Assessing the conservation priority of freshwater lake sites based on taxonomic, functional and environmental uniqueness

Aim: We propose a novel approach that considers taxonomic uniqueness, functional uniqueness and environmental uniqueness, and show how it can be used in guiding conservation planning. We illustrate the approach using data for lake biota and environment.
Location: Lake Puruvesi, Finland.
Methods: We sampled macrophytes and macroinvertebrates from the same 18 littoral sites. By adapting the original ‘ecological uniqueness’ approach, we used distance‒based methods to calculate measures of taxonomic (LCBD‒t), functional (LCBD‒f) and environmental (LCEH) uniqueness for each site. We also considered the numbers and locations of the sites needed to protect up to 70% of total variation in taxonomic, functional or environmental features in the studied part of the lake.
Results: Relationships between taxonomic (LCBD‒t), functional (LCBD‒f) and environmental (LCEH) uniqueness were generally weak, and only the relationship between macrophyte LCBD‒t and LCBD‒f was statistically significant. Overall,...