Preserving the evolutionary potential of floras in biodiversity hotspots.
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.
Forest
Félix
F
South African National Biodiversity Institute, Kirstenbosch Research Centre, Private Bag X7, Claremont 7735, South Africa. f.forest@kew.org
Grenyer
Richard
R
Rouget
Mathieu
M
Davies
T Jonathan
TJ
Cowling
Richard M
RM
Faith
Daniel P
DP
Balmford
Andrew
A
Manning
John C
JC
Procheş
Serban
S
van der Bank
Michelle
M
Reeves
Gail
G
Hedderson
Terry A J
TA
Savolainen
Vincent
V
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