The Use of Umbrella Species in Biodiversity Conservation

6/15/20233 min read

panda eating bamboo
panda eating bamboo

The conservation of umbrella species is generally believed to result in co-benefits for the majority of the other species which occur in the same habitat (Fleishman et al 2000; Gilby et al 2017), because their resource and habitat needs cover the home range and corresponding requirements of significant numbers of sympatric species (Seddon and Leech 2008). The umbrella species approach therefore uses one species as a surrogate to signal the state of the subject habitat (Gilby et al 2017).

In Queensland, Australia, for instance, estuary rays have been identified as a promising umbrella species; areas in which they occur have been noted to hold 55 out of 59 total identified species in that area, i.e. more than 93% of total diversity (Gilby et al 2017).

Keystone species – those species who are so essential to their habitat that their removal from or insertion into an ecosystem causes substantial difference in the richness of other species – may be prime candidates for selection as umbrella species (Johnson et al 2017).

Flagship species, on the other hand, are generally selected for their charisma and emotional connection with humankind (Home et al 2009), and unless chosen on sound ecological bases, may be less appropriate as umbrella species.

By sampling only one member of a taxonomic group (rather than all its members), the adoption of umbrella species as proxies is slated to optimise returns on information from comparatively lower investments into fact-finding and observation (Fleishman et al 2000). Thus, simplified databases may allow conservation managers to react and modify their actions more swiftly (Fleishman et al 2000).

However, there has been inadequate verifiable evidence attesting to the effectiveness or validity of this approach (Fleishman et al 2000; Wang et al 2021), which has lacked sufficient testing (Seddon and Leech 2008). Indeed, there are indications that conservation programmes prioritising potential umbrella species deliver minimal conservation benefits to species within the same habitat (Seddon and Leech 2008).

An umbrella species may not necessarily be the species in the subject habitat which is most responsive to changes in the habitat, and therefore the umbrella species approach may not be suitable in the evaluation of sui generis habitats or ecosystem processes (Fleishman et al 2000).

Individual species may thrive in different ecological conditions; the more species co-occuring with the proposed umbrella species, the more probable that the needs of the co-occurring and umbrella species will be dissimilar (Wang et al 2021).

The time- and cost-savings of the umbrella species approach may well be overestimated, since a full analysis of the suitability of a candidate species requires extensive long-term studies and surveys of several other species (Seddon and Leech 2008).

To build on the umbrella species approach, managers may wish to select a suite of umbrella species (rather than a single species) (Fleishman et al 2000; Wang et al 2021). Further, the orthodox traits-based selection criteria could be adjusted to incorporate the land cover characteristics of the candidate species, (Stuber and Fontaine 2018).

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References:

  • Fleishman, E., Murphy, D.D., and Brussard, P.F. (2000). ‘A New Method for Selection of Umbrella Species for Conservation Planning’. Ecological Applications , Apr., 2000, Vol. 10, No. 2 (Apr., 2000), pp. 569-579.

  • Gilby, B.L., Olds, A.D., Connolly, R.M., Yablsey, N.A., Maxwell, P.S., Tibbetts, I.R., Schoeman, D.S., and Schlacher, T.A. (2017). ‘Umbrellas can work under water: Using threatened species as indicator and management surrogates can improve coastal conservation’. Estuarine, Coastal and Shelf Science 199 (2017) 132-140. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.ecss.2017.10.003

  • Home, R., C. Keller, P. Nagel, N. Bauer and M. Hunziker. (2009). ‘Selection criteria for flagship species by conservation organizations’, Environmental Conservation 36(2) 2009, pp.139–48.

  • Johnson, S.A., Ober, H.K., and Adams, D.C. (2017). ‘Are keystone species effective umbrellas for habitat conservation? A spatially explicit approach’. Journal for Nature Conservation 37 (2017) 47-55. http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.jnc.2017.03.003

  • Seddon, P.J., and Leech, T. (2008). ‘Conservation short cut, or long and winding road? A critique of umbrella species criteria’. Fauna & Flora International, Oryx, 42(2), 240–245 doi:10.1017/S003060530806119X

  • Stuber, E.F. and Fontaine, J.J. (2018). ‘Ecological neighborhoods as a framework for umbrella species selection’. Biological Conservation 223 (2018) 112-119. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2018.04.026

  • Wang, F., Winkler, J., Viña, A., McShea, W.J., Li, S., Connor, T., Zhao, Z., Wang, D., Yang, H., Tang, Y., Zhang, J., and Liu, J. (2021). ‘The hidden risk of using umbrella species as conservation surrogates: A spatio-temporal approach’. Biological Conservation 253 (2021) 108913. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.biocon.2020.108913