Cantalapiedra, JL, Aze, T, Cadotte, MW et al. (6 more authors) (2019) Conserving evolutionary history does not result in greater diversity over geological time scales. Proceedings of the Royal Society B: Biological Sciences, 286 (1904). 20182896. ISSN 0962-8452
Abstract
Alternative prioritization strategies have been proposed to safeguard biodiversity over macroevolutionary time scales. The first prioritizes the most distantly related species—maximizing phylogenetic diversity (PD)—in the hopes of capturing at least some lineages that will successfully diversify into the future. The second prioritizes lineages that are currently speciating, in the hopes that successful lineages will continue to generate species into the future. These contrasting schemes also map onto contrasting predictions about the role of slow diversifiers in the production of biodiversity over palaeontological time scales. We consider the performance of the two schemes across 10 dated species-level palaeo-phylogenetic trees ranging from Foraminifera to dinosaurs. We find that prioritizing PD for conservation generally led to fewer subsequent lineages, while prioritizing diversifiers led to modestly more subsequent diversity, compared with random sets of lineages. Importantly for conservation, the tree shape when decisions are made cannot predict which scheme will be most successful. These patterns are inconsistent with the notion that long-lived lineages are the source of new species. While there may be sound reasons for prioritizing PD for conservation, long-term species production might not be one of them.
Metadata
Item Type: | Article |
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Authors/Creators: |
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Copyright, Publisher and Additional Information: | © 2019 The Authors. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC-BY 4.0), which permits unrestricted use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. To view a copy of this license, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. |
Keywords: | diversification; macroevolution; conservation; phylogenetic diversity |
Dates: |
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Institution: | The University of Leeds |
Academic Units: | The University of Leeds > Faculty of Environment (Leeds) > School of Earth and Environment (Leeds) > Earth Surface Science Institute (ESSI) (Leeds) |
Depositing User: | Symplectic Publications |
Date Deposited: | 22 May 2019 17:32 |
Last Modified: | 09 Jun 2019 11:47 |
Status: | Published |
Publisher: | The Royal Society |
Identification Number: | 10.1098/rspb.2018.2896 |
Open Archives Initiative ID (OAI ID): | oai:eprints.whiterose.ac.uk:146125 |