TY - JOUR
T1 - No branch left behind
T2 - tracking terrestrial biodiversity from a phylogenetic completeness perspective
AU - Pinto-Ledezma, Jesús N.
AU - Díaz, Sandra
AU - Halpern, Benjamin S.
AU - Khoury, Colin
AU - Cavender-Bares, Jeannine
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2023 The Authors. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of The Ecological Society of America.
PY - 2024/3
Y1 - 2024/3
N2 - Biodiversity is ultimately the outcome of millions of years of evolution; however, due to increasing human domination of the Earth, biodiversity in its multiple dimensions is changing rapidly. Here, we present “phylogenetic completeness” (PC) as a concept and method for safeguarding Earth's evolutionary heritage by maintaining all branches of the tree of life. Using data for five major terrestrial clades, we performed a global evaluation of the PC approach and compared the results to an approach in which species are conserved or lost at random. We demonstrate that under PC, for a given number of species extinctions, it is possible to maximize the protection of evolutionary innovations in every clade. The PC approach is flexible, may be used to conduct a phylogenetic audit of biodiversity under different conservation scenarios, complements existing conservation efforts, and is linked to the post-2020 UN Convention on Biodiversity targets.
AB - Biodiversity is ultimately the outcome of millions of years of evolution; however, due to increasing human domination of the Earth, biodiversity in its multiple dimensions is changing rapidly. Here, we present “phylogenetic completeness” (PC) as a concept and method for safeguarding Earth's evolutionary heritage by maintaining all branches of the tree of life. Using data for five major terrestrial clades, we performed a global evaluation of the PC approach and compared the results to an approach in which species are conserved or lost at random. We demonstrate that under PC, for a given number of species extinctions, it is possible to maximize the protection of evolutionary innovations in every clade. The PC approach is flexible, may be used to conduct a phylogenetic audit of biodiversity under different conservation scenarios, complements existing conservation efforts, and is linked to the post-2020 UN Convention on Biodiversity targets.
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U2 - 10.1002/fee.2696
DO - 10.1002/fee.2696
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85178894567
SN - 1540-9295
VL - 22
JO - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
JF - Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment
IS - 2
M1 - e2696
ER -
