title: Prioritizing populations for conservation using phylogenetic networks.
abstract: In the face of inevitable future losses to biodiversity, ranking species by conservation priority seems more than prudent. Setting conservation priorities within species (i.e., at the population level) may be critical as species ranges become fragmented and connectivity declines. However, existing approaches to prioritization (e.g., scoring organisms by their expected genetic contribution) are based on phylogenetic trees, which may be poor representations of differentiation below the species level. In this paper we extend evolutionary isolation indices used in conservation planning from phylogenetic trees to phylogenetic networks. Such networks better represent population differentiation, and our extension allows populations to be ranked in order of their expected contribution to the set. We illustrate the approach using data from two imperiled species: the spotted owl Strix occidentalis in North America and the mountain pygmy-possum Burramys parvus in Australia. Using previously published mitochondrial and microsatellite data, we construct phylogenetic networks and score each population by its relative genetic distinctiveness. In both cases, our phylogenetic networks capture the geographic structure of each species: geographically peripheral populations harbor less-redundant genetic information, increasing their conservation rankings. We note that our approach can be used with all conservation-relevant distances (e.g., those based on whole-genome, ecological, or adaptive variation) and suggest it be added to the assortment of tools available to wildlife managers for allocating effort among threatened populations.
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Logan
authors.initials: L
authors.lastname: Volkmann
authors.affiliation: Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences (IRMACS) Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Iain
authors.initials: I
authors.lastname: Martyn
authors.affiliation: School of Computing Sciences, University of East Anglia, Norwich, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Vincent
authors.initials: V
authors.lastname: Moulton
authors.affiliation: Department of Mathematics and Computer Science, University of Greifswald, Greifswald, Germany.
authors.forename: Andreas
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Spillner
authors.affiliation: Department of Biological Sciences, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada ; Interdisciplinary Research in the Mathematical and Computational Sciences (IRMACS) Centre, Simon Fraser University, Burnaby, British Columbia, Canada.
authors.forename: Arne O
authors.initials: AO
authors.lastname: Mooers
mesh_terms: D000818:Animals; D001315:Australia; D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources; D010802:Phylogeny