Nonrandom extinction and the loss of evolutionary history

Science

Volumn 288, Issue 5464, 2000, Pages 328-330

  Purvis, Andy ^a   Agapow, Paul Michael ^a   Gittleman, John L ^b   Mace, Georgina M ^c  

^a IMPERIAL COLLEGE LONDON   (United Kingdom)

^b UNIVERSITY OF VIRGINIA   (United States)

^c INSTITUTE OF ZOOLOGY   (United Kingdom)

Author keywords

[No Author keywords available]

Indexed keywords

EVOLUTION; EXTINCTION; PHYLOGENY;

ARTICLE; BIODIVERSITY; EVOLUTION; FOWL; HISTORY; MAMMAL; NONHUMAN; PHYLOGENY; PRIORITY JOURNAL; TAXONOMY;

ANIMALS; BIRDS; CARNIVORA; COMPUTER SIMULATION; CONSERVATION OF NATURAL RESOURCES; ECOSYSTEM; EVOLUTION; HUMANS; MAMMALS; PHYLOGENY; PRIMATES; RISK;

AVES; GALLIFORMES; MAMMALIA;

EID: 0034646860     PISSN: 00368075     EISSN: None     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1126/science.288.5464.328     Document Type: Article

References (37)

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9. These two measures are representative of the many that have been proposed (21). Although numbers of species (or higher taxa such as genera) are obvious empirical measures, they do not quantify the evolutionary history represented by the species (22-27). Conversely, PD is a measure of the total amount of evolutionary change that is independent of the number of recognized taxa in a phylogeny.
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13. We did not set a higher threshold because (i) only 2% of birds and 4% of mammals are listed as more threatened than EN and (ii) although it is probably a reasonable approximation that DD species are at least VU or even EN, it is probably unreasonable to assume they are all CR.
14. A total of 208 mammalian and 66 bird species are DD (4.4% and 1%, respectively) (4).
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18. 1 = 89.9, P < 0.001.
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37. We thank J. Baillie, R. Grenyer, N. Isaac, S. Nee, C. Nunn, D. Orme, W. Sechrest, and three anonymous referees for help, comments, and suggestions. This work was supported by the Natural Environment Research Council (NERC) through grant GR3/11526 (A.P. and P.-M.A.) and a fellowship (G.M.M.) and by the National Center for Ecological Analysis and Synthesis (NCEAS) through NSF grant DEB-94-21535 (J.L.G.).