Hager, Heather M.Sc. - Advisor: Prof. T.D. Nudds

CONSERVATION OF SPECIES DIVERSITY: ARE ALL UMBRELLA SPECIES EQUAL?

Umbrella species, those whose presence in an area indicates a high likelihood that a majority of other species in the region will also be present, could be indicators for establishing nature reserves. There exists two proposed types of umbrella species: (1) single, large species that require large ranges, or (2) speciose groups with scattered distributions. I compared the abilities of these two types of umbrella species to include areas of high species richness in reserves selected from island archipelagos in the Great Lakes basin, North America. All umbrellas captured 70-100% of other species. Of the 30% of species missing from reserves, umbrella groups captured more species than did single-species umbrellas (p = 0.0095) but the best of each type of umbrella species (mammal single-species umbrellas and woody plant umbrella groups) did not capture significantly different proportions of the total number of other species. Therefore, use of any umbrella species should result in similar reserve selection for species conservation.