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Revisiting the Darwinian shortfall in biodiversity conservation

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Abstract

Among the seven shortfalls of biodiversity knowledge, the one that makes direct reference to phylogenetic information is the Darwinian shortfall, which embraces three components: “(1) the lack of fully resolved phylogenies for most groups of organisms; (2) the limited knowledge of branch lengths and difficulties in absolute time calibrations; and (3) unknown evolutionary models linking those phylogenies to ecological traits and the life-history variation” (Diniz-Filho et al. in Trends Ecol Evol 28:689–694, 2013). In order to overcome them, Diniz-Filho et al. (Trends Ecol Evol 28:689–694, 2013) emphasized the need to know the problems relative to phylogeny reconstruction, but they did not provide a clear comprehension of these problems. In the present article, I aim to comment on these problems in the context of the five epistemic stages of phylogenetic analysis. These are: (1) taxon sampling; (2) evidence; (3) homology assessment; (4) optimization methods; and (5) hypotheses formulation. A brief review of these stages is necessary to comprehend how complex is the use of phylogenetic hypotheses in ecology and conservation. I also provide additional and balanced solutions in an attempt to overcome the evolutionary shortfall.

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Acknowledgements

I thank Andrew Brower, José A.F. Diniz-Filho, Joaquín Hortal, and an anonymous referee for providing helpful comments on early draft of this article. This does not imply they totally agree with me. I hope our points of view stimulate a critical reflection on the use phylogenetic hypotheses in ecology and conservation.

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  1. Departamento de Botânica, Instituto de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais, Belo Horizonte, MG, 31270-901, Brazil

    Leandro C. S. Assis

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Communicated by David Hawksworth.

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Assis, L.C.S. Revisiting the Darwinian shortfall in biodiversity conservation. Biodivers Conserv 27, 2859–2875 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10531-018-1573-3

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