Abstract
AbstractA key problem in conservation biology is how to measure biological diversity. Taxic diversity (the number of species in a community or in a local biota) is not necessarily the most important aspect, if what most matters is to evaluate how the loss of the different species may impact on the future of the surviving species and communities. Alternative approaches focus on functional diversity (a measure of the distribution of the species among the different ‘jobs’ in the ecosystem), others on morphological disparity, still others on phylogenetic diversity. There are three major reasons to prioritize the survival of species which provide the largest contributions to the overall phylogenetic diversity. First, evolutionarily isolated lineages are frequently characterized by unique traits. Second, conserving phylogenetically diverse sets of taxa is valuable because it conserves some sort of trait diversity, itself important in so far as it helps maintain ecosystem functioning, although a strict relationships between phylogenetic diversity and functional diversity cannot be taken for granted. Third, in this way we maximize the “evolutionary potential” depending on the evolvability of the survivors. This suggests an approach to conservation problems focussed on evolvability, robustness and phenotypic plasticity of developmental systems in the face of natural selection: in other terms, an approach based on evolutionary developmental biology.
Highlights
A key problem in conservation biology is how to measure the biological diversity at risk of loss, or already lost at the global scale or in a given area or habitat
Individual species become the target of dedicated conservation efforts because of the peculiar role they play in the ecosystem, for example as pollinators or as builders of reefs on which the existence of many other marine species depends
Following the work of Vane-Wright et al (1991), Faith (1992) and later authors, there are three major reasons to prioritize the survival of species representing species-poor lineages only distantly related to the others in the sample and providing the largest contributions to the overall phylogenetic diversity
Summary
A key problem in conservation biology is how to measure the biological diversity at risk of loss, or already lost at the global scale or in a given area or habitat.
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