Assessing biodiversity and endemism using phylogenetic methods across multiple taxonomic groups

Biodiversity concordance and the importance of endemism.

Global conservation prioritization often focuses on protecting the most species for the money invested (e.g., Myers et al. 2000; Orme et al. 2005; Wilson et al. 2006). Biodiversity hotspots and surrogate species are heralded as promising approaches for achieving this goal (e.g., Rodrigues et al. 2004; Bani et al. 2006; Lamoreux et al. 2006). Although identifying biodiversity hotspots (Myers et ...

Assessing biodiversity intactness at multiple scales

The Southern Africa Millennium Ecosystem Assessment developed an index for quantifying the state of biodiversity. The Biodiversity Intactness Index (BII) operates at the species level, and is based on changes in species abundance, rather than changes in richness brought about by extinction. The BII uses spatial data on species richness and land use activities per ecosystem type to weight estima...

Ciliate Biodiversity and Phylogenetic Reconstruction Assessed by Multiple Molecular Markers

Evaluation of Filtration and DNA Extraction Methods for Environmental DNA Biodiversity Assessments across Multiple Trophic Levels

Citation: Djurhuus A, Port J, Closek CJ, Yamahara KM, Romero-Maraccini O, Walz KR, Goldsmith DB, Michisaki R, Breitbart M, Boehm AB and Chavez FP (2017) Evaluation of Filtration and DNA Extraction Methods for Environmental DNA Biodiversity Assessments across Multiple Trophic Levels. Front. Mar. Sci. 4:314. doi: 10.3389/fmars.2017.00314 Evaluation of Filtration and DNA Extraction Methods for Env...

Dynamics of extinction debt across five taxonomic groups

Species extinction following habitat loss is well documented. However, these extinctions do not happen immediately. The biodiversity surplus (extinction debt) declines with some delay through the process of relaxation. Estimating the time constants of relaxation, mainly the expected time to first extinction and the commonly used time for half the extinction debt to be paid off (half-life), is c...