title: Beyond the EDGE with EDAM: Prioritising British Plant Species According to Evolutionary Distinctiveness, and Accuracy and Magnitude of Decline.
abstract: Conservation biologists have only finite resources, and so must prioritise some species over others. The EDGE-listing approach ranks species according to their combined evolutionary distinctiveness and degree of threat, but ignores the uncertainty surrounding both threat and evolutionary distinctiveness. We develop a new family of measures for species, which we name EDAM, that incorporates evolutionary distinctiveness, the magnitude of decline, and the accuracy with which decline can be predicted. Further, we show how the method can be extended to explore phyogenetic uncertainty. Using the vascular plants of Britain as a case study, we find that the various EDAM measures emphasise different species and parts of Britain, and that phylogenetic uncertainty can strongly affect the prioritisation scores of some species.
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom; University of Minnesota, Department of Ecology, Evolution, and Behavior, 100 Ecology Building, 1987 Upper Buford Circle, Saint Paul, Minnesota 55108 USA.
authors.forename: William D
authors.initials: WD
authors.lastname: Pearse
authors.affiliation: Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW7 3DS, UK.
authors.forename: Mark W
authors.initials: MW
authors.lastname: Chase
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Michael J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Crawley
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Konrad
authors.initials: K
authors.lastname: Dolphin
authors.affiliation: Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW7 3DS, UK.
authors.forename: Michael F
authors.initials: MF
authors.lastname: Fay
authors.affiliation: Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens Kew, Richmond, Surrey TW7 3DS, UK.
authors.forename: Jeffrey A
authors.initials: JA
authors.lastname: Joseph
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Gary
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Powney
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Chris D
authors.initials: CD
authors.lastname: Preston
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: Giovanni
authors.initials: G
authors.lastname: Rapacciuolo
authors.affiliation: Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom.
authors.forename: David B
authors.initials: DB
authors.lastname: Roy
authors.affiliation: Department of Life Sciences, Imperial College London, Ascot, Berkshire, United Kingdom; Centre for Ecology and Hydrology, Wallingford, Oxfordshire, United Kingdom; Department of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, Cromwell Road, London SW7 5BD, UK.
authors.forename: Andy
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Purvis
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D005075:Biological Evolution; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods*; D010802:Phylogeny; D010944:Plants / Q000235:genetics; D006113:United Kingdom