Assessing the utility of indicator groups for the conservation of South American terrestrial mammals

Because data on the distribution of most species are limited, prioritizing sites for conservation requires the use of indicator groups to represent overall diversity. The purpose of this study is to assess the utility of different subsets of the South American mammal fauna in representing the overall diversity of South American terrestrial mammals, percentage of endangered and restricted-range species, and the percentage of monotypic genera. Particularly, I assess the effectiveness and efficiency of explicitly selected indicator groups at two spatial scales - continental South America and the country of Brazil. Results show that all indicator groups were more effective than a random selection of cells. However, when compared with sets of randomly selected species, only one indicator group outperformed these sets. An indicator group composed of geographically rare species was more effective and efficient at both spatial scales, protecting a higher percentage of the total number of species, as well as higher percentages of endangered and rare species, and total number of monotypic genera. (C) 2004 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.