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Contributed Talk

Session: : Biodiversity: Effects Of Global Change 5

COS 96-4 - No branch left behind: tracking terrestrial biodiversity from a phylogenetic completeness perspective

Tuesday, August 8, 2023
2:15 PM – 2:30 PM PDT
Location: B114

    Presenting Author(s)

  • JP

    Jesús N. Pinto-Ledezma, Ph.D.

    Post Doc
    Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior, University of Minnesota, Minnesota, United States

    • Coauthor(s)

  • SD

    Sandra Díaz

    Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, Instituto Multidisciplinario de Biología Vegetal (IMBIV), CONICET, Universidad Nacional de Córdoba, Cordoba, Argentina

  • BH

    Benjamin S. Halpern

    National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis, University of California, California, United States

  • CK

    Colin K. Khoury

    San Diego Botanic Garden, 230 Quail Gardens Dr., Encinitas, CA 92024, USA, California, United States

  • JC

    Jeannine M. Cavender-Bares, Ph.D.

    Professor
    Department of Ecology, Evolution & Behavior, University of Minnesota
    Saint Paul, Minnesota, United States

Abstract: Biodiversity, as we see it today, ultimately is the outcome of millions of years of evolution; however, biodiversity in its multiple dimensions is changing rapidly due to increasing human domination of Earth. Here, we present the “phylogenetic completeness” (PC) a concept and methodology that intends to safeguard Earth’s evolutionary heritage by maintaining all branches of the tree of life. We performed a global evaluation of the PC approach using data from five major terrestrial clades (seed plants, amphibians, squamates, birds, and mammals) and compared the results to an approach in which species are conserved or lost randomly.

We demonstrate that under PC, for a given number of species extinctions, it is possible to maximize the protection of evolutionary innovations in every clade. The PC approach is flexible and can be used to conduct a phylogenetic audit of biodiversity under different conservation scenarios. Overall, the approach benefits from detailed information of the tree of life that is only now sufficiently resolved to be applicable to all of life on Earth. The approach complements other conservation efforts and is directly relevant to the targets of the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework established by the Convention on Biological Diversity.