latitude (cCOD))
showed the greatest robustness to temperature changes; Group II (species
diversity and total abundance) showed an abrupt change in the middle of
the monitoring period, presumably due to a change in temperature; Group
III (species evenness) exhibited the highest sensitivity to environmental
changes, including temperature. These results had several ecological
implications. First, the responsiveness of species diversity and species
evenness to temperature changes might be related to changes in the species
abundance distribution. Second, the similar environmental responsiveness
of species richness and cCOD implies that fish migration from lower
latitudes is a major driver of species compositional changes. The study
methodology may be useful in selecting appropriate indicators for
efficient biodiversity monitoring.