Biology subjects

Mooers, A.

Publications and source records attributed to Mooers, A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2018

Is phylogenetic diversity a surrogate for functional diversity across clades and space?

In the face of the biodiversity crisis, it is argued that we should prioritize species in order to capture high functional diversity (FD). Because species traits often reflect shared evolutionary history, many researchers have advocated for a \"phylogenetic gambit\": maximizing phylogenetic diversity (PD) should indirectly capture FD. For the first time, we empirically test this gambit using data from >15,000 vertebrate species and ecologically-relevant traits. Maximizing PD results in an average gain of 18% of FD relative to random choice. However, this average gain hides the fact that in over 1/3 of the comparisons, maximum PD sets contain less FD than randomly chosen sets of species. These results suggest that, while maximizing PD protection can help to protect FD, it represents a risky strategy.\n\nStatement of authorshipFM, MP, MC, SD, GVDR, RG, AOM, CT and WP conceived the design of the study. FM and GVDR conducted the analysis. FM, RG, MP and WP interpreted the results and wrote the first draft of the manuscript. All authors edited the final version.\n\nData accessibility statementMost of the data is publicly available (see methods). The Fish data is available upon request.\n\nCode accessibility statementR functions developed in this paper are available at https://github.com/FloMazel/FD_PD_Max

ecology↗

bioRxiv2017

Evolutionary Isolation And Phylogenetic Diversity Loss Under Random Extinction Events

The extinction of species at the present leads to the loss of phylogenetic diversity (PD) from the evolutionary tree in which these species lie. Prior to extinction, the total PD present can be divided up among the species in various ways using measures of evolutionary isolation (such as fair proportion and equal splits). However, the loss of PD when certain combinations of species become extinct can be either larger or smaller than the cumulative loss of the isolation values associated with the extinct species. In this paper, we show that for trees generated under neutral evolutionary models, the loss of PD under a null model of random extinction at the present can be predicted from the loss of the cumulative isolation values, by applying a non-linear transformation that is independent of the tree. Moreover, the error in the prediction provably converges to zero as the size of the tree grows, with simulations showing good agreement even for moderate sized trees (n = 64).

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2017

Conserving Phylogenetic Diversity Can Be A Poor Strategy For Conserving Functional Diversity

For decades, academic biologists have advocated for making conservation decisions in light of evolutionary history. Specifically, they suggest that policymakers should prioritize conserving phylogenetically diverse assemblages. The most prominent argument is that conserving phylogenetic diversity (PD) will also conserve diversity in traits and features (functional diversity; FD), which may be valuable for a number of reasons. The claim that PD-maximized ( maxPD) sets of taxa will also have high FD is often taken at face value and in cases where researchers have actually tested it, they have done so by measuring the phylogenetic signal in ecologically important functional traits. The rationale is that if traits closely mirror phylogeny, then saving the maxPD set of taxa will tend to maximize FD and if traits do not have phylogenetic structure, then saving the maxPD set of taxa will be no better at capturing FD than criteria that ignore PD. Here, we suggest that measuring the phylogenetic signal in traits is uninformative for evaluating the effectiveness of using PD in conservation. We evolve traits under several different models and, for the first time, directly compare the FD of a set of taxa that maximize PD to the FD of a random set of the same size. Under many common models of trait evolution and tree shapes, conserving the maxPD set of taxa will conserve more FD than conserving a random set of the same size. However, this result cannot be generalized to other classes of models. We find that under biologically plausible scenarios, using PD to select species can actually lead to less FD compared to a random set. Critically, this can occur even when there is phylogenetic signal in the traits. Predicting exactly when we expect using PD to be a good strategy for conserving FD is challenging, as it depends on complex interactions between tree shape and the assumptions of the evolutionary model. Nonetheless, if our goal is to maintain trait diversity, the fact that conserving taxa based on PD will not reliably conserve at least as much FD as choosing randomly raises serious concerns about the general utility of PD in conservation.

ecology↗