Dynamic Indicators System And Surrogate Methodology For Biodiveristy Assessment

Yunnan has the richest biodiversity in China. It's a distribution center of endemic and relic species, a producing area of type specimen, and an epicenter for species differentiation of the East Asian Flora & Fauna. It was also known as one of world's 25 biodiversity hotspots, and a key biological area of international importance. To assess Yunnan's highly diverse, complex and fragile biodiversity, there were still knowledge gaps and deficiencies of precise, effective, feasible and systematic solutions. Biodiversity assessment indicators system is an indispensable tool for measuring biodiversity. To be pertinent or universal is constantly a dilemma for biodiversity assessment indicators systems that have fixed number of indicators. It was simply impossible to apply such systems to different types of biodiversity assessment actions, such as status assessment, long term monitoring, impact assessment, rapid assessment, inventory while achieving a spatio-temporal comparability. What's more, the existing data can not be easily accessed for a normal biodiversity assessor. Without guidance of baseline data, our limited resources can never be invested in the most needed places. In order to change the situation, this paper summarized the distribution pattern of Yunnan's biodiversity along different environmental gradients. Then, the paper developed an integrated platform for biodiversity assessment that includes two databases (the biodiversity indicators database and the biodiversity spatial information database), one application software (the dynamic biodiversity assessment indicators system), and two surrogate methodologies (cross-taxon surrogates and habitat-based surrogates).Firstly, in order to reveal the spatial distribution pattern of Yunnan's biodiversity, Beta diversity along the longitude, latitude and altitudinal gradients were analyzed. Results showed that landscape diversity spreaded according to the dominating landforms inclining from the highest corner of Northwest Yunnan to the lowest corner of Southeast Yunnan and formed three stairs and four terraces. Distribution of ecosystem and species diversity formed a"C."pattern. The"C"belt here refers to the biodiversity enriched border area of Yunnan. In addition, the dot"."refers to a biodiversity island in mid-Yunnan (Wuliang and Ailao Mountains). For the altitudinal gradients, there exists three types of distribution curves for vascular plants: 1) Majority of the mountains'vertical species biodiversity pattern showed"normal distribution"curves. When semi-savanna vegetation occurred in the basal belt, a"biodiversity jumping"phenomenon can be observed. 2) It showed a left-skewed normal distribution in some southern tropical areas (biodiversity level increased a little bit and decrease rapidly since then). 3) For the dry-hot valley areas, there were no significant vertical patterns. For the latitude gradients: 1) There was a significant replacement of species from north to south. About 90% of the species were changed on the gradient. 2) The vertical location of area with highest biodiversity was determined by latitude and a linear equation can be set up between them. For the longitude gradients: 1) The replacement of species was not so significant since only 1/4 of species were changed from east to west. 2) Along the Tropic of Cancer, the more west a place is, the more similar the species composition would be. These findings showed, for the first time, a holographic scene of Yunan's biodiversity and they may serve as background knowledge for future biodiversity assessments.Secondly, the paper proposed a revolutionary concept—dynamic indicators system (DIS). Following four steps, a specified DIS can be automatically generated for any place and any type of assessment: 1) Through collection, classification and inventory of existing biodiversity indicators, a biodiversity indicator database was set up. In the database, 775 individual indicators were collected by far which were organized according to the"Corolla"concept model. 2) Through integration of biodiversity spatial information, fundamental geography spatial data, biodiversity related plannings etc., a biodiversity spatial information database was also set up. 3)"Dynamic Indicators System for Biodiversity Assessment"software was programmed in the"ArcEngine + VB.NET"software development environment which can search indicators in the first database based on information from the latter or specific requests of an assessment project. 4) By utilizing the Analytic Hierarchy Process(AHP) or other methodologies, the weights of each indicator and each layer of the indicators system can be allocated automatically by the software. In this way could an adaptive indicators system be set up for a specific assessment project. After each indicator in the biodiversity assessment DIS was caculated by assessors, its score should be allocated according to the Assessment Standards System. Then, the overall score may be calculated stepwisely by an Integrated Assessment Model that weights each hierarchy.Thirdly, in order to realize the rapid assessment of biodiversity in baseline-data-missing situation, the paper explored the potential biodiversity surrogacy methodologies from two aspects: the relations within life-forms as well as the relation between life-forms and habitat factors. For the former aspect,"species-species relation (cross-taxon relation of species number)"was drawn from the well-known"species-area relation (SAR)". And the correlations of species diversity among"higher plants, birds, mammals, reptiles and amphibians"were theoretically proved. A series of functions between any two taxonomic groups were derived from classic SAR functions for the practise of biodiversity assessment. Due to the scale-dependence of the correlations found in case studies, a set of bird-watching based surrogate methodologies were further developed: On the large scale, a experiential ratio of"1:5:50"exists among mammal, bird and plant species, which means bird species number is normally five times that of mammals, and plants ten times of birds. On the medium scale, species number of any taxonomic group can be estimated by an easy-to-sample indicator taxon (e.g. bird) based on correlation functions developed in the paper. On the small scale, any taxonomic group can be estimated by checking the isoline maps between bird and the corresponding groups. Potential ways to improve the precision of this methodology were also proposed. For the relation between life-forms and habitats, the paper explored spatial correlationships between biodiversity and environmental factors, vegetation landscape, soil landscape, landuse landscape, transportation networks as well as invasive species. By using ordination methods, the most effective habitat-based surrogates were prioritized. By using regression methods, the multiple regression equations between species biodiversity and major environmental factors as well as landscape indicators were developed, which provided a useful tool for rapid biodiversity assessment.The research is an application innovation for biodiversity assessments and it may provide scientific basis and reference for biodiversity researches, biodiversity conservation actions, the improvement of biodiversity impact assessment under China's current environmental impact assessment system and other regional biodiversity assessment activities.