Using Ecological‐Niche Modeling as a Conservation Tool for Freshwater Species: Live‐Bearing Fishes in Central Mexico

Abstract

Ecological-niche modeling is an important tool for conservation assessment of terrestrial species; however, its applicability has been poorly explored in the aquatic realm. Goodeines are a monophyletic group of viviparous freshwater fishes that are well known in central Mexico, with 41 species in 19 genera. Given the number of threats to biodiversity in the region, goodeines represent an excellent model with which to test novel conservation approaches. We assessed the conservation status of the goodeines (37 species), based on their potential distributions predicted by ecological-niche models generated with the genetic algorithm for rule-set prediction (GARP). Predictions of species' distributions performed well in six out of eight species for which sufficient information was available to perform estimations of the area under the curve (AUC) in receiver operating characteristic plots. Extensive field surveys conducted in recent years in most cases confirm the models' predictions. Species richness exhibited a nested pattern, in which the number of species increased toward the center of the distribution of the group. At the basin level, the Río Ameca Basin had the highest number of species (11), chiefly because of the high number of microendemic species (6). Human activities within water bodies (e.g., extensive aquaculture) and drainages (e.g., agriculture, ranching, industrial activities) have affected most goodeines severely, given the deleterious effects of pollution and introductions of exotic species, such as carp (Cyprinus carpio, Ctenopharingodon idella) and tilapia (Oreochromis spp.). Our results paint a pessimistic picture for the long-term survival of many goodeines in their natural environment, and realistic conservation measures are complex and would require immediate protection of specific areas that we have identified. Ecological-niche modeling is a suitable tool for conservation assessment of freshwater species, but availability of environmental information on aquatic systems (e.g., temperature, water speed, pH, oxygen concentration) would improve distributional predictions.

Sampling bias and the use of ecological niche modeling in conservation planning: a field evaluation in a biodiversity hotspot

“…Therefore, our results indicate that predictions from ENM, even when generated by limited and geographically biased dataset, can be a helpful resource to estimate species richness of unsampled regions. This result confirms recent successful applications of ENM in conservation (Domínguez-Domínguez et al 2006;Garcia 2006;Pawar et al 2007). It is important to note that, although our input data set is geographically biased towards localities near the major institutions, it still includes point locality information for all 237 species of squamates known to occur in the Cerrado.…”

Predicted and verified distributions of Ateles geoffroyi and Alouatta palliata in Oaxaca, Mexico

“…A full description of the whole process can be found elsewhere (Stockwell and Noble 1992;Stockwell and Peters 1999). GARP has been successfully used to model the distributions of Mexican fauna Illoldi-Rangel et al 2004;Domínguez-Domínguez et al 2006), and has proven robust, even with small sample sizes (Stockwell and Peterson 2002).…”

Toward a new instrument for identifying the Italian hotspots of biodiversity: A case study of the amphibians and reptiles of Sicily

“…The management of single species can have the benefit of understanding in detail the environmental conditions required for the species persistence, and of identifying specific sites for protection measures (e.g. Domínguez-Domínguez et al 2006;Araújo et al 2007). Contemporaneously, at the community level, the definition of areas with highest specific diversity allows at selecting the most opportune sites for optimizing the probability of success of biodiversity conservation initiatives.…”