title: Preserving the evolutionary potential of floras in biodiversity hotspots.
abstract: One of the biggest challenges for conservation biology is to provide conservation planners with ways to prioritize effort. Much attention has been focused on biodiversity hotspots. However, the conservation of evolutionary process is now also acknowledged as a priority in the face of global change. Phylogenetic diversity (PD) is a biodiversity index that measures the length of evolutionary pathways that connect a given set of taxa. PD therefore identifies sets of taxa that maximize the accumulation of 'feature diversity'. Recent studies, however, concluded that taxon richness is a good surrogate for PD. Here we show taxon richness to be decoupled from PD, using a biome-wide phylogenetic analysis of the flora of an undisputed biodiversity hotspot--the Cape of South Africa. We demonstrate that this decoupling has real-world importance for conservation planning. Finally, using a database of medicinal and economic plant use, we demonstrate that PD protection is the best strategy for preserving feature diversity in the Cape. We should be able to use PD to identify those key regions that maximize future options, both for the continuing evolution of life on Earth and for the benefit of society.
authors.affiliation: South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Private Bag X7, Claremont 7735, South Africa. f.forest@kew.org
authors.forename: Félix
authors.initials: F
authors.lastname: Forest
authors.forename: Richard
authors.initials: R
authors.lastname: Grenyer
authors.forename: Mathieu
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: Rouget
authors.forename: T Jonathan
authors.initials: TJ
authors.lastname: Davies
authors.forename: Richard M
authors.initials: RM
authors.lastname: Cowling
authors.forename: Daniel P
authors.initials: DP
authors.lastname: Faith
authors.forename: Andrew
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Balmford
authors.forename: John C
authors.initials: JC
authors.lastname: Manning
authors.forename: Serban
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Procheş
authors.forename: Michelle
authors.initials: M
authors.lastname: van der Bank
authors.forename: Gail
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Reeves
authors.forename: Terry A J
authors.initials: TA
authors.lastname: Hedderson
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Savolainen
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D017752:Greenhouse Effect; D008969:Molecular Sequence Data; D010802:Phylogeny; D018521:Plant Physiological Phenomena; D010944:Plants / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics; D010946:Plants, Medicinal / Q000145:classification / Q000235:genetics / Q000502:physiology; D011156:Population Density; D013019:South Africa