Data from: Phylogenetic diversity is maintained despite richness losses over time in restored tallgrass prairie plant communities

Ecosystem restoration is an important tool for mitigating biodiversity
loss and recovering critical ecosystem services to humanity, but
restoration rarely takes into account the evolutionary attributes of the
community being restored. Phylogenetic diversity (PD) represents a
potentially valuable measure of restoration success because it can
correlate with functional trait diversity that drives ecosystem function.
However, PD patterns in restored communities are rarely assessed. We
surveyed plant communities in restored tallgrass prairies 2–19 years old
and calculated two PD measures, SESMNTD and SESMPD, of the communities and
seed mixture applied to sites. We also identified high-threat exotic
species present in each site to determine whether PD of the seed mixture
applied was related to resistance against invasion. We show that PD in
North American tallgrass prairie restorations, as measured by both SESMNTD
and SESMPD, is maintained over time even as richness declines. Neither the
resulting community PD nor invasion by high-threat exotic species was
affected by PD of the seed mixture used in site restoration. Thus, simply
maximizing PD of seed mixtures without considering the particular
component species is unlikely to help achieve restoration goals. Synthesis
and applications. These results suggest that species losses over time are
not biased towards species with or without close relatives in the
community. If phylogenetic diversity (PD) reflects functional trait
diversity in communities, then local declines in species richness may not
necessarily mean the loss of ecosystem function in restoration projects.
However, PD of restored communities may be limited by low establishment
rates for most species. Conservation practitioners should consider PD with
careful planning to maintain overall community diversity and potentially
maximize ecosystem function and services in restorations. This perspective
will require a deeper understanding of the relationships between
phylogenetic relatedness and traits associated with competition and
fitness.