Measuring biodiversity using habitat as a surrogate indicator: an analysis of the GRADSEC methodology

The aim of this study is to determine the effectiveness of using habitats as a
surrogate for species diversity of small vertebrates in the Kruger National Park.
Vegetation structure and abundance of various habitats were assessed in five
different catenal units. A scoring system was used to predict which reptile
species would be found in these areas and a list of species found in each area and
their relative abundances was generated. The next phase of this study will be to
ground-truth the results and thereby determine the effectiveness of using this
surrogate. We concluded by suggesting modifications to the methodology