Document Type

Article

Journal/Book Title/Conference

Animal Conservation

Volume

22

Issue

6

Publisher

Wiley-Blackwell Publishing Ltd.

Publication Date

12-8-2019

First Page

541

Last Page

542

Abstract

We thank Faith (2019) and Mindell (2019) for their insightful perspectives on our study of the impact of phylogenetic imputation on the assessment of evolutionary distinctiveness (ED; Isaac et al., 2007). As Mindell highlights, the finding that ED scores for species on a phylogeny are remarkably robust despite having species missing from that phylogeny is encouraging; our results suggest that we can be confident in moving forward with prioritization of the species for which we have data. This is important because in some cases, for example, it may take considerable time to obtain samples from the missing species, resulting in further delay before the ED scores for those species already sampled can be used to inform management decisions. We cautioned, however, that the ED scores for those missing species may be imputed imprecisely, and so we gave guidelines for working with imputed species’ ED scores. With this in mind, we offer some additional thoughts resulting from the commentaries of Mindell and Faith.

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