Higher-taxon richness as a surrogate for species richness in chemosynthetic communities

Estimations of biodiversity and species richness in deep-sea marine ecosystems are impeded by time-consuming methods of species identification. In conservation biology, in environmental monitoring, and in paleontology, a higher-taxon approach (e.g., identification to genera or families) can be used as a surrogate for species richness. We applied a higher-taxon approach to well-documented chemosynthetic communities associated with seep and vent mussel beds to test its applicability in these systems. Significant positive correlations between cumulative number of species and cumulative number of higher taxa were found at the generic, family, and order levels. The number of these higher taxa can be used to predict species richness in vent and seep mussel beds.