The lack of wall-to-wall biotic inventories poses a significant challenge for conservation biology. Therefore, a primary goal in conserving the unknown (species and their distribution) is finding biodiversity surrogates. This study uses remote sensing techniques and animal distribution in Spain to propose a new surrogate - habitat heterogeneity diversity (HHD). HHD was defined using measures of NDVI (Normalized difference vegetation index) and maximum dispersion approach to identify areas that spam habitat heterogeneity among sites. The efficacy of HHD in selecting sites to represent species was compared to the biotic surrogate rarity-weighted richness (RWR), a single NDVI measure, and a null solution. This study also investigated the spatial patterns of RWR and whether the methodology used to estimate HHD influences its efficiency as a surrogate. RWR patterns generally show high values in the north. While the correlations among RWR values were generally moderate, HHD successfully represented species compared to NDVI and null solutions and, in some cases, RWR. HHD is a robust alternative for complementarity-based solutions for solving problems that require the representation of at least one occurrence per species. Since HHD could be calculated using NDVI variables, the cost of conservation planning could be reduced since remote sensing variables are widely available and accessible most of the time. When validated, HHD could be incorporated into spatial conservation prioritization plans alongside other abiotic-based solutions at the same scale that conservation is practiced.

中文翻译：

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栖息地异质性多样性：西班牙的一个简单的动物生物多样性替代品

缺乏全面的生物清单给保护生物学带来了重大挑战。因此，保护​​未知事物（物种及其分布）的首要目标是寻找生物多样性替代品。这项研究利用遥感技术和西班牙的动物分布提出了一个新的替代物——栖息地异质性多样性（HHD）。 HHD 是使用 NDVI（归一化植被指数）和最大离散度方法来定义的，以识别产生垃圾栖息地异质性的区域。将 HHD 在选择代表物种的位点方面的功效与生物替代物稀有度加权丰富度 (RWR)、单一 NDVI 测量值和零解进行了比较。这项研究还调查了 RWR 的空间模式以及用于估计 HHD 的方法是否会影响其作为替代指标的效率。 RWR 模式通常在北部显示较高值。虽然 RWR 值之间的相关性通常中等，但与 NDVI 和零解以及在某些情况下与 RWR 相比，HHD 成功地代表了物种。 HHD 是基于互补性的解决方案的强大替代方案，用于解决需要表示每个物种至少一次出现的问题。由于 HHD 可以使用 NDVI 变量来计算，因此可以降低保护规划的成本，因为遥感变量在大多数情况下都是广泛可用和可获取的。经过验证后，HHD 可以与其他基于非生物的解决方案一起纳入空间保护优先计划，其规模与保护实践的规模相同。