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Should Global Conservation Initiatives Prioritize Phylogenetic Diversity?

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Abstract

Some recent conservation proposals – including the Zoological Society of London’s (ZSL) EDGE of Existence programme – have focused on the value of protecting species with high evolutionary distinctiveness, a dimension of biodiversity conservation that’s not been much emphasized in conservation practice. In this paper we critically examine this strategy, investigating whether there are good reasons for prioritizing evolutionarily distinctive species, and the phylogenetic diversity to which they contribute, over other forms of biodiversity. We first discuss evolutionary distinctiveness, its relationship to phylogenetic diversity, how phylogenetic diversity can be measured, and intuitive thoughts about its value. Then we consider five kinds of arguments about the value of phylogenetic diversity that might be made to support prioritizing it, given its current lack of emphasis in conservation practice. These are: arguments based on protecting biodiversity, arguments based on option value, arguments based on ecological resilience, arguments based on historical value, and arguments based on aesthetic value. We maintain that these arguments, taken individually, offer varying degrees of fairly weak support for valuing species with high evolutionary distinctiveness. Taken together, however, these arguments seem sufficiently strong to justify programs such as EDGE, insofar as such programs are framed as correctives to a past lack of emphasis on the protection of phylogenetic diversity. We suggest, however, that these arguments are not sufficiently strong to support an absolute prioritization of phylogenetic diversity over protecting other forms of biodiversity.

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Fig. 1

Adapted from Isaac et al (2007)

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Notes

  1. https://www.iucn.org/resources/conservation-tools/iucn-red-list-threatened-species

  2. Isaac et al (2007) proposed the technique for mammalian conservation priorities, but it’s been extended to include other classes.

  3. http://www.edgeofexistence.org/species/hooded-grebe/

  4. We recognize that there will be disputes about these categories; hopefully the point makes general sense in any case.

  5. https://www.zsl.org/conservation/regions/asia/chinese-giant-salamander-conservation

  6. Bennett et al., 2019 and Tucket et al. 2019 contend that we can predict future evolutionary potential, but that it isn’t strongly correlated with phylogenetic diversity.

  7. https://thebulletin.org/doomsday-clock/

  8. With respect to the very long time span scenario, we’d also need to construct independent ethical arguments about why the earth’s ecology after thousands of years—potentially without human beings—should assume any particular kind of shape (though see Nolt, 2011). Since it seems highly unlikely that, in the next 100 years or so, the world will need species with high evolutionary distinctiveness for the purpose of ecological resilience, this version of the resilience argument is an extremely weak argument for prioritizing their protection over the species low in evolutionary distinctiveness that are successful today. Also, someone might object that as the timescale increases, the odds of a species with high evolutionary distinctiveness being important for ecological resilience increase. However, it’s also the case that as the timescale increases, the odds of a species with high evolutionary distinctiveness going extinct despite (or even more depressingly, because of) human efforts increases, which seems to balance out the (evolutionary) expected utility calculation.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Philosophy, Texas A&M University, College Station, TX, 77843, USA

    Clare Palmer

  2. Department of Philosophy, Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

    Bob Fischer

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Palmer, C., Fischer, B. Should Global Conservation Initiatives Prioritize Phylogenetic Diversity?. Philosophia 50, 2283–2302 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11406-021-00422-7

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