The MacKinnon Lists Technique: An efficient new method for rapidly assessing biodiversity and species abundance ranks in the marine environment

RESEARCH ARTICLE The MacKinnon Lists Technique: An efficient new method for rapidly assessing biodiversity and species abundance ranks in the marine environment Lydia Luise BachID1*, David M. Bailey1, Euan S. Harvey2, Ross MacLeod3 1 Institute of Biodiversity, Animal Health and Comparative Medicine, College of Medical, Veterinary and Life Sciences, University of Glasgow, Glasgow, United Kingdom, 2 Department of Environment and Agriculture, School of Science, Curtin University, Perth, Western Australia, Australia, 3 School of Biological & Environmental Sciences, Liverpool John Moores University, Liverpool, United Kingdom * Lydia.bach@glasgow.ac.uk Abstract Widespread and ever-increasing anthropogenic impacts in the marine environment are driv- ing a need to develop more efficient survey methods for monitoring changes in marine biodi- versity. There is a particular urgent need for survey methods that could more rapidly and effectively detect change in species richness, abundance and community composition. Here, test the suitability of the Mackinnon Lists Technique for use in the marine environment by testing its effectiveness for rapid assessment of fish communities. The MacKinnon Lists Technique is a time-efficient and cost-effective sampling method developed for studying avian tropical biodiversity, in which several list samples of species can be collected from a single survey. Using the well-established MaxN approach on data from deployments of a Baited Remote Underwater Video Systems for comparison, we tested the suitability of the

MacKinnon Lists Technique for use in marine environments by analysing tropical reef fish communities. Using both methods for each data set, differences in community composition between depths and levels of protection were assessed. Both methods were comparable for diversity and evenness indices with similar ranks for species. Multivariate analysis showed that the MacKinnon Lists Technique and MaxN detected similar differences in com- munity composition at different depths and protection status. However, the MacKinnon Lists Technique detected significant differences between factors when fewer videos (represent- ing reduced survey effort) were used. We conclude that the MacKinnon Lists Technique is at least as effective as the widely used MaxN method for detecting differences between communities in the marine environment and suggest can do so with lower survey effort. The MacKinnon Lists Technique has the potential to be widely used as an effective new tool for rapid conservation monitoring in marine ecosystems. PLOS ONE PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231820 April 22, 2020 1 / 15 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 a1111111111 OPEN ACCESS Citation: Bach LL, Bailey DM, Harvey ES, MacLeod R (2020) The MacKinnon Lists Technique: An efficient new method for rapidly assessing biodiversity and species abundance ranks in the marine environment. PLoS ONE 15(4): e0231820. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0231820 Editor: Judi Hewitt, University of Waikato, NEW ZEALAND Received: August 27, 2019 Accepted: April 1, 2020 Published: April 22, 2020

Copyright: © 2020 Bach et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited. Data Availability Statement: All relevant data are available in the Supporting Information files. Funding: LLB was supported by a Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) grant (NE/ J015229/1, http://gotw.nerc.ac.uk/refno.asp). DB was supported by a Directed International NERC grant (NE/S008233/1, http://gotw.nerc.ac.uk/refno. asp). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.