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Global Priorities for Conserving the Evolutionary History of Sharks, Rays, and Chimaeras

Resource type
Date created
2018-01-18
Abstract
In an era of accelerated biodiversity loss and limited conservation resources, systematic prioritization of species and places is essential. In terrestrial vertebrates, evolutionary distinctness has been used to identify species and locations that embody the greatest share of evolutionary history. We estimate evolutionary distinctness for a large marine vertebrate radiation on a dated taxon-complete tree for all 1,192 chondrichthyan fishes (sharks, rays and chimaeras) by augmenting a new 610-species molecular phylogeny using taxonomic constraints. Chondrichthyans are by far the most evolutionarily distinct of all major radiations of jawed vertebrates—the average species embodies 26 million years of unique evolutionary history. With this metric, we identify 21 countries with the highest richness, endemism and evolutionary distinctness of threatened species as targets for conservation prioritization. On average, threatened chondrichthyans are more evolutionarily distinct—further motivating improved conservation, fisheries management and trade regulation to avoid significant pruning of the chondrichthyan tree of life.
Document
Identifier
DOI: 10.1038/s41559-017-0448-4
Published as
Stein RW, Mull CG, Kuhn TS, Aschliman NC, Davidson LNK, Joy JB, Smith GJ, Dulvy NK, Mooers AØ. 2018. Global priorities for conserving the evolutionary history of sharks, rays, and chimaeras. Nature Ecology and Evolution2:288–298.https://www.dx.doi.org/10.1038/s41559-017-0448-4
Publication title
Nature Ecology and Evolution
Document title
Global priorities for conserving the evolutionary history of sharks, rays, and chimaeras
Date
2018
First page
288
Last page
298
Publisher DOI
10.1038/s41559-017-0448-4
Copyright statement
Copyright is held by the author(s).
Scholarly level
Peer reviewed?
Yes
Language
English
Member of collection
Download file Size
Dulvy-NK-July2018.pdf 2.04 MB

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