Nonrandom Extinction and the Loss of Evolutionary History

Purvis, Andy; Agapow, Paul‐Michael; Gittleman, John L.; Mace, Georgina M.

doi:10.1126/science.288.5464.328

Cited by 521 publications

(537 citation statements)

References 19 publications

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“…2000; May‐Collado and Agnarsson 2011; Jono and Pavoine 2012) highly overestimated and underestimated, respectively, ExpPDloss, PDloss, EDGE, and HEDGE scores because it erroneously threatened or secured branches of phylogenies. Those imputation methods could thus be used to estimate the upper and lower boundaries of evolutionary history at risk but may be inadequate to approach the true values of those indices.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

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Integrating data‐deficient species in analyses of evolutionary history loss

Véron

Penone²,

Clergeau

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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There is an increasing interest in measuring loss of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness which together depict the evolutionary history of conservation interest. Those losses are assessed through the evolutionary relationships between species and species threat status or extinction probabilities. Yet, available information is not always sufficient to quantify the threat status of species that are then classified as data deficient. Data‐deficient species are a crucial issue as they cause incomplete assessments of the loss of phylogenetic diversity and evolutionary distinctiveness. We aimed to explore the potential bias caused by data‐deficient species in estimating four widely used indices: HEDGE, EDGE, PDloss, and Expected PDloss. Second, we tested four different widely applicable and multitaxa imputation methods and their potential to minimize the bias for those four indices. Two methods are based on a best‐ vs. worst‐case extinction scenarios, one is based on the frequency distribution of threat status within a taxonomic group and one is based on correlates of extinction risks. We showed that data‐deficient species led to important bias in predictions of evolutionary history loss (especially high underestimation when they were removed). This issue was particularly important when data‐deficient species tended to be clustered in the tree of life. The imputation method based on correlates of extinction risks, especially geographic range size, had the best performance and enabled us to improve risk assessments. Solving threat status of DD species can fundamentally change our understanding of loss of phylogenetic diversity. We found that this loss could be substantially higher than previously found in amphibians, squamate reptiles, and carnivores. We also identified species that are of high priority for the conservation of evolutionary distinctiveness.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Therefore, measuring accurately extinction risks is of particular importance as the loss of phylogenetic diversity may be more dramatic than species loss and impact functional diversity as well as ecosystem services (Purvis et al. 2000; Cadotte et al. 2008; Srivastava et al.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Integrating data‐deficient species in analyses of evolutionary history loss

Véron

Penone²,

Clergeau

et al. 2016

Ecology and Evolution

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“…This model is quite restrictive ( [11]) and a more realistic extension allows each species to have its own survival probability -this is the model we study in this paper. Under this model, we would like to be able to predict the PD score of the set of taxa that survive.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Distribution of phylogenetic diversity under random extinction

Faller¹,

Pardi²,

Steel³

2008

Journal of Theoretical Biology

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Abstract. Phylogenetic diversity is a measure for describing how much of an evolutionary tree is spanned by a subset of species. If one applies this to the (unknown) subset of current species that will still be present at some future time, then this 'future phylogenetic diversity' provides a measure of the impact of various extinction scenarios in biodiversity conservation. In this paper we study the distribution of future phylogenetic diversity under a simple model of extinction (a generalized 'field of bullets' model). We show that the distribution of future phylogenetic diversity converges to a normal distribution as the number of species grows (under mild conditions, which are necessary). We also describe an algorithm to compute the distribution efficiently, provided the edge lengths are integral, and briefly outline the significance of our findings for biodiversity conservation.

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“…Across studies, high extinction risk is generally associated with large body size, long generation times and small geographic range sizes (Bennett and Owens 1997 ;Russell et al 1998 ;Purvis et al 2000a ;Cardillo 2003 ;Fisher and Owens 2004 ;Cooper et al 2008 ). Conversely, species at low risk of extinction are small, reproduce rapidly, and have a wide niche breadth.…”

Section: Extinction Drivers In Animalsmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Purvis et al 2000aPurvis et al , 2005Isaac et al 2007Isaac et al , 2012Faith 2008 ). This effort has been facilitated by the rapid rise in analytical tools, and the availability of large comprehensive phylogenetic trees for well studied taxonomic groups such as mammals (Bininda-Edmonds et al 2007 ), birds (McCormack et al 2013 ), amphibians (Pyron and Wiens 2013 ), and fl owering plants (e.g.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Yessoufou

Davies

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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Analysing extinction within a phylogenetic framework may seem counter-intuitive because extinction is a priori a non-heritable trait. However, extinction risk is correlated with other traits, such as body size, that show a strong phylogenetic signal. Further, there has been much effort in identifying key traits important for diversifi cation, and recent evidence has demonstrated that the processes of speciation and extinction may be inextricably linked. A phylogenetic approach also allows us to quantify the impact of extinction, for example, as the loss of branches from the tree-of-life. Early work suggested that extinctions might result in little loss of evolutionary history, but subsequent studies indicated that nonrandom extinctions might prune more of the evolutionary tree. Loss of phylogenetic diversity might have ecosystem consequences because functional differences between species tend to be correlated with the evolutionary distances between them. Here we explore how extinction prunes the tree-of-life. Our review indicates that the loss of evolutionary history under non-random extinction (the emerging pattern in extinction biology) might be less pronounced than some previous studies have suggested. However, the loss of functional diversity might still be large, depending on the evolutionary model of trait change. Under a punctuated model of evolution, in which trait differences accrue in bursts at speciation, the number of branches lost is more important than their summed lengths. We suggest that evolutionary models need to be incorporated more explicitly into measures of phylogenetic diversity if we are to use phylogeny as a proxy for functional diversity.

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Nonrandom Extinction and the Loss of Evolutionary History

Cited by 521 publications

References 19 publications

Integrating data‐deficient species in analyses of evolutionary history loss

Integrating data‐deficient species in analyses of evolutionary history loss

Distribution of phylogenetic diversity under random extinction

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

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