Higher-taxon and cross-taxon surrogates for odonate biodiversity in Brazil

Abstract

Odonate distributional patterns have recently become a focus of a global biodiversity evaluation, but it may present large gaps in biogeographical information, especially in tropical areas, which suggests the need of a surrogate approach for setting conservation priorities. Here we assemble available information of distribution of Brazilian odonate species and try to evaluate two different surrogate possibilities: i) a higher-taxon approach based on genera richness, and ii) a cross-taxa approach using the larger-sized Libellulidae species. The species richness distribution pattern shows a bias toward areas near research centers or with easy accessibility. Only 29% of the territory had any distributional information about odonates. A higher association of genera richness and species richness was observed and remained high even after controlling for differences in sampling effort. Libellulidae species richness was also a good surrogate, despite the low cover of available information of Brazilian territory. Our results support the use of higher-taxa over other approaches but highlight the importance of intensify sampling especially at the Cerrado, Caatinga and Amazonian biomes. © 2012 ABECO.