SELECTING HERB-RICH FOREST NETWORKS TO PROTECT DIFFERENT MEASURES OF BIODIVERSITY

Data on vascular plants of herb-rich forests in Finland were used to compare the efficiency of reserve selection methods in representing three measures of biodiversity: species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and restricted-range diversity. Comparisons of reserve selection methods were carried out both with and without consideration of the existing reserve system. Our results showed that the success of a reserve network of forests in representing different measures of biodiversity depends on the selection procedure, selection criteria, and data set used. Ad hoc selection was the worst option. A scoring procedure was generally more efficient than maximum random selection. Heuristic methods…