DIVERSITY, ABUNDANCE OR RARE SPECIES AS A TARGET FOR THE CONSERVATIONOF MAMMALIAN CARNIVORES - A CASE-STUDY IN SOUTHERN SPAIN

Management goals in protected areas and/or communities usually include diversity as one of the most valuable and confident criteria. Neverth eless, the use of diversity and related indices as a means of evaluati ng successful management practices could produce conflicting results. Here we report a case study in one of the most important European prot ected 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, althou gh carnivore community diversity and evenness decreased. This was a re sult of a disproportionate increase of an oportunistic native species, the red fox. We propose the combined use of diversity, richness and e venness indices when monitoring management practices such as those rep orted here.