Prioritizing Phylogenetic Diversity Captures Functional Diversity Unreliably

Authors

Florent Mazel, University of British ColumbiaFollow
Matthew W. Pennell, University of British ColumbiaFollow
Marc W. Cadotte, University of TorontoFollow
Sandra Diaz, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba
Giulio Valentino Dalla Riva, University of British ColumbiaFollow
Richard Grenyer, University of OxfordFollow
Fabien Leprieur, Université de MontpellierFollow
Arne O. Mooers, Simon Fraser UniversityFollow
David Mouillot, Université de MontpellierFollow
Caroline M. Tucker, University of North CarolinaFollow
William D. Pearse, Utah State UniversityFollow

Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Nature Communications

Volume

9

Publisher

Springer Nature

Publication Date

7-23-2018

Creative Commons License

This work is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 License.

First Page

1

Last Page

9

Abstract

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 assumed that maximizing phylogenetic diversity (PD) should indirectly capture FD, a hypothesis that we name the “phylogenetic gambit”. Here, we empirically test this gambit using data on ecologically relevant traits from >15,000 vertebrate species. Specifically, we estimate a measure of surrogacy of PD for FD. We find that maximizing PD results in an average gain of 18% of FD relative to random choice. However, this average gain obscures the fact that in over one-third 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 conservation strategy.

Recommended Citation

Mazel, Florent; Pennell, Matthew W.; Cadotte, Marc W.; Diaz, Sandra; Dalla Riva, Giulio Valentino; Grenyer, Richard; Leprieur, Fabien; Mooers, Arne O.; Mouillot, David; Tucker, Caroline M.; and Pearse, William D., "Prioritizing Phylogenetic Diversity Captures Functional Diversity Unreliably" (2018). Biology Faculty Publications. Paper 1598.
https://digitalcommons.usu.edu/biology_facpub/1598