Biodiversity comparison among phylogenetic diversity metrics and between three North American prairies

Protection of Earth's ecosystems requires identification of geographical areas of greatest biodiversity. Assessment of biodiversity begins with knowledge of the evolutionary histories of species in a geographic area. Multiple phylogenetic diversity (PD) metrics have been developed to describe biodiversity beyond species counts, but sufficient empirical studies, particularly at fine phylogenetic scales, have not been conducted to provide conservation planners with evidence for incorporating PD metrics into selection of priority regions. We review notable studies that are contributing to a growing database of empirical results, we report on the effect of using high-throughput sequencing to estimate the phylogenies used to calculate PD metrics, and we discuss difficulties in selecting appropriate diversity indices. We focused on two of the most speciose angiosperm families in prairies—Asteraceae and Fabaceae—and compared 12 PD metrics and four traditional measures of biodiversity between t...

保护地球生态系统需明确生物多样性最为富集的地理区域。生物多样性评估的起点，是掌握某一地理区域内物种种系的演化历史。目前已开发出多种系统发育多样性（phylogenetic diversity，PD）指标，用以突破物种数量的局限描述生物多样性，但尚未开展足够的实证研究——尤其是精细系统发育尺度下的相关研究——无法为保护规划者将PD指标纳入优先保护区域遴选工作提供科学支撑。本文综述了一批正在为日益增长的实证结果数据库贡献数据的重要研究，报告了利用高通量测序估算用于计算PD指标的系统发育树所产生的影响，并探讨了遴选合适多样性指数时面临的诸多难点。本研究聚焦于草原生态系统中物种最为丰富的两个被子植物科——菊科（Asteraceae）与豆科（Fabaceae）——并对12种PD指标与4种传统生物多样性测度方法进行了比较……