COMPLEMENTARITY AND THE USE OF INDICATOR GROUPS FOR RESERVE SELECTIONIN UGANDA

A major obstacle to conserving tropical biodiversity is the lack of in formation as to where efforts should be concentrated, One potential so lution is to focus on readily assessed indicator groups, whose distrib ution predicts the overall importance of the biodiversity of candidate areas(1,2). Here we test this idea, using the most extensive data set on patterns of diversity assembled so far for any part of the tropics . As in studies of temperate regions(2-8) we found little spatial cong ruence in the species richness bf woody plants, large moths, butterfli es, birds and small mammals across 50 Ugandan forests. Despite this la ck of congruence, sets of priority forests selected using data on sing le taxa only often captured species richness in other groups with the same efficiency as using information on all taxa at once. This is beca use efficient conservation networks incorporate not only species-rich sites, but also those whose biotas best complement those of other area sg(9-11). In Uganda, different taxa exhibit similar biogeography, so p riority forests for one taxon collectively represent the important for est types for other taxa as well. Our results highlight the need, when evaluating potential indicators for reserve selection, to consider cr oss-taxon congruence in complementarity as well as species richness.