Abstract
In this research, we selected umbrella species for conserving the diversity of all woody plant species, using the presence/absence dataset of woody plant species in the 21 fragmented shrine forest patches in the urban and suburban matrix of Kishiwada City, southern Osaka Prefecture, Japan. The selection method for the umbrella species is based on the “focal species approach” developed by Lambeck (1997), and multispecies most sensitive to each threat category were chosen as the focal species. The results showed that the most sensitive species against decrease in forest area were Damnacanthus indicus and Ardisia pusilla, and that the most sensitive species against increasing isolation distance were D. indicus, A. pusilla, and Callicarpa mollis. The conservation planning guidelines we derived from these 3 focal species were as follows. (1) Conserve or create forests at least 0.82 ha in size and (2) conserve or establish woodland patches that are within a minimum distance of 0.80 km from large forests. It was revealed that over 90% of indigenous woody plants can be conserved by adhering to these guidelines.
