Taking stock: the science of making species inventories

Some species, like this Bee Orchid at the Minet site, are hard to overlook

A Rocha's emphasis on environmental work focuses on the conservation and restoration of particular sites such as the Arabuko-Sokoke Forest of Kenya, the Aammiq Wetlands of Lebanon and the Alvor Estuary of Portugal. Wherever A Rocha works, the action is always centred on some specific area. But where, in conserving an area, do you begin? The answer is that you begin by posing a simple question: what have we got? What plants, birds, animals, reptiles and insects are present and in what numbers? To find that out is to take a species inventory.

Why take a species inventory?

If you want to try to preserve an area, it is vital to make an inventory of the species present. To do any sort of effective and scientifically based conservation — the only sort of conservation worth doing — demands that you understand what is going on. To deal with any ecosystem — "a system formed by the interaction of a community of organisms with their physical environment" — means that you must know what this "community of organisms" actually is. Ecosystems are highly complex and to interfere with them without understanding is to invite disaster.

Making a species inventory has other benefits. It can allow, for example, the identification of any endangered or rare species. Campaigning for the conservation of a particular area is greatly helped if it can be shown that some such priority species is present. Indeed, in many countries, some species have legal protection and their presence may mean that there is a legal duty for the preservation of an area. Making inventories can also lead to the identification of any unwelcome species such an invasive weed whose spread threatens other plants.

The practice of making an inventory

Making species inventories is not a task that can be done overnight. While some species within an ecosystem, such as trees and larger mammals, may be easy to find and identify many others will only be discovered after careful searching. Each species needs to be accurately identified and while the identity of some species may be determined quickly and easily from handbooks and field guides, many other species need careful examination with more specialized publications and museum collections before a precise identification can be made. Another reason why making a full species inventory takes time is because not all species are always present or visible. So, for instance, many insects may only be visible for a few months or weeks in summer and some plants are only identifiable with certainty for the few weeks when they flower.

Identifying frogs can be difficult

It is often helpful to look at any historical records that are available for an area to see what others have recorded as occurring in the past. This can give an indication of what might be expected to occur as well as suggest species that might recur if conditions are right.

Sometimes the business of identifying species is complex. Taxonomy — the practice of classifying and naming plants and animals — is an evolving science and many species are the subject of intense scientific debate. For example, around the eastern end of the Mediterranean the commonest true frog recorded is variously called the Marsh Frog Rana ridibunda, the Lake Frog Rana bedriagae and the Levantine Frog Rana levantina. But how they differ and whether they are truly separate species is a matter of dispute. So what name are A Rocha scientists at Lebanon's Aammiq Wetland going to use for the frog there? A Rocha is helped in such matters by the growing international network of experts that it can call upon for advice.

Making full and accurate inventories of the species present in an area is something that A Rocha strongly believes in and all the A Rocha projects are building up such inventories for the areas where they are working. In many cases, these projects have been helped by experts who have volunteered their time to visit the study area and use their own specialized skills.

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It is hoped that full species lists for all A Rocha projects will eventually be posted on this site. For the moment, examples of such inventories can be seen for Aammiq under A Rocha Lebanon: Scientific Studies.