Department of Ecology and Evolutionary Biology, Yale University, 165 Prospect Street, New Haven, CT 06520-8106, USA; Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot SL5 7PY, UK.
Department of Animal and Plant Sciences, University of Sheffield, Sheffield S10 2TN, UK.
Curr Biol. 2014 May 5;24(9):919-30. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.011. Epub 2014 Apr 10.
Integrated, efficient, and global prioritization approaches are necessary to manage the ongoing loss of species and their associated function. "Evolutionary distinctness" measures a species' contribution to the total evolutionary history of its clade and is expected to capture uniquely divergent genomes and functions. Here we demonstrate how such a metric identifies species and regions of particular value for safeguarding evolutionary diversity.
Among the world's 9,993 recognized bird species, evolutionary distinctness is very heterogeneously distributed on the phylogenetic tree and varies little with range size or threat level. Species representing the most evolutionary history over the smallest area (those with greatest "evolutionary distinctness rarity") as well as some of the most imperiled distinct species are often concentrated outside the species-rich regions and countries, suggesting they may not be well captured by current conservation planning. We perform global cross-species and spatial analyses and generate minimum conservation sets to assess the benefits of the presented species-level metrics. We find that prioritizing imperiled species by their evolutionary distinctness and geographic rarity is a surprisingly effective and spatially economical way to maintain the total evolutionary information encompassing the world's birds. We identify potential conservation gaps in relation to the existing reserve network that in particular highlight islands as effective priority areas.
The presented distinctness metrics are effective yet easily communicable and versatile tools to assist objective global conservation decision making. Given that most species will remain ecologically understudied, combining growing phylogenetic and spatial data may be an efficient way to retain vital aspects of biodiversity.
为了管理物种及其相关功能的持续丧失，需要采用综合、高效和全球化的优先排序方法。“进化独特性”衡量一个物种对其进化分支的总进化历史的贡献，预计可以捕获独特的分歧基因组和功能。在这里，我们展示了这种衡量标准如何识别对于保护进化多样性具有特殊价值的物种和区域。
在世界上 9993 种已确认的鸟类中，进化独特性在系统发育树上的分布非常不均匀，与范围大小或威胁水平的变化很小。在最小的区域内代表最多进化历史的物种（具有最大“进化独特性稀有性”的物种）以及一些最受威胁的独特物种，往往集中在物种丰富的地区和国家之外，这表明它们可能无法很好地被当前的保护规划所涵盖。我们进行了全球跨物种和空间分析，并生成了最小保护集合，以评估所提出的物种水平衡量标准的益处。我们发现，根据进化独特性和地理稀有性来优先考虑濒危物种，是一种非常有效且空间经济的方法，可以维持涵盖世界鸟类的总进化信息。我们确定了与现有保护区网络相关的潜在保护差距，特别是突出了岛屿作为有效优先区域。
所提出的独特性衡量标准是有效且易于传达和多功能的工具，可以帮助进行客观的全球保护决策。鉴于大多数物种在生态方面仍未得到充分研究，结合不断增长的系统发育和空间数据可能是保留生物多样性重要方面的有效方法。
