| Background/Question/Methods. Ponds are among the most diverse and yet threatened components of freshwater biodiversity. The conservation of ponds would greatly benefit from the identification of surrogate taxa in preliminary assessments aimed at detecting ponds of potentially high biodiversity value. Vascular plants and water beetles have often been used in pond conservation assessments. To evaluate whether wetland plants are a suitable surrogate group to evaluate pond biodiversity, we used plant, beetle, and environmental data collected from 54 ponds located in two farmed regions in Ireland. Specifically, we aimed at assessing cross-taxon congruence between water beetles and plants; quantifying and comparing the capacity of vegetation data and... |
