The DOI matches its Crossref record; 60 of the 60 references it cites were found in a registry or an index.
Prioritizing phylogenetic diversity captures functional diversity unreliably
Open accessAbstract
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.
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Cites
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TESTING FOR PHYLOGENETIC SIGNAL IN COMPARATIVE DATA: BEHAVIORAL TRAITS ARE MORE LABILE
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The global diversity of birds in space and time
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Self-citationNEW MULTIDIMENSIONAL FUNCTIONAL DIVERSITY INDICES FOR A MULTIFACETED FRAMEWORK IN FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY
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Self-citationThe biodiversity of species and their rates of extinction, distribution, and protection
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TRY – a global database of plant traits
KATTGE, J., DÍAZ, S., LAVOREL, S., PRENTICE, I. C., LEADLEY, P., BÖNISCH, G., GARNIER, E., WESTOBY, M., REICH, P. B., WRIGHT, I. J., et al. (2011) · Global Change Biology · doi:10.1111/j.1365-2486.2011.02451.x · Cited by 2,638
Beyond species: functional diversity and the maintenance of ecological processes and services
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Self-citation
Cited by
Oliveira, A. G. D., Peláez, O., & Agostinho, A. A. (2021) · Neotropical Ichthyology · doi:10.1590/1982-0224-2021-0034 · Cited by 10
Metadata
- Authors
- Mazel, F., Pennell, M. W., Cadotte, M. W., Diaz, S., Dalla Riva, G. V., Grenyer, R., Leprieur, F., Mooers, A. O., Mouillot, D., Tucker, C. M., & Pearse, W. D.
- Venue
- Nature Communications
- Published
- 2018-07-23
- Volume
- 9
- Issue
- 1
- Pages
- 2888-2888
- ISSN
- 2041-1723 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W2884030547
- Cited by
- 257
- References
- 60
- FWCI
- 18.47
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- gold
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- Mazel, F., Pennell, M. W., Cadotte, M. W., Diaz, S., Dalla Riva, G. V., Grenyer, R., Leprieur, F., Mooers, A. O., Mouillot, D., Tucker, C. M., & Pearse, W. D. (2018). Prioritizing phylogenetic diversity captures functional diversity unreliably. Nature Communications. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41467-018-05126-3
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