Phylogenetic Patterns of Extinction Risk in the Endemic Flora of a Mediterranean Hotspot as a Guiding Tool for Preemptive Conservation Actions

Rafael Molina-Venegas,Ignacio Ramos-Gutiérrez,Juan Carlos Moreno-Saiz

doi:10.3389/fevo.2020.571587

Rafael Molina-Venegas, Ignacio Ramos-Gutiérrez + Show 1 more

Open Access

https://doi.org/10.3389/fevo.2020.571587

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Abstract

This paper contributes to the project REMEDINAL TE (P2018/EMT-4338) from the Regional Government of the Community of Madrid

Highlights

Climate change is a major driver of biodiversity decline (Sala et al, 2000) and in biodiversity hotspots where many endemic and threatened species thrive (Bellard et al, 2014)
Minimizing expected plant diversity loss in biodiversity hotspots is a major challenge for conservation biologists, and phylogenetic tools may provide a useful handle to assess current and future threats in these endemic species-rich regions (Purvis, 2008)
We show that extinction risk in the endemic angiosperm flora of the Iberian Peninsula is largely clumped in the phylogeny (Figure 1), and that specificity in the relationship between IUCN categories and phylogenetic clades is overall low (Figure 2)

Summary

Introduction

Climate change is a major driver of biodiversity decline (Sala et al, 2000) and in biodiversity hotspots where many endemic and threatened species thrive (Bellard et al, 2014). With nearly 22500 plant species and 11700 of them as endemics, the Mediterranean Basin is among the most outstanding plant biodiversity hotspots of the world (Mittermeier et al, 2004), covering over 60% of the world Mediterranean climate extent (Klausmeyer and Shaw, 2009) This extraordinary concentration of plant diversity has urged conservation biologists to find solutions to minimize the projected loss of biodiversity in the region (Galli et al, 2012). Despite few traits have been identified as potential biological drivers of extinction risk in both plants (Lughadha et al, 2017; Mankga and Yessoufou, 2017) and animals (Cardillo et al, 2008), there is a noticeable lack of consistency among studies (Davies, 2019), and the relationship between the vast majority of traits analyzed and extinction risk remains largely elusive (Chichorro et al, 2019) This lack of empirical consistency hampers the identification of the species that might be most in need of conservation action

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