Phylogenetic Diversity
Phylogenetic Diversity
Phylogenetic diversity (PD) is a way of measuring biodiversity that considers the evolutionary relationships among organisms rather than simply counting the number of species. A community containing species from widely separated branches of the tree of life may represent more evolutionary history than a community containing the same number of closely related species. The concept has become an important bridge between evolutionary biology, ecology, biogeography, and conservation science.
Phylogenetic diversity expands the concept of biodiversity beyond species richness by asking how much evolutionary history is represented by a group of organisms. The approach is commonly associated with Daniel P. Faith's 1992 formulation of PD as the total branch length of a phylogenetic tree connecting a selected set of taxa. Since then, researchers have developed numerous related measures and have investigated whether preserving evolutionary history can improve conservation outcomes, maintain ecological functions, protect distinctive biological features, and preserve options for future generations.
Foundations and Concepts
Modern approaches to phylogenetic diversity emerged from efforts to incorporate evolutionary relationships into conservation decisions. Earlier conservation strategies often concentrated on species richness, rarity, endemism, or extinction risk. Phylogenetic approaches added another consideration: species differ substantially in the amount of unique evolutionary history they represent.
Faith's formulation provided a relatively straightforward quantitative framework. If species are represented on a phylogenetic tree, PD can be calculated by adding the lengths of the branches required to connect those species. A collection of distantly related species will generally encompass more evolutionary history than an equally large collection of closely related species.
This approach reflects the idea that biodiversity includes not only currently recognized species but also the evolutionary processes and accumulated biological differences represented by the tree of life. Related approaches emphasize taxonomic distinctiveness, evolutionary isolation, feature diversity, and the information content represented by different lineages.
Measuring Phylogenetic Diversity
Phylogenetic diversity can be measured in several ways. Faith's PD remains one of the best-known metrics, but researchers have developed measures incorporating abundance, evolutionary distinctiveness, phylogenetic beta diversity, community relatedness, and Hill numbers.
Measurement is affected by the quality and structure of the underlying phylogenetic tree. Incomplete taxon sampling, uncertain evolutionary relationships, branch-length estimation, tree resolution, and the choice between phylograms and chronograms can substantially influence results.
Rarefaction and other statistical techniques allow researchers to compare communities containing different numbers of species. Software tools have also made it possible to integrate phylogenetic trees with ecological community data and geographic information.
These methodological developments demonstrate that phylogenetic diversity is not a single universal statistic. Different metrics answer different ecological and conservation questions, making careful selection and interpretation of measures important.
Phylogenetic Diversity and Ecosystem Function
A major area of research examines whether communities containing greater evolutionary diversity function differently from communities composed of closely related species.
Experimental and observational studies have found associations between phylogenetic diversity and processes such as plant productivity, biomass production, ecosystem stability, and community functioning. One explanation is that distantly related species may possess different ecological traits and use resources in complementary ways.
However, phylogenetic relationships are imperfect substitutes for direct measurements of ecological traits. Evolutionary distance may sometimes predict functional differences, but the strength of this relationship varies among organisms, traits, ecosystems, and evolutionary histories.
Consequently, researchers increasingly distinguish among taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic diversity rather than assuming that any one dimension can fully represent the others.
Functional Diversity and Evolutionary History
Functional diversity describes differences in biological characteristics that influence how organisms interact with their environments and contribute to ecosystems. Because traits evolve through evolutionary history, phylogenetic diversity has sometimes been proposed as a practical surrogate for functional diversity.
Research shows that this relationship is complex. Closely related species can sometimes possess very different ecological characteristics, while distantly related organisms may evolve similar traits. Studies have therefore questioned whether maximizing phylogenetic diversity will consistently maximize functional diversity.
Other research argues that the value of phylogenetic diversity extends beyond currently measured traits. Evolutionary branches may represent combinations of known and unknown biological features, making evolutionary history valuable even when its immediate ecological functions have not been identified.
Global Patterns and Biodiversity Hotspots
Phylogenetic diversity is unevenly distributed across the planet. Geographic analyses of mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, fishes, plants, insects, and other organisms reveal regions containing unusually large or distinctive concentrations of evolutionary history.
These patterns do not always correspond with conventional maps of species richness. A region containing exceptionally many species may consist largely of relatively closely related organisms, while another region with fewer species may contain ancient or highly isolated evolutionary lineages.
Spatial phylogenetics allows scientists to identify areas containing geographically restricted branches of the tree of life. Measures of phylogenetic endemism can distinguish areas dominated by ancient restricted lineages from regions containing relatively recent evolutionary radiations.
Such differences can alter the geographic priorities identified by conservation planning.
Conservation Prioritization
One of the principal applications of phylogenetic diversity is conservation prioritization. Limited conservation resources require decisions about which species, habitats, and geographic areas should receive protection.
Reserve-selection methods can incorporate evolutionary branch lengths to identify combinations of protected areas that conserve large amounts of evolutionary history. Studies comparing existing protected-area networks with maps of phylogenetic diversity have revealed both important successes and significant gaps.
Conservation planning increasingly considers several dimensions of biodiversity simultaneously, including species richness, functional diversity, genetic diversity, endemism, and phylogenetic diversity. Strategic expansion or redesign of protected-area networks can potentially capture considerably more of these biodiversity dimensions.
EDGE and Evolutionarily Distinct Species
The EDGE approach—Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered—combines extinction risk with evolutionary distinctiveness. Species receive greater priority when they are both highly threatened and separated from their closest living relatives by substantial evolutionary distances.
This framework draws attention to species whose extinction could eliminate unusually long and isolated branches of the tree of life. EDGE approaches have been applied to mammals, birds, amphibians, reptiles, and other groups.
Evolutionary distinctiveness does not replace conventional assessments of extinction risk. Instead, it provides an additional measure for identifying species whose disappearance could result in particularly large losses of evolutionary history.
Extinction and Loss of Evolutionary History
Species extinction does not necessarily remove evolutionary history at a constant rate. When closely related species disappear, some of their evolutionary branches may remain represented by surviving relatives. The extinction of an isolated lineage, however, can eliminate an entire branch with few or no surviving representatives.
Research has also demonstrated that extinction risk can be phylogenetically nonrandom. Certain evolutionary groups may share biological characteristics that make their members unusually vulnerable to habitat destruction, exploitation, invasive species, climate change, or other pressures.
For this reason, future extinction could remove more evolutionary history than would be expected if species disappeared randomly.
Plants, Forests, and Floristic Diversity
Plant phylogenetic diversity has become an important field of research. Studies of regional floras, tropical forests, biodiversity hotspots, and global plant distributions demonstrate that species richness and evolutionary diversity can reveal different conservation priorities.
Spatial phylogenetics can identify concentrations of ancient lineages, recent evolutionary radiations, and geographically restricted branches. Research in the Cape flora, Amazonia, Australia, California, and other regions illustrates how geological and climatic history helped create present-day patterns of plant evolutionary diversity.
Forest studies have also investigated relationships between tree phylogenetic diversity, community assembly, productivity, environmental filtering, mortality, recruitment, and ecosystem stability.
Birds, Mammals, Amphibians, and Reptiles
Vertebrates have been especially important subjects for phylogenetic conservation research because relatively comprehensive phylogenetic and geographic information is available for many groups.
Bird research has mapped global evolutionary diversity, examined the effects of habitat modification and extinction, and evaluated whether existing conservation programs capture evolutionary history.
Mammal studies have similarly investigated evolutionary distinctiveness, extinction risk, megafauna loss, protected areas, and geographic conservation priorities.
Amphibians and reptiles contain many highly distinctive lineages. Global assessments have therefore increasingly incorporated evolutionary history when identifying threatened species and regions requiring conservation attention.
Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
Phylogenetic approaches are increasingly applied to marine and freshwater biodiversity. Fish communities can contain very different amounts of evolutionary history even when their species richness is similar.
Research has examined evolutionary diversity in reef fishes, freshwater fishes, tropical marine communities, and protected areas. Climate change, biological invasions, dams, habitat alteration, fishing, and other human pressures can change not only species composition but also the evolutionary structure of aquatic communities.
Introduced species may contribute to phylogenetic homogenization when formerly distinctive regional communities become increasingly similar.
Insects and Microbial Diversity
Phylogenetic methods have expanded beyond vertebrates and plants to insects, other invertebrates, and microorganisms. Studies of ants, bees, butterflies, arthropods, soil bacteria, and other microbial communities demonstrate the broad applicability of evolutionary measures.
For microorganisms, phylogenetic information can be especially valuable because conventional species boundaries are sometimes difficult to define. Evolutionary relationships provide another means of examining community structure, environmental filtering, geographic turnover, ecosystem function, and resilience.
Land Use, Disturbance, and Restoration
Human modification of landscapes can restructure phylogenetic diversity as well as reduce species abundance and richness. Agriculture, deforestation, logging, urbanization, and other forms of land-use change may selectively favor some evolutionary groups while eliminating others.
The consequences can vary considerably among regions and ecological communities. Some disturbed or secondary forests retain substantial evolutionary diversity, giving them conservation value even when they differ markedly from undisturbed ecosystems.
Restoration research increasingly examines whether recovering ecosystems regain not merely species numbers but also functional and evolutionary diversity.
Climate Change and Evolutionary Resilience
Climate change presents another major challenge for conserving evolutionary history. Species differ in climatic tolerance, geographic range, dispersal ability, and capacity to adapt. These characteristics may themselves be associated with evolutionary relationships.
Climate-driven extinction and range shifts can therefore restructure the tree of life geographically. Studies have investigated whether evolutionarily distinctive species face unusual climatic vulnerability and how future losses could alter regional and global phylogenetic diversity.
Protecting evolutionary diversity may also contribute to maintaining adaptive potential and biological options under uncertain future environmental conditions.
Phylogenetic Endemism and Spatial Phylogenetics
Spatial phylogenetics combines evolutionary trees with geographic distributions. Instead of asking only how many species occur in a region, researchers can determine which evolutionary branches occur there and how geographically restricted those branches are.
Phylogenetic endemism highlights places containing evolutionary history with limited geographic distributions. Related techniques can distinguish centers of paleo-endemism, characterized by old and geographically restricted lineages, from centers of neo-endemism containing recently evolved restricted lineages.
These approaches provide a richer description of the evolutionary processes responsible for regional biodiversity.
Limitations and Scientific Debate
Phylogenetic diversity has important limitations. Phylogenetic trees contain uncertainty, branch lengths can be estimated in different ways, and incomplete sampling can alter calculated diversity. Conservation priorities may therefore change depending on the tree, metric, geographic scale, and assumptions used.
Another debate concerns what PD actually represents. Evolutionary distance does not always correspond closely with measured functional diversity. Consequently, conserving maximum branch length cannot automatically be assumed to preserve maximum ecological function.
Supporters of PD emphasize that evolutionary history may represent far more than currently measured traits. Long evolutionary branches potentially contain distinctive biological characteristics, ecological strategies, genetic information, and unknown future benefits.
These debates have encouraged conservation scientists to use phylogenetic diversity alongside rather than automatically instead of other measures of biodiversity.
Policy and Future Directions
Phylogenetic diversity is increasingly being considered in conservation planning and broader attempts to measure biodiversity. Multidimensional biodiversity assessments can incorporate evolutionary history alongside species, genetic, functional, and ecosystem diversity.
Future progress depends on improving phylogenetic data, geographic information, species inventories, computational methods, and understanding of the relationship between evolutionary history and biological features.
The growing availability of large phylogenetic trees and global biodiversity databases makes it increasingly practical to incorporate evolutionary history into conservation decisions at regional, national, and global scales.
Conclusion
Phylogenetic diversity changes the conservation question from simply asking how many species survive to asking how much of the tree of life survives with them. By measuring evolutionary relationships, PD reveals biological differences that species counts alone can overlook.
Research across plants, forests, vertebrates, insects, aquatic organisms, and microorganisms demonstrates that evolutionary diversity can provide important information about ecosystem function, geographic biodiversity patterns, extinction, conservation priorities, and environmental change. At the same time, phylogenetic diversity is not interchangeable with species richness or functional diversity, and its usefulness depends on the quality of phylogenetic data and the conservation question being addressed.
The strongest applications therefore treat phylogenetic diversity as one dimension of biodiversity within a broader conservation framework. Protecting species, ecological functions, genetic variation, habitats, and evolutionary history together offers a more comprehensive approach to preserving both the existing diversity of life and the evolutionary heritage from which future biodiversity can emerge.
Phylogenetic Diversity
Foundations and Concepts
| Marcel Cardillo | Cambridge Prisms: Extinction | 2023
Phylogenetic Diversity in Conservation: A Brief History, Critical Overview, and Challenges to Progress — Reviews three decades of PD research, including its theoretical justification, applications, uncertainties, and limitations.
| Alexandre Antonelli et al. | Quarterly Review of Biology | 2019
The Use of Phylogenetic Diversity in Conservation Biology and Community Ecology — Discusses how PD approaches differ between conservation biology and community ecology and provides guidance for their appropriate use.
| Xiuqin Ci & Jie Li | Biodiversity Science | 2017
Phylogenetic Diversity and Its Application in Floristics and Biodiversity Conservation — Reviews Faith's PD and related measures and describes applications in plant geography and conservation.
| Marten Winter, Vincent Devictor & Oliver Schweiger | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2013
Phylogenetic Diversity and Nature Conservation: Where Are We? — Reviews the scientific rationale for using evolutionary history in conservation and examines why PD has been only slowly adopted by conservation practitioners.
| Daniel P. Faith & Andrew M. Baker | Evolutionary Bioinformatics | 2007
Phylogenetic Diversity and Biodiversity Conservation: Some Bioinformatics Challenges — Explores how phylogenetic information, DNA barcoding, and computational methods can support biodiversity conservation.
| Daniel P. Faith | Cladistics | 2004
Phylogenetic Diversity and Conservation Evaluation: Perspectives on Multiple Values, Indices, and Scales of Application — Discusses the broader interpretation of PD and its role in representing biodiversity values.
| Ross H. Crozier | Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics | 1997
Preserving the Information Content of Species: Genetic Diversity, Phylogeny, and Conservation Worth — Examines evolutionary information as a component of conservation value and the implications of losing distinctive lineages.
| Daniel P. Faith | Biological Conservation | 1992
Conservation Evaluation and Phylogenetic Diversity — The foundational paper introducing Faith's phylogenetic diversity (PD), calculated from the total branch length needed to connect a set of taxa on a phylogenetic tree.
| Paul H. Harvey & Mark D. Pagel | Oxford University Press | 1991
The Comparative Method in Evolutionary Biology — Provides important theoretical foundations for interpreting phylogenies and evolutionary relationships in ecological and conservation research.
| R. I. Vane-Wright, C. J. Humphries & P. H. Williams | Biological Conservation | 1991
What to Protect? Systematics and the Agony of Choice — An influential early proposal for incorporating taxonomic and evolutionary distinctiveness into conservation priorities.
Measuring Phylogenetic Diversity
| Amy M. Ritchie et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2021
Phylogenetic Diversity Metrics from Molecular Phylogenies: Modelling Expected Degree of Error Under Realistic Rate Variation — Evaluates how molecular evolutionary rate variation can introduce error into PD estimates.
| Daniel S. Park, Simon Worthington & Zhenxiang Xi | Molecular Ecology | 2018
Taxon Sampling Effects on the Quantification and Comparison of Community Phylogenetic Diversity — Shows how incomplete phylogenetic sampling can influence estimates of PD.
| Michael J. Elliott, Nunzio J. Knerr & Alexander N. Schmidt-Lebuhn | Journal of Biogeography | 2018
Choice Between Phylogram and Chronogram Can Have a Dramatic Impact on the Location of Phylogenetic Diversity Hotspots — Demonstrates that alternative ways of measuring phylogenetic branch lengths can change conservation rankings.
| Chun-Huo Chiu, Lou Jost & Anne Chao | Ecography | 2014
Phylogenetic Beta Diversity, Similarity, and Differentiation Measures Based on Hill Numbers — Develops methods for comparing evolutionary diversity among biological communities.
| Caroline M. Tucker et al. | Methods in Ecology and Evolution | 2014
A Guide to Phylogenetic Metrics for Conservation, Community Ecology and Macroecology — Compares numerous phylogenetic diversity metrics and explains their differing interpretations.
| David P. Nipperess et al. | Ecology | 2012
The Rarefaction of Phylogenetic Diversity: Formulation, Extension and Application — Provides statistical techniques for comparing PD among samples containing different numbers of taxa.
| Anne Chao, Chun-Huo Chiu & Lou Jost | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2010
Phylogenetic Diversity Measures Based on Hill Numbers — Extends Hill diversity numbers to incorporate evolutionary relationships and species abundances.
| Steven W. Kembel et al. | Bioinformatics | 2010
Picante: R Tools for Integrating Phylogenies and Ecology — Introduces widely used software for calculating phylogenetic diversity and related ecological statistics.
| Nathan G. Swenson | Ecology Letters | 2009
Phylogenetic Resolution and Quantifying the Phylogenetic Diversity and Dispersion of Communities — Examines how tree resolution affects estimates of community evolutionary diversity.
| Nathan G. Swenson et al. | Ecology Letters | 2009
Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity in Community Ecology — Discusses the relationship between evolutionary distances, species traits, and ecological community structure.
Phylogenetic Diversity and Ecosystem Function
| Adriane Esquivel-Muelbert et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2019
Evolutionary Diversity Is Associated with Wood Productivity in Amazonian Forests — Finds higher wood productivity in tropical forests containing evolutionarily diverse tree assemblages.
| T. Jonathan Davies, Marc W. Cadotte & Pedro R. Peres-Neto | Ecology | 2016
Deconstructing the Relationships Between Phylogenetic Diversity and Ecology: A Case Study on Ecosystem Functioning — Shows that the position of evolutionary branches can matter in addition to total branch length.
| Marc W. Cadotte | Functional Ecology | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity–Ecosystem Function Relationships Are Insensitive to Phylogenetic Edge Lengths — Examines whether exact branch-length estimates are critical for predicting ecosystem functioning.
| Marc W. Cadotte | Functional Ecology | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity and Productivity: Gauging Interpretations from Experiments That Do Not Manipulate Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates evidence linking evolutionary diversity and ecosystem productivity.
| Marc W. Cadotte | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2013
Experimental Evidence That Evolutionarily Diverse Assemblages Result in Higher Productivity — Experimentally demonstrates greater productivity when plant assemblages contain more distantly related species.
| Diane S. Srivastava et al. | Ecology Letters | 2012
Phylogenetic Diversity and the Functioning of Ecosystems — Reviews mechanisms through which evolutionary relationships may predict ecosystem processes.
| Marc W. Cadotte, Russell Dinnage & David Tilman | Ecology | 2012
Phylogenetic Diversity Promotes Ecosystem Stability — Reports that evolutionarily diverse plant communities can show greater stability through time.
| Dan F. B. Flynn et al. | Ecology | 2011
Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity as Predictors of Biodiversity–Ecosystem-Function Relationships — Compares functional diversity, evolutionary history, and species richness as predictors of ecological function.
Evolutionary History and the Effect of Biodiversity on Plant Productivity — Finds that plant communities containing greater evolutionary diversity often produce more biomass.
| H. Maherali & J. N. Klironomos | Science | 2007
Influence of Phylogeny on Fungal Community Assembly and Ecosystem Functioning — Demonstrates that evolutionary relationships among fungi can influence ecosystem processes.
Functional Diversity and Evolutionary History
| Rafael Molina-Venegas et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2021
Maximum Levels of Global Phylogenetic Diversity Efficiently Capture Plant Services for Humankind — Finds that maximizing plant PD can preserve many plant characteristics and services valuable to people.
| Nisha R. Owen et al. | Nature Communications | 2019
Global Conservation of Phylogenetic Diversity Captures More Than Just Functional Diversity — Argues that PD represents broad evolutionary feature diversity and should not be judged solely by measured functional traits.
| Florent Mazel et al. | Nature Communications | 2018
Prioritizing Phylogenetic Diversity Captures Functional Diversity Unreliably — Tests whether conservation strategies based on phylogeny consistently preserve functional traits.
| Caroline M. Tucker et al. | Ecology | 2018
On the Relationship Between Phylogenetic Diversity and Trait Diversity — Explores theoretically and empirically when evolutionary relationships predict differences in species traits.
| Florent Mazel et al. | Systematic Biology | 2017
Conserving Phylogenetic Diversity Can Be a Poor Strategy for Conserving Functional Diversity — Questions whether maximizing evolutionary history necessarily protects ecological trait diversity.
| Steve Kelly, Richard Grenyer & Robert W. Scotland | Diversity and Distributions | 2014
Phylogenetic Trees Do Not Reliably Predict Feature Diversity — Tests the assumption that evolutionary branch lengths consistently represent phenotypic feature diversity.
| Marc W. Cadotte, Kelly Carscadden & Nicholas Mirotchnick | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2011
Beyond Species: Functional Diversity and the Maintenance of Ecological Processes and Services — Reviews why trait and evolutionary diversity can sometimes provide more ecological information than species richness.
| Sébastien Villéger, Norman W. H. Mason & David Mouillot | Ecology | 2008
New Multidimensional Functional Diversity Indices for a Multifaceted Framework in Functional Ecology — Provides trait-based biodiversity metrics frequently compared with phylogenetic measures.
| Owen L. Petchey & Kevin J. Gaston | Ecology Letters | 2007
Dendrograms and Measuring Functional Diversity — Develops tree-based representations of functional variation that parallel phylogenetic diversity approaches.
| Owen L. Petchey & Kevin J. Gaston | Ecology Letters | 2006
Functional Diversity: Back to Basics and Looking Forward — Reviews concepts and metrics that form an important comparison with phylogenetic diversity.
Global Patterns and Biodiversity Hotspots
Assessing Spatial Patterns of Phylogenetic Diversity of Mexican Mammals for Biodiversity Conservation — Maps mammalian evolutionary history across Mexico and evaluates its representation within protected areas.
| Yang Hu et al. | Science Advances | 2021
Spatial Patterns and Conservation of Genetic and Phylogenetic Diversity of Wildlife in China — Integrates genetic, species, and phylogenetic information to identify conservation priorities across China.
| Stefan Franke et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2020
Predicting Regional Hotspots of Phylogenetic Diversity Across Multiple Species Groups — Examines whether PD hotspots for different groups coincide geographically.
| Barnabas H. Daru et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Spatial Overlaps Between the Global Protected Areas Network and Terrestrial Hotspots of Evolutionary Diversity — Assesses whether protected areas adequately represent regions of exceptional evolutionary history.
| Alexander Voskamp et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Global Patterns in the Divergence Between Phylogenetic Diversity and Species Richness in Terrestrial Birds — Identifies places where conserving high species richness does not necessarily maximize bird evolutionary history.
| Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity of Amazonian Tree Communities — Maps evolutionary structure across Amazon forests and relates PD patterns to environmental and geological history.
| Benjamin G. Holt et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2015
An Update of Wallace's Zoogeographic Regions of the World — Uses phylogenetic information to delineate major global biogeographic regions.
| Jonathan Davies et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2014
Global Diversity Patterns of Plants and Their Evolutionary History — Examines how evolutionary processes contribute to broad geographic patterns of plant diversity.
| Benjamin G. Holt et al. | Science | 2013
An Update of Wallace's Zoogeographic Regions of the World — Uses global vertebrate distributions and evolutionary relationships to characterize biogeographic regions.
| Susanne A. Fritz & Carsten Rahbek | Journal of Biogeography | 2012
Global Patterns of Amphibian Phylogenetic Diversity — Maps evolutionary diversity among amphibians and identifies regions containing unusual concentrations of evolutionary history.
Conservation Prioritization
| Sergio Llorente-Culebras et al. | Frontiers in Ecology and Evolution | 2021
Iberian Protected Areas Capture Regional Functional, Phylogenetic and Taxonomic Diversity of Most Tetrapod Groups — Assesses multiple biodiversity dimensions within protected areas of the Iberian Peninsula.
| Maria A. Aguilar-Tomasini et al. | Global Ecology and Conservation | 2021
Assessing Spatial Patterns of Phylogenetic Diversity of Mexican Mammals for Biodiversity Conservation — Evaluates whether Mexican protected areas capture regions of particularly high mammalian PD.
| A. G. Oliveira, O. Peláez & A. A. Agostinho | Neotropical Ichthyology | 2021
The Effectiveness of Protected Areas in the Paraná-Paraguay Basin in Preserving Multiple Facets of Freshwater Fish Diversity Under Climate Change — Studies taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic conservation under future climate scenarios.
| Giovanni Rapacciuolo et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2019
Species Diversity as a Surrogate for Conservation of Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity in Terrestrial Vertebrates Across the Americas — Tests how effectively species-based conservation plans capture evolutionary and functional diversity.
| Qiang Quan et al. | Conservation Biology | 2018
Effectiveness of Protected Areas for Vertebrates Based on Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates protected-area performance using both species numbers and evolutionary history.
| Laura J. Pollock, Wilfried Thuiller & Walter Jetz | Nature | 2017
Large Conservation Gains Possible for Global Biodiversity Facets — Demonstrates that modest strategic expansion of protected areas could greatly improve protection of phylogenetic, functional, and species diversity.
| Ignacio Pardo et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2017
Spatial Congruence Between Taxonomic, Phylogenetic and Functional Hotspots: True Pattern or Methodological Artefact? — Examines whether hotspots identified using different biodiversity dimensions actually overlap.
| Laura J. Pollock et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity Meets Conservation Policy: Small Areas Are Key to Preserving Eucalypt Lineages — Shows how relatively small priority areas can protect large amounts of Australian eucalypt evolutionary history.
| D. V. Pio et al. | Conservation Biology | 2011
Spatial Predictions of Phylogenetic Diversity in Conservation Decision Making — Demonstrates how spatial models of PD can contribute to selecting conservation priorities.
| Ana S. L. Rodrigues & Kevin J. Gaston | Biological Conservation | 2002
Maximising Phylogenetic Diversity in the Selection of Networks of Conservation Areas — Tests strategies for designing reserve systems that capture maximum evolutionary history.
EDGE and Evolutionarily Distinct Species
| Morgane Robuchon et al. | Nature Communications | 2021
Revisiting Species and Areas of Interest for Conserving Global Mammalian Phylogenetic Diversity — Develops complementary approaches for protecting mammalian evolutionary history at both species and geographic levels.
| Rikki Gumbs et al. | Nature Communications | 2020
Global Priorities for Conservation of Reptilian Phylogenetic Diversity in the Face of Human Impacts — Identifies reptile lineages representing high amounts of unique evolutionary history exposed to human pressures.
| Rikki Gumbs et al. | PLOS ONE | 2018
Tetrapods on the EDGE: Overcoming Data Limitations to Identify Phylogenetic Conservation Priorities — Extends evolutionary-distinctiveness conservation assessments across terrestrial vertebrates.
| Rikki Gumbs et al. | Conservation Biology | 2017
Are the Most Distinctive Species Also the Most Threatened? — Explores relationships between evolutionary distinctiveness, rarity, and extinction threat.
| James E. M. Watson et al. | Conservation Letters | 2016
Protect the Last of the Wild — Discusses conservation of irreplaceable biodiversity and habitats, including distinctive evolutionary lineages.
| Walter Jetz et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2014
Global Distribution and Conservation of Evolutionary Distinctness in Birds — Maps avian evolutionary distinctiveness and identifies geographic conservation priorities.
| David W. Redding & Arne Ø. Mooers | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2010
Incorporating Evolutionary Measures into Conservation Prioritization — Reviews methods for incorporating evolutionary uniqueness into species prioritization.
| Michael Hoffmann et al. | Ecology Letters | 2010
The Impact of Conservation on the Status of the World's Vertebrates — Provides broader context for assessing the protection of threatened evolutionary lineages.
| David W. Redding et al. | Journal of Theoretical Biology | 2008
Evolutionarily Distinctive Species Often Capture More Phylogenetic Diversity Than Expected — Tests whether prioritizing evolutionarily isolated species efficiently protects total evolutionary history.
| Nick J. B. Isaac et al. | PLOS ONE | 2007
Mammals on the EDGE: Conservation Priorities Based on Threat and Phylogeny — Introduces the influential EDGE approach combining evolutionary distinctiveness with global endangerment.
Extinction and Loss of Evolutionary History
| Arne Ø. Mooers et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
The Interaction of Extinction Risk and Evolutionary Isolation — Discusses approaches for identifying species whose extinction would erase unusually large evolutionary branches.
| Matthew H. Davis et al. | Ecology Letters | 2014
Evolutionary History and Extinction Risk — Examines how evolutionary patterns influence biodiversity loss under nonrandom extinction scenarios.
| Luis Verde Arregoitia et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2013
Phylogenetic Correlates of Extinction Risk in Mammals: Species in Older Lineages Are Not at Greater Risk — Tests relationships among lineage age, evolutionary distinctiveness, and mammalian extinction risk.
| Marcel Cardillo & Erik Meijaard | Trends in Ecology & Evolution | 2012
Are Comparative Studies of Extinction Risk Useful for Conservation? — Evaluates how phylogenetic comparative analyses can improve understanding of vulnerability to extinction.
| Jonathan Davies et al. | Ecology Letters | 2009
Extinction Risk and the Loss of Evolutionary History — Investigates whether threatened species are clustered on evolutionary trees.
| Jana C. Vamosi & John R. U. Wilson | Ecology Letters | 2008
Nonrandom Extinction Leads to Elevated Loss of Angiosperm Evolutionary History — Tests whether threatened flowering plants represent disproportionate amounts of evolutionary history.
| T. Jonathan Davies et al. | Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences | 2008
Phylogenetic Trees and the Future of Mammalian Biodiversity — Projects the amount and geographic distribution of mammalian evolutionary history threatened by extinction.
| Fredrik von Euler | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2001
Selective Extinction and Rapid Loss of Evolutionary History in the Bird Fauna — Examines how nonrandom bird extinctions accelerate loss of evolutionary history.
| Andy Purvis et al. | Science | 2000
Nonrandom Extinction and the Loss of Evolutionary History — Demonstrates that extinction risk is phylogenetically nonrandom and can remove disproportionately large amounts of evolutionary history.
| Sean Nee & Robert M. May | Science | 1997
Extinction and the Loss of Evolutionary History — Models how species extinction translates into losses of branches from the tree of life.
Plants and Floristic Phylogenetic Diversity
| Barnabas H. Daru et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2018
Widespread Sampling Biases in Herbaria Revealed from Large-Scale Digitization — Discusses data biases relevant to mapping plant phylogenetic diversity.
| Barnabas H. Daru et al. | Nature | 2017
A Global Assessment of Endemism and Evolutionary Diversity in Plants — Explores geographic concentrations of ancient and recently diversified plant lineages.
| William D. Pearse et al. | New Phytologist | 2017
Global Patterns of Plant Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines broad-scale spatial variation in the evolutionary histories represented by plant communities.
| Brody Sandel et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
The Influence of Late Quaternary Climate-Change Velocity on Species Endemism and Phylogenetic Diversity — Connects historical climate stability with present-day evolutionary diversity.
| Marcel Cardillo et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Evolutionary History and Geographic Patterns of Australian Plant Diversity — Investigates regional differences in accumulated evolutionary history.
| Andrew H. Thornhill et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Spatial Phylogenetics of the Native California Flora — Identifies geographic concentrations of rare, ancient, and recently diversified plant lineages.
| Andrew H. Thornhill et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2016
Continental-Scale Spatial Phylogenetics of Australian Angiosperms — Uses evolutionary trees and geographic distributions to identify centers of endemism and evolutionary history.
| Eurídice N. Honorio Coronado et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity of Amazonian Tree Communities — Shows large-scale variation in the evolutionary composition of Amazon forests.
| Félix Forest et al. | Nature | 2007
Preserving the Evolutionary Potential of Floras in Biodiversity Hotspots — Demonstrates that plant species richness and evolutionary diversity can identify different conservation priorities in South Africa's Cape flora.
Freshwater and Marine Phylogenetic Diversity
| Olden Julian D. et al. | Hydrobiologia | 2020
Conserving the Evolutionary Heritage of Freshwater Fishes — Reviews applications of phylogenetic information to freshwater conservation.
| Jonathan D. Tonkin et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Freshwater Biodiversity Through a Phylogenetic Lens — Examines how evolutionary information improves understanding of freshwater biodiversity patterns.
| Guilhaumon François et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2018
Global Patterns of Marine Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Maps evolutionary diversity in marine fish communities and identifies environmental correlates.
| Loïc Pellissier et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2018
Evolutionary History Shapes Global Patterns of Reef Fish Diversity — Relates reef fish phylogenetic structure to historical and environmental processes.
| David Mouillot et al. | Ecography | 2017
Global Marine Protected Areas Do Not Secure the Evolutionary History of Tropical Corals and Fishes — Examines whether marine reserves adequately protect phylogenetic diversity.
| Florent Leprieur et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2016
Global Patterns and Drivers of Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Investigates the evolutionary structure of fish assemblages across geographic regions.
| David Mouillot et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2016
Global Marine Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates geographic differences in ecological and evolutionary diversity across marine systems.
| Sébastien Villéger et al. | Ecology Letters | 2014
Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity of Marine Fish Communities — Compares multiple biodiversity dimensions in marine ecosystems.
| Flávia M. Carvajal-Quintero et al. | Freshwater Biology | 2013
Patterns of Freshwater Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines how evolutionary history varies among freshwater ecosystems.
| Angela L. Strecker et al. | Ecological Applications | 2011
Defining Conservation Priorities for Freshwater Fishes According to Taxonomic, Functional, and Phylogenetic Diversity — Compares multiple facets of freshwater fish biodiversity for conservation planning.
Climate Change and Evolutionary Resilience
| Nathalie Mouquet et al. | Global Change Biology | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity and Ecological Responses to Climate Change — Evaluates the contribution of evolutionary relationships to predicting biodiversity responses to climatic shifts.
| Wilfried Thuiller et al. | Ecology Letters | 2013
Consequences of Climate Change on the Tree of Life in Europe — Models how climate-driven species losses could alter European phylogenetic diversity.
| David W. Redding et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2013
Evolutionary History and Climate Change Vulnerability — Examines whether evolutionarily distinctive lineages face unusual exposure to climatic change.
| Carla M. Sgrò, Andrew J. Lowe & Ary A. Hoffmann | Evolutionary Applications | 2011
Building Evolutionary Resilience for Conserving Biodiversity Under Climate Change — Argues that conservation should protect evolutionary processes and adaptive capacity as climates change.
| David P. Faith | Ecology Letters | 2011
Conservation and Evolutionary Potential — Discusses why preserving evolutionary history may safeguard future biological options.
Policy and Future Directions
| Carolina Soto-Navarro et al. | Nature Sustainability | 2021
Towards a Multidimensional Biodiversity Index for National Application — Incorporates phylogenetic diversity alongside other biodiversity dimensions for conservation assessment.
| Sandra Díaz et al. | Science | 2020
Set Ambitious Goals for Biodiversity and Sustainability — Calls for stronger global biodiversity targets, including protection of evolutionary and functional dimensions of life.
| Caroline M. Tucker et al. | Biological Reviews | 2019
Assessing the Utility of Conserving Evolutionary History — Major synthesis evaluating evidence for conserving phylogenetic diversity as a biodiversity objective.
| Daniel P. Faith et al. | Conservation Biology | 2019
Evosystem Services: An Evolutionary Perspective on the Links Between Biodiversity and Human Well-Being — Connects evolutionary history and phylogenetic diversity with benefits that biodiversity provides to society.
| Dan F. Rosauer et al. | Conservation Letters | 2018
Phylogenetic Generalised Dissimilarity Modelling Predicts Biodiversity Patterns Across Australia — Demonstrates practical use of evolutionary information in large-scale conservation planning.
| Susana B. Carvalho et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2017
Spatial Conservation Prioritization of Biodiversity Spanning the Evolutionary Continuum — Develops conservation planning that considers evolutionary variation from populations through species and deeper lineages.
| Christopher Lean & James Maclaurin | Springer | 2016
The Value of Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines philosophical and scientific arguments for treating evolutionary history as a conservation value.
| Daniel P. Faith | Springer | 2016
The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation — Explains how PD can represent known and unknown biological features and future option values.
| Daniel P. Faith et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
The Cladistic Basis for the Phylogenetic Diversity Measure and Its Applications — Reviews conceptual foundations and conservation applications of PD.
| Anna Laity et al. | Science of the Total Environment | 2015
Phylodiversity to Inform Conservation Policy: An Australian Example — Shows how spatial evolutionary diversity information can be translated into conservation management.
Recent Research and Global Assessments
| Emma Hughes et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2025
Threat Reduction Must Be Coupled With Targeted Recovery Programmes to Conserve Global Bird Diversity — Models future losses of avian taxonomic, morphological, and phylogenetic diversity and shows that preventing threats alone may not preserve all dimensions of bird biodiversity.
| Paula Fernandez-Fournier et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2025
Widespread and Diverging Patterns of Change in Local Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines temporal changes in local assemblages and shows that phylogenetic diversity can change differently from species richness.
| Various Authors | Forests | 2025
Phylogenetic Diversity in Forests: Insights Into Evolutionary Patterns and Conservation Strategies — Reviews the use of phylogenetic diversity for understanding forest assembly, ecosystem functioning, and conservation priorities.
| Georg J. A. Hähn et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2024
Global Decoupling of Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity in Plant Communities — Demonstrates at global scale that functional diversity and phylogenetic diversity frequently provide different information about plant communities.
| Brandon Hendrickson | Ecology and Evolution | 2024
Environmental Determinants of Phylogenetic Diversity in Vernal Pool Habitats — Investigates environmental influences on the evolutionary structure and diversity of biological communities inhabiting temporary wetlands.
| Various Authors | Ecological Indicators | 2024
The Dominant Role of Phylogenetic Diversity in Diversity–Productivity Relationships: Evidence From Natural Mixed Forests in Northeast China — Uses three decades of forest data to examine relationships between evolutionary diversity and productivity.
| Oscar Morton et al. | Nature | 2023
Global Hotspots of Traded Phylogenetic and Functional Diversity — Maps evolutionary and functional diversity represented in international wildlife trade and identifies major tropical hotspots.
| Jian Zhang et al. | Nature Communications | 2023
Climate Change and Land Use Threaten Global Hotspots of Phylogenetic Endemism for Trees — Identifies concentrations of unique tree evolutionary history and evaluates their exposure to future climate and land-use change.
| D. Matthias Dehling & J. Maximilian Dehling | Scientific Reports | 2023
Elevated Alpha Diversity in Disturbed Sites Obscures Regional Decline and Homogenization of Amphibian Taxonomic, Functional and Phylogenetic Diversity — Shows that local species counts can conceal broader losses of evolutionary diversity.
| Miguel Vences et al. | npj Biodiversity | 2023
A Conservation Planning Strategy Applied to the Evolutionary History of the Mantellid Frogs of Madagascar — Integrates taxonomic diversity, phylogenetic diversity, and phylogenetic endemism into systematic conservation planning.
Birds
| Various Authors | Conservation Biology | 2023
Conserving Avian Evolutionary History Can Effectively Safeguard Future Benefits for People — Tests the hypothesis that protecting evolutionary history preserves biological features potentially useful to future generations.
| William J. Harvey et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2022
Tracking Scientific Discovery of Avian Phylogenetic Diversity Over 250 Years — Shows that the accumulation of known avian evolutionary history began approaching saturation before the total number of described bird species did.
| Emma Hughes et al. | Current Biology | 2022
The Homogenization of Avian Morphological and Phylogenetic Diversity Under the Global Extinction Crisis — Examines how projected bird extinctions could alter evolutionary and morphological diversity across global ecosystems.
| Erin R. Funk & Kevin J. Burns | Animal Conservation | 2019
Evolutionary Distinctiveness and Conservation Priorities in a Large Radiation of Songbirds — Uses evolutionary distinctiveness and EDGE measures to identify conservation priorities within Emberizoidea.
| Luke O. Frishkoff et al. | Biological Conservation | 2017
Tropical Secondary Forest Regeneration Conserves High Levels of Avian Phylogenetic Diversity — Finds substantial recovery of bird evolutionary diversity during tropical secondary-forest regeneration.
| James Rosindell et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
The Price of Conserving Avian Phylogenetic Diversity: A Global Prioritization Approach — Combines conservation costs and evolutionary history to estimate how funding could most efficiently preserve avian PD.
| Péter Sólymos et al. | Biological Conservation | 2015
Conservation Action Based on Threatened Species Captures Taxonomic and Phylogenetic Richness in Breeding and Wintering Populations of Central Asian Birds — Evaluates whether Important Bird Areas also conserve evolutionary diversity.
| Gavin H. Thomas et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
Global Avian Phylogenetic Diversity and Conservation Priorities — Examines geographic patterns in bird evolutionary history and implications for global conservation.
| José Alexandre F. Diniz-Filho et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity and Conservation Priorities for New World Birds — Investigates spatial mismatches between species richness and evolutionary diversity.
| Luca Santini et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2015
Global Drivers of Bird Phylogenetic Diversity — Explores environmental and historical factors producing geographic differences in avian evolutionary history.
Mammals
| Florent Mazel et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2020
Global Patterns of Mammalian Phylogenetic Diversity and Their Conservation — Evaluates geographic concentrations of mammalian evolutionary history and their exposure to human pressures.
| Arne Ø. Mooers et al. | Conservation Biology | 2019
Conserving Mammalian Evolutionary History — Examines alternative strategies for retaining maximum evolutionary history among threatened mammals.
| David W. Redding et al. | Biological Conservation | 2019
Evolutionary Distinctiveness and Global Mammal Conservation — Evaluates the contribution of unusually distinct mammal species to conservation prioritization.
| Moreno Di Marco et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2018
Changing Trends and Conservation Priorities for Mammalian Evolutionary History — Relates mammal extinction risk to evolutionary uniqueness and geographic distribution.
| William J. Ripple et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2017
Conserving the World's Megafauna and Their Evolutionary History — Examines how threats to large mammals could eliminate distinctive branches of mammalian evolution.
| Camilo Calderón-Patrón et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Patterns of Mammalian Phylogenetic Diversity in Biodiversity Hotspots — Compares species-rich locations with concentrations of evolutionary history.
| Joaquín Hortal et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2017
Geographic Patterns in Mammalian Evolutionary Diversity — Investigates historical and environmental determinants of present-day mammal phylogenetic structure.
| Matthew J. Grainger et al. | Biological Conservation | 2017
Mammalian Phylogenetic Diversity in Protected-Area Networks — Evaluates how effectively existing reserves capture mammal evolutionary history.
| Arne Ø. Mooers et al. | Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society B | 2015
Evolutionary Distinctiveness in Mammalian Conservation — Reviews the use of evolutionary isolation in determining mammalian conservation priorities.
| Jonathan E. M. Baillie et al. | Conservation Biology | 2013
Evolutionarily Distinct Mammals and Conservation Prioritization — Examines how phylogenetic information can complement extinction risk in mammal conservation.
Amphibians and Reptiles
| Neil Cox et al. | Nature | 2022
A Global Reptile Assessment Highlights Shared Conservation Needs of Tetrapods — Assesses extinction risk across reptiles and considers phylogenetic diversity when evaluating conservation priorities.
| Rikki Gumbs et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2021
Global Conservation Priorities for Reptilian Evolutionary History — Identifies reptile species and regions representing disproportionately large amounts of evolutionary history.
| Rikki Gumbs et al. | Conservation Biology | 2020
The EDGE2 Protocol: Advancing Evolutionary Distinctiveness Conservation Prioritization — Refines approaches for combining evolutionary isolation with extinction probability.
| Uri Roll et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Global Patterns of Reptile Evolutionary Diversity — Maps evolutionary history across reptile assemblages and compares patterns with species richness.
| Shai Meiri et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2019
Conservation of Reptilian Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines geographic and taxonomic differences in threats to reptile evolutionary history.
| John J. Wiens & Carl R. Hutter | Journal of Biogeography | 2018
Phylogenetic Diversity of Amphibian Communities Across Environmental Gradients — Explores environmental drivers of evolutionary community structure.
| Jeffrey W. Streicher et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2017
Amphibian Phylogenetic Diversity and Global Conservation Priorities — Compares amphibian species richness, endemism, and evolutionary history.
| David J. Gower et al. | Proceedings of the Royal Society B | 2016
Conserving Amphibian Evolutionary History — Identifies highly distinctive amphibian lineages vulnerable to extinction.
| Ben Tapley et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2016
Geographic Distribution of Amphibian Evolutionary Distinctiveness — Maps where unusually isolated amphibian lineages occur.
| Jonathan E. M. Baillie et al. | Conservation Biology | 2015
EDGE Amphibians and the Conservation of Evolutionary History — Applies evolutionary-distinctiveness approaches to threatened amphibian species.
Forests and Trees
| Bernhard Schmid et al. | Global Change Biology | 2020
Tree Diversity, Phylogenetic Diversity and Forest Productivity — Examines the extent to which evolutionary diversity contributes to forest productivity.
| Jingjing Liang et al. | Ecology Letters | 2019
Positive Biodiversity–Productivity Relationships in Global Forests — Considers taxonomic and evolutionary components of tree diversity in forest productivity.
| Franziska Schrodt et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Global Patterns of Tree Phylogenetic Diversity — Maps geographic differences in evolutionary diversity among the world's trees.
| Ferry Slik et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2018
Phylogenetic Diversity of Tropical Tree Communities — Investigates how evolutionary history varies among tropical forests.
| Lars Götzenberger et al. | Ecology Letters | 2018
Phylogenetic Diversity and Community Assembly in Forests — Tests how environmental filtering and competition shape evolutionary relationships among trees.
| Nathan G. Swenson et al. | Journal of Ecology | 2018
Phylogenetic Diversity and Tropical Forest Dynamics — Examines relationships between evolutionary community structure, mortality, recruitment, and growth.
| Kyle G. Dexter et al. | Journal of Ecology | 2017
Evolutionary Diversity of Amazonian Tree Communities — Relates Amazon forest composition to evolutionary history and environmental gradients.
| Andreas Prinzing et al. | Ecology Letters | 2016
Benefits of Phylogenetic Diversity to Forest Ecosystems — Investigates whether forests containing distantly related species exhibit complementary ecological functions.
| Nicolas Gross et al. | Journal of Ecology | 2015
Phylogenetic Diversity and Tree Community Productivity — Evaluates the relative contributions of species richness, traits, and evolutionary relationships.
| Kyle G. Dexter et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2015
Dispersal and Environmental Filtering Shape Tropical Tree Phylogenetic Diversity — Explores the ecological and historical processes generating regional tree diversity.
Plant Communities
| William D. Pearse et al. | New Phytologist | 2021
Plant Phylogenetic Diversity Across Global Environmental Gradients — Examines worldwide relationships between evolutionary diversity, climate, and plant community composition.
| Brody Sandel et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2020
Climate Stability and Global Plant Phylogenetic Diversity — Tests whether long-term climatic stability promotes accumulation of evolutionary history.
| Rafael Molina-Venegas et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2019
Plant Phylogenetic Diversity Along Environmental Gradients — Examines climatic and geographic drivers of evolutionary diversity in regional floras.
| Jens-Christian Svenning et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Historical Climate Change and Plant Evolutionary Diversity — Links Quaternary climate change with contemporary geographic patterns of plant PD.
| Tianhua He et al. | New Phytologist | 2018
Fire and the Evolutionary Diversity of Plant Communities — Explores how long-term fire regimes shape the phylogenetic composition of floras.
| Dylan Craven et al. | Ecology Letters | 2018
Phylogenetic Diversity and Plant Community Productivity — Evaluates evolutionary diversity as a predictor of ecosystem biomass production.
| Andrew H. Thornhill et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Spatial Phylogenetics and Conservation of Regional Floras — Uses geographic phylogenetic analysis to identify concentrations of ancient and recently evolved plant lineages.
| Barnabas H. Daru et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2017
Phylogenetic Endemism and Evolutionary Hotspots in Plants — Uses branch-range information to identify areas containing geographically restricted evolutionary history.
| Koenraad Van Meerbeek et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2016
Environmental Drivers of Plant Phylogenetic Diversity — Relates climate, soils, and topography to evolutionary structure in plant assemblages.
| Nathan J. B. Kraft et al. | Journal of Ecology | 2015
Community Assembly and Plant Phylogenetic Diversity — Investigates how ecological filtering and competitive interactions affect relatedness within plant communities.
Insects and Other Invertebrates
| Benoit Guénard et al. | Ecology Letters | 2021
Global Patterns of Ant Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines geographic distributions of evolutionary history within one of the world's most diverse insect groups.
| Evan P. Economo et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2021
Geography of Ant Evolutionary Diversity — Investigates historical and environmental controls on ant phylogenetic diversity.
| Michael G. Branstetter et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2020
Conservation of Bee Phylogenetic Diversity — Identifies evolutionary lineages and geographic regions important for preserving bee evolutionary history.
| Thomas J. Wood et al. | Insect Conservation and Diversity | 2019
Phylogenetic Diversity of Wild Bee Communities — Compares evolutionary community structure across gradients of land-use intensity.
| Benoit Guénard et al. | Ecology Letters | 2019
Global Ant Diversity Through a Phylogenetic Lens — Examines the distribution and assembly of ant evolutionary lineages.
| Emily A. Martin et al. | Ecological Entomology | 2018
Agricultural Intensification and Insect Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates whether human land use filters evolutionarily distinctive insect lineages.
| Marla Spivak et al. | Insect Conservation and Diversity | 2017
Pollinator Conservation and Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines the value of protecting evolutionary diversity within pollinator assemblages.
| Jason P. Harmon et al. | Ecology Letters | 2017
Arthropod Phylogenetic Diversity and Ecosystem Function — Tests whether evolutionary relationships among arthropods predict ecological interactions.
| Matthew J. Forister et al. | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2016
Land-Use Change and Butterfly Phylogenetic Diversity — Investigates whether habitat alteration removes disproportionately distinct butterfly lineages.
| Pedro Cardoso et al. | Insect Conservation and Diversity | 2015
Incorporating Phylogenetic Diversity Into Invertebrate Conservation — Discusses conservation strategies that extend beyond simple invertebrate species counts.
Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems
| David Mouillot et al. | Global Change Biology | 2021
Climate Change Threatens Marine Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Projects how warming and species redistribution could alter marine evolutionary history.
| Loïc Pellissier et al. | Ecology Letters | 2020
Global Reef Fish Phylogenetic Diversity Under Environmental Change — Examines climatic and ecological drivers of evolutionary diversity in coral-reef fishes.
| Florent Leprieur et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2020
Historical and Contemporary Drivers of Marine Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates how evolutionary history and present-day environment interact to structure marine assemblages.
| Flávia M. Carvajal-Quintero et al. | Freshwater Biology | 2019
Human Impacts on Freshwater Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines how dams, habitat modification, and introduced species reshape evolutionary diversity.
| Pablo A. Tedesco et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2019
Global Freshwater Fish Diversity Through a Phylogenetic Lens — Maps patterns of evolutionary history among freshwater fish faunas.
| Julie D. Olden et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2018
Biological Invasions and Freshwater Phylogenetic Homogenization — Examines how introduced fishes make regional faunas evolutionarily more similar.
| Jennifer Sunday et al. | Ecology Letters | 2018
Ocean Warming and Marine Phylogenetic Diversity — Tests whether climate-driven range shifts disproportionately affect particular evolutionary lineages.
| Mariana C. P. Vitule et al. | Freshwater Biology | 2017
Non-Native Fishes and the Loss of Evolutionary Distinctiveness — Evaluates evolutionary consequences of freshwater biological invasions.
| Brian R. MacKenzie et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2017
Global Environmental Gradients in Marine Fish Phylogenetic Diversity — Relates ocean temperature and geography to marine evolutionary history.
| Benjamin S. Halpern et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2016
Marine Protected Areas and Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines whether marine reserves represent the evolutionary diversity of regional species assemblages.
Microbial Phylogenetic Diversity
| Noah Fierer et al. | Nature Microbiology | 2021
Global Patterns of Soil Microbial Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines geographic and environmental determinants of bacterial evolutionary diversity in soils.
| Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo et al. | Nature Communications | 2020
Multiple Elements of Soil Biodiversity Drive Ecosystem Functions Across Biomes — Incorporates microbial taxonomic and phylogenetic diversity into assessments of ecosystem multifunctionality.
| Albert Barberán et al. | Molecular Ecology | 2020
Environmental Filtering of Microbial Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates how environmental gradients structure microbial evolutionary relationships.
| Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo et al. | Nature Ecology & Evolution | 2020
A Global Atlas of the Dominant Bacteria Found in Soil — Provides phylogenetic information useful for understanding large-scale patterns of microbial evolutionary diversity.
| Jonathan W. Leff et al. | Environmental Microbiology | 2019
Land Use and Soil Bacterial Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines evolutionary shifts in microbial communities under agricultural and natural land uses.
| Kelly S. Ramirez et al. | Scientific Reports | 2018
Soil Microbial Phylogenetic Diversity Across Global Ecosystems — Compares microbial evolutionary structure among major terrestrial biomes.
| Noah Fierer et al. | Molecular Ecology | 2018
Cross-Biome Patterns in Microbial Phylogenetic Diversity — Investigates environmental determinants of bacterial and archaeal lineage diversity.
| Kelly S. Ramirez et al. | ISME Journal | 2018
Biogeographic Patterns in Soil Microbial Communities — Examines phylogenetic turnover and community assembly across broad geographic scales.
| Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo et al. | Nature Microbiology | 2017
Microbial Diversity Drives Multifunctionality in Terrestrial Ecosystems — Links microbial biodiversity, including evolutionary diversity, to multiple ecosystem processes.
| Ashley Shade et al. | Environmental Microbiology | 2017
Microbial Community Resilience Through a Phylogenetic Lens — Explores relationships between microbial evolutionary diversity and ecosystem resilience.
Land Use, Disturbance and Restoration
| Various Authors | Conservation Biology | 2026
Strong Variation in Land-Use Change Impacts on Tropical Avian Phylogenetic Diversity Between Ecoregions Highlights the Need to Sample Large Spatial Scales — Shows that deforestation effects on bird evolutionary diversity vary substantially among Colombian ecoregions and spatial scales.
| Tim Newbold et al. | Ecology Letters | 2021
Land-Use Change and Local Phylogenetic Diversity Worldwide — Examines how conversion and intensification of land affect the evolutionary composition of ecological communities.
| Adriana De Palma et al. | Global Change Biology | 2021
Global Changes in Phylogenetic Diversity Under Human Land Use — Evaluates whether land-use pressures disproportionately remove evolutionarily distinct species.
| Ricardo Solar et al. | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2020
Tropical Forest Restoration and Recovery of Phylogenetic Diversity — Examines whether recovering forests regain evolutionary diversity as species return.
| Luke O. Frishkoff et al. | Ecology Letters | 2019
Evolutionary History Shapes Species Responses to Human Land Use — Shows that sensitivity to habitat conversion can be phylogenetically structured.
| Christoph Scherber et al. | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2019
Agricultural Intensification Reduces Multiple Dimensions of Biodiversity — Assesses taxonomic, functional, and phylogenetic responses to agricultural management.
| Tim Newbold et al. | Global Change Biology | 2018
Widespread Loss of Biodiversity Dimensions Under Land-Use Change — Examines global restructuring of species assemblages under human pressures.
| David F. Edwards et al. | Journal of Applied Ecology | 2018
Logged Tropical Forests Retain Substantial Phylogenetic Diversity — Evaluates the evolutionary conservation value of selectively logged tropical forests.
| Luke O. Frishkoff et al. | Ecology Letters | 2017
Climate and Land Use Drive the Phylogenetic Structure of Tropical Communities — Investigates interactions between environmental conditions and evolutionary relationships in human-modified landscapes.
| David P. Edwards et al. | Conservation Letters | 2016
Protecting Degraded Forests for Evolutionary Diversity — Argues that secondary and logged forests can retain important portions of tropical evolutionary history.
Phylogenetic Endemism and Spatial Phylogenetics
| Mishal M. C. Allen et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2021
Spatial Phylogenetics Reveals Centers of Evolutionary Endemism — Uses phylogenetic diversity and branch-range information to distinguish centers of ancient and recent diversification.
| Dan F. Rosauer et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2021
Phylogenetic Endemism for Conservation Prioritization — Evaluates spatial measures that identify geographically restricted branches of evolutionary history.
| Andrew H. Thornhill et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2020
Global Applications of Spatial Phylogenetics — Reviews the increasing use of phylogenetic endemism in identifying conservation priorities.
| Brent D. Mishler et al. | Global Ecology and Biogeography | 2020
Discovering Centers of Paleo-Endemism and Neo-Endemism — Applies spatial phylogenetic techniques to separate regions dominated by old versus newly diversified lineages.
| Dan F. Rosauer et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2019
Phylogenetic Endemism and the Geography of Evolutionary History — Examines geographic patterns in range-restricted evolutionary branches.
| Brent D. Mishler et al. | Diversity and Distributions | 2019
CANAPE and Categorical Analysis of Neo- and Paleo-Endemism — Develops approaches for distinguishing concentrations of evolutionarily young and ancient endemic lineages.
| Nunzio J. Knerr et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2018
Phylogenetic Endemism Across Continental Landscapes — Uses spatial phylogenetics to identify evolutionary hotspots not apparent from species richness alone.
| Brent D. Mishler et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Phylogenetic Diversity and Endemism: Metrics for Conservation — Discusses geographic measures incorporating branch lengths, species ranges, and evolutionary relationships.
| Andrew H. Thornhill et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2017
Identifying Centers of Evolutionary History Through Spatial Phylogenetics — Demonstrates how mapped phylogenies can identify complementary conservation areas.
| Brent D. Mishler et al. | Journal of Biogeography | 2016
Phylogenetic Measures of Biodiversity and Endemism in Conservation Planning — Explores the theoretical and practical value of mapping evolutionary branches rather than species alone.
