What to protect?—Systematics and the agony of choice

Vane‐Wright, R. I.; Humphries, C. J.; Williams, Paul H.

doi:10.1016/0006-3207(91)90030-d

Cited by 1,467 publications

(1,081 citation statements)

References 17 publications

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“…"Taxonomic rarity" was to be indicated by species that are members of a small number of groups on the cladogram. López-Osorio and Miranda-Esquivel ( 2010 ) used an approach suggested by Posadas et al ( 2001 ), which extends the W Index of Vane-Wright et al ( 1991 ). The W index assigns to each species a value that is inversely related to the count of the number of groups on the phylogenetic tree for which the species is a member.…”

Section: Calculations Using Phylogenetic Distinctiveness Fail To Intementioning

confidence: 99%

The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation

Faith

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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Feature diversity refers to the relative number of different features represented among species or other taxa. As a storehouse of possible future benefi ts to people, it is an important focus for biodiversity conservation. The PD phylogenetic diversity measure provides a way to measure biodiversity at the level of features. PD assumes an evolutionary model in which shared features are explained by shared ancestry. This avoids philosophical and practical weaknesses of the conventional interpretation of biodiversity as based on some measure of pair-wise differences among taxa. The link to features also provides a family of PD-based calculations that can be interpreted as if we are counting-up features of taxa. The range of feature diversity calculations assists comparisons of methods, and helps overcome the current lack of review and synthesis of the variety of proposed methods for integrating evolutionary history into biodiversity conservation. One family of popular indices is based on the evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) measure. These indices all have the limitation that complementarity, refl ecting degree of phylogenetic overlap among taxa, is not properly taken into account. Related indices provide priorities or other scores for geographic areas, but do not effectively combine complementarity, probabilities of extinction, and measures of restricted-range. PD-based measures can overcome these problems. Applications include the identifi cation of key biodiversity sites of global signifi cance for biodiversity conservation.

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Section: Calculations Using Phylogenetic Distinctiveness Fail To Intementioning

confidence: 99%

The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation

Faith

2016

Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation

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“…Diversity has generally been measured only in terms of species richness, or in the form of indices combining richness with abundance. Yet, such measurements may be considered inadequate for many purposes, and other indices were proposed, based on the information content of cladistic classifications and taxonomic distinctness measures (Vane-Wright et al, 1991).…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…The development of quantitative methods for the assignment of priorities or weights to taxa in conservation evaluation (Vane-Wright et al, 1991;Faith, 1992) has been based on the fundamental principle of complementarity among taxa. The weight of priority for a given species will not be as high, if a closely related species is already protected.…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Phylogenetic autocorrelation and evolutionary diversity of Carnivora (Mammalia) in Conservation Units of the New World

Tôrres

Diniz‐Filho

2004

Genet. Mol. Biol.

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One of the main concerns of Conservation Biology is the identification of priority areas for conservation, and the development of quantitative methods is important to achieve this task. Many phylogenetic diversity indexes and higher-taxon approaches have been used in this context. In this study, Faith's phylogenetic indexes and the number of evolutionary independent lineages of Carnivora were calculated at the average patch level based on phylogenetic autocorrelation analysis of phenotypic traits, in 18 conservation units in America (frequently National Parks). Despite controversies about the hierarchical level to be adopted, the characters included in this study suggest that the family level produces independent units for the analysis of phenotypic diversity in Carnivora. A positive correlation between species richness and the number of evolutionary independent lineages appeared (r = 0.67; p < 0.05), showing that this is a valid criterion to priorize conservation areas. Faith's phylogenetic diversity index is also highly correlated with species richness (r = 0.87; p < 0.05), as well as with the number of evolutionary independent lineages (r = 0.89; p < 0.05). Thus, the conservation units with more species have also more evolutionary information to be preserved.

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“…Phylogenetic diversity or species originality are often mentioned as important for conservation (Rosauer and Mooers 2013;Winter et al 2013), and the history of such discussion goes back already a few decades (Vane-Wright et al 1991;Faith 1992). Evolutionary history is often quantified in community ecology for the purpose of understanding the diversity of current species distributions (Davies and Buckley 2011;Fritz and Rahbek 2012) or the potential functioning of ecosystems (Cadotte et al 2012), whereas applications to conservation have remained limited.…”

Section: Evolutionary History In Conservationmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…Implement conservation actions 6. Maintain the required values of conservation areas Numerous indices have been developed to measure the originality of species ( Vane-Wright et al 1991;Pavoine et al 2005a;Isaac et al 2007), or phylogenetic diversity (Faith 1992;Schweiger et al 2008;Pavoine and Bonsall 2011;Faith chap-ter "The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for BiodiversityConservation"). The former measures assign a value for each species based on their dissimilarity from other species, whereas the latter look at an assemblage of species as a whole.…”

Section: Boxmentioning

confidence: 99%

Representing Hotspots of Evolutionary History in Systematic Conservation Planning for European Mammals

Arponen

Zupan²

2016

Biodiversity Conservation and Phylogenetic Systematics

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Systematic conservation planning deals with cost-effective allocation of conservation funds. There are diverse ways in which evolutionary history could be included in prioritization, but here we considered it at the local scale, valuing higher the locations where the local community has high phylogenetic diversity, while still aiming at maximizing overall species representation. We conducted the prioritization with the Zonation software for spatial conservation planning.We prioritized areas for conservation in Europe using distribution data and phylogenies for 275 mammal species. We prioritized areas in Europe for conserving hotspots of evolutionary history. For comparison we made analyses with species occurrences alone. Analyses were done for the whole region and for each country separately. We explored the impacts of tree uncertainty, and analyzed how well existing protected areas performed with respect to Zonation priorities.Our findings indicate that some hotspots of evolutionary history are missed by species-based prioritization, unless specifically accounted for. Uncertainty in spatial priorities caused by variation in phylogenetic tree structure was a minor concern for prioritization. Protected areas did not perform well when assessed against the Zonation priorities for species or for phylogenetic diversity, although highest national scale priorities had almost twice as much area protected as the overall average.We emphasize that the chosen goals and analysis setups have strong impacts on spatial priorities and therefore care must be taken in defining them appropriately. But regardless of setups, the gap between the current conservation efforts and spatial prioritization outcomes is typically greater than the difference between including and excluding phylogenetic diversity. Therefore the focus should be on increasing the role of spatial analyses in practical conservation, but whenever

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What to protect?—Systematics and the agony of choice

Cited by 1,467 publications

References 17 publications

The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation

The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation

Phylogenetic autocorrelation and evolutionary diversity of Carnivora (Mammalia) in Conservation Units of the New World

Representing Hotspots of Evolutionary History in Systematic Conservation Planning for European Mammals

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