The analytic progress on biodiversity measures

Abstract

Since the beginning of ecology as a formal science, ecologists have been intensely interested in understanding the diversity patterns and underlying mechanisms that forge diversity distribution across space and over time. Several facets of (bio)diversity were proposed to address the major conundrums in ecology, from simple taxonomic diversity to functional and phylogenetic diversity. In the biodiversity measure theatre, analytic approaches had rampant progress in the last decades, yet are still anchored in classic ecology concepts. In this brief remark, I aimed to provide insights on biodiversity measures techniques applied to ecology and conservation, especially by Latin-American mammalogists. Focusing on taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity, this remark itemised to briefly depict the status quo conceptual and analytic of biodiversity measures in ecology/conservation/mammalogy. To understand the diversity patterns — and further predict the underlying mechanisms — an agenda of research and alliances between scientists and students must be strengthened, which certainly will provide advances for Latin-American mammalogy. To do so, a vast majority of modern analysis (including some depicted here) depends on high computational capacity, typically concentrated in economically affluent regions and which urgently needs to be decentralized via institutional partnerships.