Higher taxa are effective surrogates for species in the selection of conservation reserves in estuaries.

The article presents a research on the effectiveness of higher taxa of macroinvertebrates as surrogate for species in the selection of conservation reserves in estuaries in south-east Australia. The research shows that the difficulty of identifying several macroinvertebrates to the order level diminishes the performance of order as surrogate for species richness. It also suggests that genus- and family-level identification is an effective surrogate for conservation planning in estuaries.