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Published on: February 11, 2020
Incorporating geographical and evolutionary rarity into conservation prioritization
Caroline M Tucker1, Marc W Cadotte, T Jonathan Davies
1Department of Ecology & Evolutionary Biology, University of Toronto, 25 Willcocks Street, Toronto, Ontario M5S 3B2, Canada. caroline.tucker@utoronto.ca
Summary
Conservation efforts focusing solely on species richness may miss rare, evolutionarily distinct species. Prioritizing biogeographically weighted evolutionary distinctiveness better protects unique biodiversity and highlights crucial southern sites for conservation.
Area of Science:
- Conservation Biology
- Biodiversity Assessment
- Phylogenetics
Background:
- Conservation goals include protecting species, functional diversity, and genetic diversity.
- Species richness as a metric may overrepresent common species and underrepresent rare or genetically distinct ones.
- Evaluating reserve efficacy requires comparing different diversity measures beyond just species richness.
Purpose of the Study:
- To compare spatial distributions of species richness, phylogenetic diversity, and evolutionary distinctiveness.
- To assess how different diversity metrics align with conservation prioritization in the Cape Floristic Region.
- To identify conservation gaps in current strategies that focus on species richness.
Main Methods:
- Utilized Proteaceae species-occurrence data from the Cape Floristic Region.
- Calculated species richness, phylogenetic diversity (sum of branch lengths), and biogeographically weighted evolutionary distinctiveness (abundance-weighted uniqueness).
- Employed a new maximum-likelihood molecular phylogeny to estimate evolutionary diversity.
Main Results:
- Species richness and phylogenetic diversity were highly correlated but spatially concentrated.
- Species richness underrepresented the broader spatial distribution of phylogenetic diversity.
- Biogeographically weighted evolutionary distinctiveness identified distinct southern sites as conservation priorities, driven by rare species with high evolutionary distinctiveness.
Conclusions:
- A species richness-based approach inadequately captures the full spectrum of biodiversity.
- Phylogenetic diversity offers broader spatial coverage than species richness but may still miss unique lineages.
- Biogeographically weighted evolutionary distinctiveness provides a distinct prioritization scheme, crucial for conserving rare and evolutionarily unique species overlooked by other metrics.
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