Phylogeny and conservation

Andy Purvis; John L. Gittleman; Thomas Brooks

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614927.001

1 - Phylogeny and conservation

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009

Andy Purvis ,

John L. Gittleman and

Thomas Brooks

Edited by

Andrew Purvis ,

John L. Gittleman and

Thomas Brooks

Show author details

Andy Purvis: Affiliation:
Reader in Biodiversity, Department of Biological Sciences, Imperial College London, Silwood Park Campus, Ascot, Berks SL5 7PY, UK
John L. Gittleman: Affiliation:
Professor of Biology, Department of Biology, Gilmer Hall, University of Virginia, Charlottesville, VA 22904, USA
Thomas Brooks: Affiliation:
Head of the Conservation Synthesis Department, Conservation Synthesis Department, Center for Applied Biodiversity Science, Conservation International, 1919 M St, NW Suite 600, Washington, DC 20036, USA
Andrew Purvis: Affiliation:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
John L. Gittleman: Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Thomas Brooks: Affiliation:
Conservation International, Washington DC

Book contents

Get access

Summary

WHY A BOOK ON PHYLOGENY AND CONSERVATION?

Of the many sub-fields of biology, phylogenetics and conservation biology are two of the fastest growing. On the one hand, the explosion of phylogenetics – the study of evolutionary history – has been stimulated over the past two decades by the emergence of new molecular methods and statistical techniques for modelling the tree of life. DNA sequence data are now typically freely available through public-access databases such as GENBANK, and much software for phylogeny estimation is cheap and easy to use. On the other hand, the tree of life is being heavily pruned by human activities; this pruning has helped to drive the emergence of the applied discipline of conservation biology.

Bibliometric data provide a rough-and-ready way to summarise the growth in the two disciplines. There was an exponential increase in the number of papers in both fields between 1992 and 2003, as shown by a search of the Science Citation Index with the keywords ‘conservation biology’ and ‘phylogen*’. According to these searches (other terms would give slightly different results), numbers of papers in each discipline are growing at about 12%. The growth rate of the intersection set – papers linking conservation biology and phylogenetics – is slightly (although non-significantly) lower at 10.4%. Numbers of papers found by a search for ‘phylogen*’ in four conservation journals (Conservation Biology, Biological Conservation, Biodiversity and Conservation and Animal Conservation) over the same period have increased at about the same rate (13%) as phylogenetics papers overall.

Type: Chapter
Information: Phylogeny and Conservation , pp. 1 - 16

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614927.001 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Agapow, P.-M., Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P., Crandall, K. A., Gittleman, J. L., Mace, G. M., Marshall, J. C. & Purvis, A. 2004 The impact of species concept on biodiversity studies. Quarterly Review of Biology 79, 161–79CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Avise, J. C. 2000 Phylogeography: the History and Formation of Species. Cambridge: Harvard University PressGoogle Scholar

Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P. 2004 The evolution of supertrees. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 316–22CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P., Gittleman, J. L. & Purvis, A. 1999 Building large trees by combining phylogenetic information: a complete phylogeny of the extant Carnivora (Mammalia). Biological Reviews 19, 143–75CrossRef Google Scholar

Cardillo, M., Purvis, A., Sechrest, W., Gittleman, J. L., Bielby, J. & Mace, G. M. 2004 Human population density and extinction risk in the world's carnivores. PLoS Biology 19, 909–13Google Scholar

Cracraft, J. 1983 Species concepts and speciation analysis. Current Ornithology 19, 159–87CrossRef Google Scholar

Crandall, K. A., Bininda-Emonds, O. R. P., Mace, G. M. & Wayne, R. K. 2000 Considering evolutionary processes in conservation biology: an alternative to ‘Evolutionarily Significant Units’. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 290–5CrossRef Google Scholar

Davies, T. J., Barraclough, T. G., Chase, M. W., Soltis, P. S., Soltis, D. E. & Savolainen, V. 2004 Darwin's abominable mystery: insights from a supertree of angiosperms. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 19, 1904–9CrossRef Google Scholar

Faith, D. P. 1992 Conservation evaluation and phylogenetic diversity. Biological Conservation 19, 1–10CrossRef Google Scholar

Felsenstein, J. 2004 Inferring Phylogenies. Sunderland, MA: SinauerGoogle Scholar

Fisher, D. O., Blomberg, S. P. & Owens, I. P. F. 2003 Extrinsic versus intrinsic factors in the decline and extinction of Australian marsupials. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B19, 1801–8CrossRef Google Scholar

Fisher, D. O. & Owens, I. P. F. 2004 The comparative method in conservation biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 391–8CrossRef Google Scholar PubMed

Gaston, K. J. 2000 Global patterns in biodiversity. Nature 19, 220–7CrossRef Google Scholar

Harvey, P. H., Brown, Leigh A. J., Smith, Maynard J. & Nee, S. (Eds.) 1996 New Uses For New Phylogenies. Oxford: Oxford University PressGoogle Scholar

Hey, J. 2001 The mind of the species problem. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 326–9CrossRef Google Scholar

Isaac, N. J. B. & Cowlishaw, G. 2004 How species respond to multiple extinction threats. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B19, 1135–41CrossRef Google Scholar

Jones, K. E., Purvis, A. & Gittleman, J. L. 2003 Biological correlates of extinction risk in bats. American Naturalist 19, 601–14CrossRef Google Scholar

Mace, G. M. & Balmford, A. 2000 Patterns and processes in contemporary mammalian extinction. In Future Priorities for the Conservation of Mammalian Diversity (ed. Entwhistle, A. & Dunstone, N.), pp. 27–52. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press

Mace, G. M., Gittleman, J. L. & Purvis, A. 2003 Preserving the Tree of Life. Science 19, 1707–9CrossRef Google Scholar

Margules, C. R. & Pressey, R. L. 2000 Systematic conservation planning. Nature 19, 243–53CrossRef Google Scholar

Mayden, R. L. 1997 A hierarchy of species concepts: the denouement in the saga of the species problem. In Species: The Units of Biodiversity (ed. Claridge, M. F., Dawah, H. A. & Wilson, M. R.), pp. 381–424. London: Chapman and Hall

Mittermeier, R. A., Gil, Robles P. & Mittermeier, C. G. 1998 Megadiversity: Earth's Biologically Wealthiest Nations. Mexico City: CEMEXGoogle Scholar

Mooers, A. Ø. & Heard, S. B. 1997 Evolutionary process from phylogenetic tree shape. Quarterly Review of Biology 19, 31–54CrossRef Google Scholar

Nee, S. & May, R. M. 1997 Extinction and the loss of evolutionary history. Science 19, 692–4CrossRef Google Scholar

Purvis, A. 1995 A composite estimate of primate phylogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B19, 405–21CrossRef Google Scholar

Purvis, A., Agapow, P.-M., Gittleman, J. L. & Mace, G. M. 2000 Nonrandom extinction risk and the loss of evolutionary history. Science 19, 328–30CrossRef Google Scholar

Rosenzweig, M. L. 2001 Loss of speciation rate will impoverish future diversity. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA 19, 5404–10CrossRef Google Scholar

Russell, G. J., Brooks, T. M., McKinney, M. M. & Anderson, C. G. 1998 Present and future taxonomic selectivity in bird and mammal extinctions. Conservation Biology 19, 1365–76CrossRef Google Scholar

Sanderson, M. J., Purvis, A. & Henze, C. 1998 Phylogenetic supertrees: assembling the tree of life. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 105–9CrossRef Google Scholar

Schwartz, M. W. & Simberloff, D. 2001 Taxon size predicts rates of rarity in vascular plants. Ecology Letters 19, 464–9CrossRef Google Scholar

Sites, J. W. & Marshall, J. C. 2003 Delimiting species: a Renaissance issue in systematic biology. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 19, 462–70CrossRef Google Scholar

Stam, E. 2002 Does imbalance in phylogenies reflect only bias?Evolution 19, 1292–5CrossRef Google Scholar

Thomas, C. D., Cameron, A., Green, R. E.et al. 2004 Extinction risk from climate change. Nature 19, 145–8CrossRef Google Scholar

Vane-Wright, R. I., Humphries, C. J. & Williams, P. H. 1991 What to protect? Systematics and the agony of choice. Biological Conservation 19, 235–54CrossRef Google Scholar

Euler, F. 2001 Selective extinction and rapid loss of evolutionary history in the bird fauna. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B19, 127–30CrossRef Google Scholar

Webb, T. J. & Gaston, K. J. 2003 On the heritability of geographic range size. American Naturalist 19, 553–66CrossRef Google Scholar

Webb, T. J., Kershaw, M. & Gaston, K. J. 2001 Rarity and phylogeny in birds. In Biotic Homogenization (ed. Lockwood, J. L. & McKinney, M. L.), pp. 57–80. New York: Kluwer Academic/Plenum PressCrossRef

Wheeler, Q. G. 2004 Taxonomic triage and the poverty of phylogeny. Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society of London B19, 571–83CrossRef Google Scholar

Wheeler, Q. G., Raven, P. H. & Wilson, E. O. 2004 Taxonomy: impediment or expedient?Science 19, 285CrossRef Google Scholar

Williams, P. H. & Araújo, M. B. 2002 Apples, oranges and probabilities: integrating multiple factors into biodiversity conservation with consistency. Environmental Modeling and Assessment 19, 139–51CrossRef Google Scholar

Williams, S. E., Bolitho, E. E. & Fox, S. 2003 Climate change in Australian tropical rainforests: an impending environmental catastrophe. Proceedings of the Royal Society of London B19, 1887–92CrossRef Google Scholar

Willis, J. C. 1922 Age and Area. Cambridge: Cambridge University PressGoogle Scholar

Wilson, E. O. 2002 The Future of Life. New York: KnopfGoogle Scholar

Book contents

1 - Phylogeny and conservation

Summary

Access options

References

Save book to Kindle

Save book to Dropbox

Save book to Google Drive