Data from: The homogenisation of avian morphological and phylogenetic diversity under the global extinction crisis.

Data supporting manuscript: Hughes, E.C., Edwards, D.P. & Thomas, G.H. The homogenisation of avian morphological and phylogenetic diversity under the global extinction crisis. Current Biology. SUMMARY Biodiversity is facing a global extinction crisis that will reduce ecological trait diversity, evolutionary history, and ultimately ecosystem functioning and services. A key challenge is understanding how species losses will impact morphological and phylogenetic diversity at global scale. Here, we test whether the loss of species threatened with extinction according to the IUCN leads to morphological and phylogenetic homogenisation across both the whole avian class, and within each biome and ecoregion globally. We use a comprehensive set of continuous morphological traits extracted from museum collections of 8455 bird species, including geometric morphometric beak shape data,9 and sequentially remove species from those at most to least threat of extinction. We find evidence of morphological, but not phylogenetic, homogenisation across the avian class, with species becoming more alike in terms of their morphology. We find that most biome and ecoregions are expected to lose morphological diversity at a greater rate than predicted by species loss alone, with the most imperilled regions found in East Asia and the Himalayan uplands and foothills. Only a small proportion of assemblages are threatened with phylogenetic homogenisation, in particular parts of Indochina. Species extinctions will lead to a major loss of avian ecological strategies, but not a comparable loss of phylogenetic diversity. As the decline of species with unique traits and their replacement with more widespread generalist species continues, the protection of assemblages at most risk of morphological and phylogenetic homogenisation should be a key conservation priority.

支撑该论文的数据：作者为Hughes, E.C.、Edwards, D.P.与Thomas, G.H.，论文题为《全球灭绝危机下鸟类形态多样性与系统发育多样性的同质化》，发表于《当代生物学（Current Biology）》。
摘要
生物多样性正面临全球性灭绝危机，该危机将削弱生态功能性状多样性（ecological trait diversity）、演化历史（evolutionary history），并最终损害生态系统功能与服务（ecosystem functioning and services）。当前一项核心挑战在于阐明物种丧失将如何在全球尺度上影响形态多样性与系统发育多样性。本研究针对根据国际自然保护联盟（International Union for Conservation of Nature, IUCN）评定的受威胁物种的丧失，是否会在整个鸟纲以及全球各生物群区（biome）与生态区域（ecoregion）内引发形态同质化与系统发育同质化展开了检验。研究使用了从8455种鸟类的馆藏标本中提取的一套完整连续形态性状数据，其中包含几何形态测量法（geometric morphometric）获得的喙形数据[9]，并按照灭绝威胁程度从高到低依次移除对应物种。研究结果显示，整个鸟纲出现了形态同质化现象，但未出现系统发育同质化，即鸟类物种间的形态相似度有所提升。研究发现，相较于仅通过物种丧失所预测的结果，绝大多数生物群区与生态区域的形态多样性丧失速率更快，其中受威胁最严重的区域位于东亚以及喜马拉雅山地与山麓地带。仅有极小部分物种集合面临系统发育同质化风险，尤以印度支那部分区域为甚。物种灭绝将导致鸟类生态策略的大幅丧失，但不会引发同等规模的系统发育多样性损失。随着具备独特性状的物种数量不断减少，并被分布更广的广适性物种所取代，对形态与系统发育同质化风险最高的物种集合开展保护，应当成为保护工作的核心优先事项。