Evolutionary age and risk of extinction in the global avifauna

Gaston, Kevin J.; Blackburn, Tim M.

doi:10.1007/s10682-997-1511-4

Cited by 84 publications

(77 citation statements)

References 39 publications

(39 reference statements)

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“…Second, the evolutionary history of a species may influence its vulnerability to extinction. Most previous research has focused on the importance of contemporary ecological factors such as abundance and range size (but see Gaston & Blackburn 1997) -the history of intrinsic factors is also important. We suggest that explanations of variation in extinction risk must attempt to assess the interactions between evolutionary predisposition, the contemporary ecological factors that regulate population stability, and external factors such as human disturbance or catastrophic events.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in extinction risk among birds: chance or evolutionary predisposition?

Bennett

Owens

1997

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

394

391

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SUMMARY Collar et al. (1994) estimate that of the 9672 extant species of bird, 1111 are threatened by extinction. Here, we test whether these threatened species are simply a random sample of birds, or whether there is something about their biology that predisposes them to extinction. We ask three specific questions. First, is extinction risk randomly distributed among families ? Second, which families, if any, contain more, or less, threatened species than would be expected by chance ? Third, is variation between taxa in extinction risk associated with variation in either body size or fecundity ? Extinction risk is not randomly distributed among families. The families which contain significantly more threatened species than expected are the parrots (Psittacidae), pheasants and allies (Phasianidae), albatrosses and allies (Procellariidae), rails (Rallidae), cranes (Gruidae), cracids (Cracidae), megapodes (Megapodidae) and pigeons (Columbidae). The only family which contains significantly fewer threatened species than expected is the woodpeckers (Picidae). Extinction risk is also not distributed randomly with respect to fecundity or body size. Once phylogeny has been controlled for, increases in extinction risk are independently associated with increases in body size and decreases in fecundity. We suggest that this is because low rates of fecundity, which evolved many tens of millions of years ago, predisposed certain lineages to extinction. Low-fecundity populations take longer to recover if they are reduced to small sizes and are, therefore, more likely to go extinct if an external force causes an increase in the rate of mortality, thereby perturbing the natural balance between fecundity and mortality.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Variation in extinction risk among birds: chance or evolutionary predisposition?

Bennett

Owens

1997

Proc. R. Soc. Lond. B

394

391

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“…First, extinction probability might stochastically increase through time [4,16]. Second, specialization is known to correlate with extinction risk [17,18].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic correlates of extinction risk in mammals: species in older lineages are not at greater risk

2013

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Phylogenetic information is becoming a recognized basis for evaluating conservation priorities, but associations between extinction risk and properties of a phylogeny such as diversification rates and phylogenetic lineage ages remain unclear. Limited taxon-specific analyses suggest that species in older lineages are at greater risk. We calculate quantitative properties of the mammalian phylogeny and model extinction risk as an ordinal index based on International Union for Conservation of Nature Red List categories. We test for associations between lineage age, clade size, evolutionary distinctiveness and extinction risk for 3308 species of terrestrial mammals. We show no significant global or regional associations, and three significant relationships within taxonomic groups. Extinction risk increases for evolutionarily distinctive primates and decreases with lineage age when lemurs are excluded. Lagomorph species (rabbits, hares and pikas) that have more close relatives are less threatened. We examine the relationship between net diversification rates and extinction risk for 173 genera and find no pattern. We conclude that despite being under-represented in the frequency distribution of lineage ages, species in older, slower evolving and distinct lineages are not more threatened or extinction-prone. Their extinction, however, would represent a disproportionate loss of unique evolutionary history.

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“…As detailed by Yessoufou and Davies (chapter " Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree -of-Life? "), statistical studies suggest that species-poor, monotypic families, small genera and old groups in mammals, birds and plants -in other words, potentially relicts -are all more prone to extinction (Gaston and Blackburn 1997 ;Russell et al 1998 ;Meijaard et al 2008 ;Vamosi and Wilson 2008 ;López-Pujol and Ren 2010 ). The causes of this situation probably lie in heritable phenotypic traits associated with long branches in these groups .…”

Section: Relict Species and Present Extinction Risksmentioning

confidence: 99%

Biodiversity Conservation and Phylogenetic Systematics

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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Evolutionary age and risk of extinction in the global avifauna

Cited by 84 publications

References 39 publications

Variation in extinction risk among birds: chance or evolutionary predisposition?

Variation in extinction risk among birds: chance or evolutionary predisposition?

Phylogenetic correlates of extinction risk in mammals: species in older lineages are not at greater risk

Biodiversity Conservation and Phylogenetic Systematics

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