Abstract Detail

Biogeography

Lee, Annasophie [1], Nagalingum, Nathalie [2], Nosratinia, Sonia [3], Knerr, Nunzio [4], Miller, Joe [5], Mishler, Brent [6].

Phylogenetic diversity and endemism in Australian conifers.

Conserving global biodiversity is a major challenge. The traditional metrics for measuring biodiversity, species richness and endemism, do not take into account the evolutionary history of life and are thus lacking. Diversity measures based on phylogeny have been developed to address the shortcomings of species richness and species endemism, including phylogenetic diversity (PD), i.e., the path connecting the species in an area on the phylogeny, and phylogenetic endemism (PE), i.e., PD weighted by each species’ range. These metrics provide a more comprehensive view of diversity, as they incorporate the full phylogeny rather than just the terminal branches. Australia is the best model system at present for this type of study due to the advanced state of digitization of herbarium specimens and spatial reference data. Australia also has an especially high diversity of conifers compared to many regions in the world. We created a phylogeny for the 40 endemic species of Australian conifers by downloading matK and rbcL sequences from GenBank as well as sequencing the species for which there were no existing data. Spatial data were downloaded from Australia’s Virtual Herbarium and records of naturalized specimens were deleted. Biodiverse v 0.17 was used to calculate PD, PE and two derived metrics, Relative Phylogenetic Diversity (RPD), i.e., the ratio of PD to the number of species in an area, and Relative Phylogenetic Endemism (RPE), i.e., the ratio of PE to the endemism of species in an area. A randomization test is used to identify regions with significantly high or low levels of PD or PE as compared to what you would expect from the terminal taxa present. The results of these randomizations show that conifer RPD is significantly low on the east coast of Australia, perhaps indicating phylogenetic clustering due to conservation of habitat preference. RPE is significantly high in the same region indicating presence of rare long branches (i.e., paleoendemism). These findings are useful for informing conservation policy-makers.

Broader Impacts:

1 - University of California, Berkeley, 1730 La Loma Ave, Berkeley, California, 94709, United States
2 - Royal Botanic Garden Sydney, National Herbarium of New South Wales, Mrs Macquaries Road, Sydney, NSW, 2000, Australia
3 - University of California, Berkeley, Integrative Biology, 1001 Valley Life Sciences Building, # 2465, Berkeley, California, 94720, United States
4 - Centre for Australian National Biodiversity Research, CSIRO Plant Industry, GPO Box 1600, , Canberra, ACT, 2601, Australia
5 - Centre For Australian National Biodiversity Research, GPO Box 1600, Canberra, N/A, 2601, Australia
6 - University of California, Berkeley, DEPT OF INTEGRATIVE BIOLOGY, 1001 Valley Life Science Building # 2465, Berkeley, CA, 94720-2465, USA

Keywords:
Phylogenetic diversity
phylogenetic endemism.

Presentation Type: Oral Paper:Papers for Topics
Session: 38
Location: Marlborough A/Riverside Hilton
Date: Wednesday, July 31st, 2013
Time: 8:30 AM
Number: 38001
Abstract ID:937
Candidate for Awards:None