Global and local evolutionary and ecological distinctiveness of terrestrial mammals: Identifying priorities across scales

Abstract

Aim: Species' ecological traits and evolutionary relatedness have gained attention in the scientific community for their important roles in the functioning and stability of ecosystems. However, conservation science is in urgent need of methods that integrate both ecological and evolutionary components of biodiversity into conservation strategies for threatened species. Here, we propose an approach to identify and locate 'ecologically and evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered' species (EcoEDGE) at broad and fine geographical scales. Location: Global. Methods: We used phylogeny and life-history traits to calculate evolutionary and ecological distinctiveness values of terrestrial mammals. We combined these values into one measure, EcoEDGE, which also considers species' threat status. Then, we correlated values of ecological and evolutionary distinctiveness (ED) and mapped the geographical distribution of species to locate regions with high number of mammals with great EcoEDGE scores. We also identified and located areas with high number of mammals that are highly distinct across most local assemblages in which they occur. Results: Ecological and ED tended to be complementary to each other rather than redundant. Evolutionarily distinct threatened species were mostly concentrated in the tropics, while ecologically distinct threatened species were distributed across tropical and temperate regions. In addition, both ecologically and evolutionarily distinct threatened species overlapped their distributions with biodiversity hotspots, including the Atlantic forest, the Cerrado, Indo-Burma and Sundaland. Mammals with great EcoEDGE scores were concentrated in the tropics, but because they retained patterns from ecologically distinct species, their distribution stretched into temperate regions. Moreover, Africa, Australia and Indo-Malayan regions held a great number of mammals with unique ecological and evolutionary roles in the local assemblages where they occur. Main conclusions: Ecologically and evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered builds upon existing strategies that include ecological traits into a species-focused prioritization approach and, thus, further informs conservation of ecosystem processes and services at multiple geographical scales.