Premium
The importance of sampling intensity when assessing ecosystem restoration: ants as bioindicators in northern Australia
Author(s) -
Oberprieler Stefanie K.,
Andersen Alan N.
Publication year - 2020
Publication title -
restoration ecology
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 1.214
H-Index - 100
eISSN - 1526-100X
pISSN - 1061-2971
DOI - 10.1111/rec.13172
Subject(s) - bioindicator , ecosystem , sampling (signal processing) , ecology , environmental science , geography , restoration ecology , environmental resource management , nature conservation , biology , computer science , filter (signal processing) , computer vision
Insects are commonly used as bioindicators for assessing ecosystem restoration, but such assessments are potentially influenced by sampling intensity. Uncommon species are often late colonizers of sites undergoing restoration, so that sampling that is effective for only common species can under‐represent differences between rehabilitation and reference sites. We found that differences in observed ant species richness and composition between rehabilitation and reference sites at a northern Australian uranium mine increased markedly with increasing sampling intensity (through repeat sampling), reflecting differences in the numbers of uncommon species. Ensuring appropriately high sampling intensity is important in assessments of restoration success using insect bioindicators.