Combining phylogenetic rarity with species distribution and abundance for conservation: Applying the 'calculus of biodiversity' in Canadian butterflies.

摘要

Estimates of evolutionary rarity are important adjuncts to traditional parameters of biological rarity (distribution and abundance). I develop a taxonomic-based method for estimating ranked phylogenetic-abundance, using z-scores from natural-log-transformed species numbers at the sub-family level, for the two major superfamilies of Lepidoptera: Hesperioidea and Papilionoidea. These five categories of phylo-abundance were combined with equivalent estimates of geographic distribution and abundance ('geo-rarity'), at both global and sub-national (regional) scales using the Canadian butterflies (N=293 species). The model for prioritization used all nine possible combinations, (including global and regional, phylogenetic and geographic abundance values) gave priority co-equally to global geo-rarity and phylo-rarity, and then secondarily to regional rarity. Papilio brevicauda (Papilionidae) is Canada's overall highest priority for conservation (Group A). Evaluation of life history features revealed that wing span (increasing) dominates the discriminant function for global phylo-rarity and monophagy (presence) and sub-species numbers (decreasing) are discriminant functions for global geo-rarity.