Abstract Detail

Conservation Biology

Mitine, Christina [1], Lehman, Kristen [1], Thornhill, Andrew [2], Freyman, Will [3], Wright, Chelsea [1], Hernandez, Adriana I. [1], Baldwin, Bruce [2], Mishler, Brent [2], Guilliams, C. Matt [1].

Using Spatial Phylogenetics to Inform Conservation at the Archipelago-Scale: An Introduction to the Channel Islands Phylodiversity Project.

Conservation and land management actions are often prioritized in part using ahistorical measures of biodiversity, such as taxonomic richness. Although familiar, these measures also have shortcomings, which include: 1) the treatment of all taxa as biologically equivalent, when it has long been recognized that taxa at a given rank differ greatly in the depth and extent of evolutionary divergence and, therefore, taxa at given rank are non-comparable; 2) the inability to detect spatial phylogenetic patterns in the area of interest with a specific focus on centers of neo- and paleo-endemism. An alternative approach involves incorporating phylogenetic history in biodiversity estimates. Phylogenetic diversity assessments overcome some of the shortcomings of ahistorical biodiversity metrics, but they have been difficult to implement until recently. An ever-increasing volume of DNA sequence data and fine-scale geo-referenced specimen data, coupled with new phylogenetic methods and phylodiversity metrics, now permit the estimation of phylodiversity at fine phylogenetic and spatial scales. Here, we discuss the Channel Islands Phylodiversity Project (CIPP), a collaborative effort to understand the fine-scale distribution of plant phylodiversity on the California Channel Islands (ChI). The CIPP seeks to estimate plant phylodiversity across the ChI, including all 1,000+ plant minimum-rank taxa (MRTs), being one of the first of its kind to examine spatial phylodiversity across all plants in a well-defined region. Here, we outline the general goals of the CIPP, with an emphasis on spatial phylogenetic methods and metrics. We highlight our progress toward a phylogeny of the ChI flora, a tree that now includes over 800 of the ~1,000 ChI MRTs, and we conclude with a discussion of the novel perspective that spatial phylogenetics can provide toward the conservation of the remarkable ChI flora.

1 - Santa Barbara Botanic Garden, Department of Conservation and Research, 1212 Mission Canyon Road, Santa Barbara, CA, 93105, USA
2 - University Of California, Berkeley, University And Jepson Herbaria, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building, Berkeley, CA, 94720, United States
3 - University of Minnesota, Department of Ecology, Evolution and Behaviour, 1479 Gortner Ave, Suite 140 , St Paul, MN, 55108, USA

Keywords:
Phylogenetics
phylodiversity
Conservation.

Presentation Type: Poster
Session: P, Conservation Biology
Location: Grand Ballroom - Exhibit Hall/Mayo Civic Center
Date: Monday, July 23rd, 2018
Time: 5:30 PM This poster will be presented at 6:15 pm. The Poster Session runs from 5:30 pm to 7:00 pm. Posters with odd poster numbers are presented at 5:30 pm, and posters with even poster numbers are presented at 6:15 pm.
Number: PCB006
Abstract ID:469
Candidate for Awards:None