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 re...