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Abstract Detail



Conservation Biology

Kling, Matthew [1], Mishler, Brent [1], Thornhill, Andrew [1], Baldwin, Bruce [1], Ackerly, David [1].

Priorities for conserving the endemic phylodiversity of the California flora.

Selecting future land conservation priorities to maximize biodiversity protection is a key challenge that requires weighing both the relative value of protecting different species with varying levels of evolutionary uniqueness and of deciding how much of a species's range is sufficient to protect. We evaluated conceptual and methodological considerations in each of these areas while performing a conservation gap analysis for California, a world biodiversity hotspot, using herbarium data on the biogeography and evolutionary relationships of more than 5000 native vascular plant species. A comparison of phylogenetic diversity metrics found that quantifying biodiversity in terms of genetic divergence, evolutionary time, speciation events, or basic species richness yielded conservation priorities that agreed in many places but differed in others. A novel framework for weighing how much of a species's range to protect also found differences in conservation priorities. Most methods agreed on three priority regions of the state with high levels of unprotected endemic biodiversity.


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1 - University of California, Berkeley, University and Jepson Herbaria / Department of Integrative Biology, Berkeley, California, 94720, United States

Keywords:
Conservation
biodiversity
floristics
phylodiversity
spatial phylogenetics
Endemism
conservation prioritization
Biogeography
California.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper
Session: 40, Conservation Biology I
Location: 106/Mayo Civic Center
Date: Wednesday, July 25th, 2018
Time: 10:30 AM
Number: 40008
Abstract ID:560
Candidate for Awards:None


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