Zoological Society of London, London, NW1 4RY, UK.
Science and Solutions for a Changing Planet DTP, Grantham Institute, Imperial College London, London, SW7 2AZ, UK.
Nat Commun. 2024 Feb 29;15(1):1101. doi: 10.1038/s41467-024-45119-z.
Human-driven extinction threatens entire lineages across the Tree of Life. Here we assess the conservation status of jawed vertebrate evolutionary history, using three policy-relevant approaches. First, we calculate an index of threat to overall evolutionary history, showing that we expect to lose 86-150 billion years (11-19%) of jawed vertebrate evolutionary history over the next 50-500 years. Second, we rank jawed vertebrate species by their EDGE scores to identify the highest priorities for species-focused conservation of evolutionary history, finding that chondrichthyans, ray-finned fish and testudines rank highest of all jawed vertebrates. Third, we assess the conservation status of jawed vertebrate families. We found that species within monotypic families are more likely to be threatened and more likely to be in decline than other species. We provide a baseline for the status of families at risk of extinction to catalyse conservation action. This work continues a trend of highlighting neglected groups-such as testudines, crocodylians, amphibians and chondrichthyans-as conservation priorities from a phylogenetic perspective.
人类驱动的灭绝威胁着生命之树中的整个谱系。在这里，我们使用三种与政策相关的方法来评估有颌脊椎动物进化史的保护状况。首先，我们计算了一个整体进化历史威胁指数，表明我们预计在未来 50-500 年内，有颌脊椎动物的进化历史将损失 860-1500 亿年（11-19%）。其次，我们根据 EDGE 得分对有颌脊椎动物物种进行排名，以确定以物种为重点保护进化历史的最高优先事项，发现软骨鱼类、硬骨鱼类和龟鳖目在所有有颌脊椎动物中得分最高。第三，我们评估了有颌脊椎动物科的保护状况。我们发现，单型科内的物种比其他物种更容易受到威胁，也更容易减少。我们为有灭绝风险的科提供了一个基线，以推动保护行动。这项工作延续了从系统发育角度强调被忽视群体（如龟鳖目、鳄目、两栖动物和软骨鱼类）作为保护优先事项的趋势。
