ANALYZING KEY ECOLOGICAL FUNCTIONS OF WILDLIFE SPECIES
MARCOT, BRUCE G.
USDA Forest Service
1221 SW Yamhill St., Suite 200
POB 3890
Portland OR, 97208-3890
503/808-2010 phone
503/808-2020 fax
brucem@SpiritOne.com
Oral presentation
Abstract:
Key ecological functions (KEFs) of species are those roles that organisms
play that ultimately affect the biodiversity, productivity, and sustainability
of their ecosystems. Understanding the functional roles and interactions
of species is an important facet of ecosystem management but is usually
overlooked by land managers. Databases depicting species' KEFs as
hierarchical classes can be used to determine several functional parameters
of communities, including functional redundancy, functional diversity,
functional variance and similarity, and geofunctional ecology. Functional
redundancy is the number of species with the same KEF; total functional
diversity is the number of KEF categories times the mean number of species
per category; functional variance is the variation in redundancy among
KEF categories within a community; functional similarity depicts, in dendrograms,
the differences among communities in terms of their KEF categories; and
geofunctional ecology maps in GIS the ranges of species sharing a common
KEF. Such metrics and maps can be used to determine the communities
with the greatest functional variance and lowest redundancy in particular
KEFs, that is, those potentially at greatest risk of environmental change;
and to delineate specific geographic areas with weakest spatial links of
particular KEFs across the landscape, for potential conservation or restoration
actions. Examples from the interior Columbia River Basin are provided.
Using this approach, the manager can also describe the ecological roles
of extirpated and extinct species lost from communities; functions of exotic
species; and even key ecological functions of humans. Data for a
KEF database come from expert panels and literature, but help to craft
testable hypotheses and identify major research needs.