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Travaini, A.; Delibes, M.; Ferreras, P.; Palomares, F.
Diversity, abundance or rare species as a target for the conservation of mammalian carnivores: a case study in Southern Spain
1997 Biodiversity and Conservation (6): 529-535
Management goals in protected areas and/or communities usually include diversity as one of the most valuable and confident criteria. Nevertheless, the use of diversity and related indices as a means of evaluating successful management practices could produce conflicting results. Here we report a case study in one of the most important European protected areas. After 6 years of intensive conservation management of the Donana National Park, the general abundance and numbers of the target single-species conservation plan (the Iberian lynx) increased, although carnivore community diversity and evenness decreased. This was a result of a disproportionate increase of an opportunistic native species, the red fox. We propose the combined use of diversity, richness and evenness indices when monitoring management practices such as those reported here.
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