Historical biogeography, diversity and conservation of Australia's tropical rainforest herpetofauna

doi:10.1017/CBO9780511614927.011

11 - Historical biogeography, diversity and conservation of Australia's tropical rainforest herpetofauna

Published online by Cambridge University Press: 04 December 2009

Craig Moritz ,

Conrad Hoskin ,

Catherine H. Graham ,

Andrew Hugall and

Adnan Moussalli

Edited by

Andrew Purvis ,

John L. Gittleman and

Thomas Brooks

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Craig Moritz: Affiliation:
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Conrad Hoskin: Affiliation:
Department of Zoology and Entomology, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia
Catherine H. Graham: Affiliation:
Museum of Vertebrate Zoology, University of California at Berkeley, Berkeley, CA 94720, USA
Andrew Hugall: Affiliation:
Department of Zoology and Entomology, The University of Queensland, QLD 4072, Australia
Adnan Moussalli: Affiliation:
Department of Zoology and Entomology, The University of Queensland, QLD 2072, Australia
Andrew Purvis: Affiliation:
Imperial College of Science, Technology and Medicine, London
John L. Gittleman: Affiliation:
University of Virginia
Thomas Brooks: Affiliation:
Conservation International, Washington DC

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Summary

INTRODUCTION

Faced with a combination of increasing degradation of habitats and sparse knowledge of species and their distributions, biologists are struggling to find ways of predicting spatial patterns of diversity and then to devise effective strategies for conservation. Area-based conservation planning typically applies complementarity algorithms to identify one or more combinations of areas that effectively represent the known pattern of species diversity (Margules & Pressey 2000). Usually, high-quality distribution data are available for only a limited number of taxonomic groups (e.g. trees, birds, butterflies), so geographic patterns of diversity in these groups must act as a ‘surrogate’ for those of other taxa. Even this level of knowledge may be lacking for some areas, or at finer spatial scales, leading to the use of environmental (e.g. climate, soil, etc.) data in addition to, or in place of, species' occurrence information (Ferrier 2002; see also Faith et al. 2001). The efficiency of such surrogates appears to vary, especially at the finer spatial scales relevant to most conservation planning efforts (see, for example, van Jaarsveld et al. 1998; Moritz et al. 2001; Lund & Rahbeck 2002).

Even where the geographic pattern of species diversity is known or can be predicted from other taxa, species-based conservation plans may be ineffective at capturing genetic diversity within and across species (Crozier 1997; Moritz 2002). In this context, attention has been given to using evolutionary trees to estimate the phylogenetic diversity (PD) (Faith 1992) represented by a given set of species or areas.

Type: Chapter
Information: Phylogeny and Conservation , pp. 243 - 264

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511614927.011 [Opens in a new window]

Publisher: Cambridge University Press

Print publication year: 2005

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11 - Historical biogeography, diversity and conservation of Australia's tropical rainforest herpetofauna

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