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Preserving evolutionary history with improved confidence

“…With this in mind, we offer some additional thoughts resulting from the commentaries of Mindell and Faith. We agree with Mindell (2019) that our simulations use simple (homogeneous) models of diversification, and that models where diversification rates can vary within a phylogeny (heterogeneous models) may provide more realistic phylogenies. Mindell (2019) kindly mounts an argument on our behalf, pointing out that simulations based on more complex models can introduce unintended biases (and, we suggest, have less general results). Such models also have more parameters whose estimation introduces additional error, and so our approach of simulating and imputing under the same model represents a best-case scenario for successful imputation.…”

“…We thank Faith () and Mindell () for their insightful perspectives on our study of the impact of phylogenetic imputation on the assessment of evolutionary distinctiveness (ED; Isaac et al , ). As Mindell highlights, the finding that ED scores for species on a phylogeny are remarkably robust despite having species missing from that phylogeny is encouraging; our results suggest that we can be confident in moving forward with prioritization of the species for which we have data.…”

“…If, say, such imputations were more unlikely than others, it might be possible to perform a kind of ‘worst‐case imputation’ analysis. Mindell () insightfully notes that managers are unlikely to stop imputing values for missing species, since an imprecise result might still be preferable to excluding a species altogether. Missing information is a limiting factor for conservation in general, and we foresee that imputation will be developed even further to aid managers.…”

“…While we feel that simulation studies such as ours are useful guides as we build tools in the fight to conserve biodiversity, the commentaries of Mindell () and Faith () remind us that we must not lose sight of our underlying purpose. We can, and must, act now to conserve the biodiversity that we value and depend upon.…”