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Phylodiversity indices are increasingly used in spatial analyses of biodiversity, driven largely by the increased availability of phylogenetic trees and the tools to analyse them. Such analyses are integral to understanding evolutionary history and deciding where to allocate conservation resources.

Phylogenetic Indices: The Current Favourites

The most commonly used phylogenetic index is Faith’s Phylogenetic Diversity (PD; Faith 1992). PD is the phylogenetic analogue of taxon richness and is expressed as the number of tree units which are found in a sample.

More recently developed phylodiversity indices adapt the calculation of PD by adjusting the branch lengths of a sample using the local lineage range sizes and abundances, for example Phylogenetic Endemism (PE) and Abundance weighted Evolutionary Diversity (AED_t). In PE the length of each branch in a sample is multiplied by the fraction of its total geographic range found in that sample. The AED_t index uses the same general approach, but weights each branch by the fraction of total abundances found in the sample. The weighting process is generic, so one can scale the branch lengths by any relevant factor, for example the threat status (Faith 2015). Continue reading →