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Updated: Sep 17, 2025

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications

Resurrection of Dormant Daphnia magna: Protocol and Applications

Published on: January 19, 2018

Can Macroevolution Inform Contemporary Extinction Risk?

Sarah-Sophie Weil^1,2,3, Sébastien Lavergne², Florian C Boucher²

¹Department of Biodiversity, Macroecology & Biogeography, University of Göttingen, Göttingen, Germany.

Ecology Letters

|June 30, 2025

Summary

This summary is machine-generated.

Macroevolutionary rates can help predict species extinction risk. Past extinction rates are reliable predictors, but diversification and niche evolution rates require more research for conservation applications.

Keywords:

conservation diversification rate extinction rate extinction risk macroevolution macroevolutionary rates niche evolution phylogenetic analysis speciation rate traits

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Area of Science:

Ecology and evolutionary biology
Conservation science

Background:

Global change drives species toward extinction, necessitating early detection of threatened species.
Assessing extinction risk is challenging due to data limitations on species distributions, population sizes, and trends.
Ecological traits like range size are not always straightforward indicators of extinction risk.

Purpose of the Study:

To assess the assumptions linking macroevolutionary indicators to contemporary extinction risk.
To investigate if macroevolutionary rates can serve as proxies for extinction-promoting traits.
To determine the reliability of macroevolutionary indices for identifying species at risk.

Main Methods:

Reviewing current understanding of macroevolutionary indicators and extinction risk.
Analyzing the relationship between past extinction rates and contemporary extinction risk.
Examining assumptions for diversification and niche evolution rates in relation to extinction risk.

Main Results:

Past extinction rates reliably predict current extinction risk due to inherited traits.
The relationship between current extinction risk and diversification/niche evolution rates is taxon- and condition-dependent.
Current understanding is insufficient to fully utilize diversification and niche evolution rates as extinction risk predictors.

Conclusions:

Macroevolutionary indicators show potential for identifying inherent extinction risk.
Past extinction rates are valuable predictors, complementing trait-based approaches.
Further research is needed to validate assumptions for diversification and niche evolution rates across diverse taxa and environments.