Invertebrate conservation and the conservation of forests
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Published:2004
R. L. Kitching, 2004. "Invertebrate conservation and the conservation of forests", Conservation of Australia's Forest Fauna, Daniel Lunney
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The ubiquity and functional importance of invertebrates means they have become increasingly recognised as suitable goals for conservation activities. The simple transfer of regulation and management activities devised for vertebrates and plants has occurred in almost all Australian States and Territories. In a few well known and exceptional cases this approach is effective. In addition it draws attention to flagship taxa which may be used as leverage for including invertebrates, in general, in conservation activities. In general though the management for conservation of complete arthropod assemblages is more in line with current thinking which aims to preserve the ecological functionality of ecosystems. In this regard the recent development of survey techniques has generated baseline inventories for some forest ecosystems. From such inventories sets of taxa may be identified statistically which are effective surrogates for the entire invertebrate fauna. Such ‘predictor sets’ are proving to be robust tools and have great potential for the monitoring of ecosystem health. The continued involvement of invertebrates in conservation management and monitoring is dependent on the maintenance, nationally, of the taxonomic enterprise. There is little evidence of this in recent policy decisions.