Abstract
The loss of biodiversity has become a global concern. Biologists are just beginning to grapple with issues of how to assess biodiversity and to create databases that can be valuable to a wide spectrum of users (e.g., Scott et al. 1990, Margules and Austin 1991). For conservation biologists to make decisions regarding the management of biological diversity, they need adequate floral and faunal inventories for the lands they manage. Species lists are only a first step in addressing large questions regarding relationships between species and their environments, and, in particular, species responses to environmental change. Understanding the environmental parameters that define species distributions is an even more important component of biodiversity assessment.