Phylogenetic and Trait-Based Prediction of Extinction Risk for Data-Deficient Amphibians

González‐del‐Pliego, Pamela; Freckleton, Robert P.; Edwards, David P.; Koo, Michelle S.; Scheffers, Brett R.; Pyron, R. Alexander; Jetz, Walter

doi:10.1016/j.cub.2019.04.005

Cited by 132 publications

(115 citation statements)

References 41 publications

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“…I act on two different fronts to combat biodiversity loss: research and active conservation. Macroevolutionary and phylogenetic analyses of conservation-related issues are flourishing, and their results are used in various policy-level decisions such as identifying animal taxa that need better conservation measures or estimating the conservation status of species that have never been previously studied in detail (Fisher and Owens 2004;González-del-Pliego et al 2019). Using phylogenetic comparative analyses to understand population changes in waterbirds (Amano et al 2018), we have quantified population trends in their populations worldwide.…”

Section: Biodiversity Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why study plovers? The significance of non-model organisms in avian ecology, behaviour and evolution

Székely

2019

J Ornithol

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Shorebirds (sandpipers, plovers and allies) are some of the most charismatic animals that breed on all continents and inhabit diverse habitats, and their ecology, behaviour and evolution have attracted much attention ever since the work of Charles Darwin. Here I summarise the insights from 30 years of research on shorebird biology to illustrate the contributions of these to four research fields: breeding system evolution, sex ratio research, speciation and biodiversity conservation. Two major conclusions can be drawn from these insights. First, as shorebirds live in a variety of habitats and exhibit puzzling adaptations to their environments, studying their ecology, behaviour and life histories provides novel insights into the emergence and maintenance of organismal diversity. Second, to uncover patterns and processes in evolution, it is both important and stimulating to combine different research methods, and detailed single-species studies with multi-species comparative approach. My main thesis is that curiosity-driven research into the natural history of non-conventional model organisms provides novel insights into fundamental processes in ecology, behaviour and evolution. I also argue that scientific funding should follow the Goldilocks principle: not too little, not too much, just the right amount.

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Section: Biodiversity Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

Why study plovers? The significance of non-model organisms in avian ecology, behaviour and evolution

Székely

2019

J Ornithol

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“…But amphibians are widely considered to be among the most endangered group of vertebrates (González del Pliego et al, 2019); and various traits have been shown to affect the extinction risk of amphibians (Howard & Bickford, 2014;Sodhi et al, 2008). Thus, efficient conservation of amphibians needs to comprehend the patterns and drivers of amphibian trait diversity.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Geographical patterns and environmental drivers of functional diversity and trait space of amphibians of Europe

Tsianou

Kallimanis

2019

Ecological Research

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Amphibians are among the most endangered group of vertebrates. To conserve their diversity we need to comprehend how functional diversity and species traits vary across environmental gradients. We investigate the distribution of functional diversity (functional richness-functional dispersion-functional evenness) and the environmental drivers (climate, energy availability, landscape and anthropogenic attributes) of these patterns for the 68 amphibian species of Europe using generalized least squares models and hierarchical partitioning. Based on eight functional traits, species were arranged in a multidimensional functional trait space and principal coordinates analysis (PCoA) was applied to investigate the occupancy of this space by amphibians. Functional richness mirrored species richness pattern and decreased towards higher latitudes; while, functional dispersion showed an even stronger negative correlation with latitude. Functional evenness did not display a clear latitudinal trend.Areas with higher functional richness and functional dispersion are associated with lower temperature seasonality and increased land cover diversity, in contrast areas with higher functional evenness are characterized by lower mean annual temperature.Climate seasonality mostly influenced the traits related to the first two PCoA axes (i. e., foraging location, mobility mode) which could have been considered as functional response traits and could be used as indicators to examine how communities respond to environmental change. Our work describes the macroecological patterns and discusses the relative importance of alternative underlying mechanisms driving functional diversity of this high-risk taxonomical group and highlight that species richness presents only part of the biodiversity patterns, while other facets like functional evenness behave distinctively differently. K E Y W O R D Samphibians, climate, functional diversity, functional trait space, seasonality

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“…Amphibians are a group in which deficits of demographic data are widespread, and for which missing information is hindering scientific understanding of population dynamics. Amphibians are among the world's most threatened vertebrates, with 43-50% of approximately 7,900 species threatened with extinction across the globe (Stuart et al 2004, González-del-Pliego et al 2019). Many of these species have complex life cycles (Wilbur 1980), wherein discrete life stages rely on dissimilar resources (Hines et al 1987, Kingsolver et al 2011.…”

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confidence: 99%

Estimating Survival for Elusive Juvenile Pond‐Breeding Salamanders

2020

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Juvenile vital rates have important effects on population dynamics for many species, but this demographic is often difficult to locate and track. As such, we frequently lack reliable estimates of juvenile survival, which are necessary for accurately assessing population stability and potential management approaches to conserve biodiversity. We estimated survival rates for elusive juveniles of 3 species, the ringed salamander (Ambystoma annulatum), spotted salamander (A. maculatum), and small‐mouthed salamander (A. texanum), using 2 approaches. First, we conducted an 11‐month (2016–2017) mark‐recapture study within semi‐natural enclosures and used Bayesian Cormack‐Jolly‐Seber models to estimate survival and recapture probabilities. Second, we inferred the expected annual juvenile survival rate given published vital rates for pre‐metamorphic and adult ambystomatids assuming stable population growth. For all 3 species, juvenile survival probabilities were constant across recapture occasions, whereas recapture probability estimates were time‐dependent. Further, survival and recapture probabilities among study species were similar. Post‐study sampling revealed that the initial study period median estimate of annual survival probability (0.39) underestimated the number of salamanders known alive at 11 months. We therefore appended approximately 1 year of opportunistic data, which produced a median annual survival probability of 0.50, encompassing salamanders that we knew to have been alive. Calculation from literature values suggested a mean annual terrestrial juvenile ambystomatid survival probability of 0.49. Similar results among our approaches indicated that juvenile survival estimates for the study species were robust and likely comparable to rates in nature. These estimates can now be confidently applied to research, monitoring, and management efforts for the study species and ecologically similar taxa. Our findings indicated that similarly robust vital rate estimates for subsets of ecologically and phylogenetically similar species can provide reasonable surrogate demographic information that can be used to reveal key factors influencing population viability for data‐deficient species. © 2020 The Wildlife Society.

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Phylogenetic and Trait-Based Prediction of Extinction Risk for Data-Deficient Amphibians

Cited by 132 publications

References 41 publications

Why study plovers? The significance of non-model organisms in avian ecology, behaviour and evolution

Why study plovers? The significance of non-model organisms in avian ecology, behaviour and evolution

Geographical patterns and environmental drivers of functional diversity and trait space of amphibians of Europe

Estimating Survival for Elusive Juvenile Pond‐Breeding Salamanders

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