The results revealed that 21.2% of angiosperm evolutionary history — 307 of 1,445 billion years — is currently threatened, in the absence of conservation action.
By ranking species according to avoidable expected loss, the authors also identified 9,945 evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) species, 5,869 of which have IUCN assessments and 4,076 of which do not.
This application of the EDGE approach to global angiosperms creates a practical framework for setting conservation priorities.
Protecting all identified EDGE species, which make up less than 3% of flowering plant diversity, could safeguard 16.6% of threatened angiosperm evolutionary history.
EDGE species also contain a higher proportion of useful species than threatened species, supporting the direct benefits to humanity of conserving evolutionary history.
The researchers reconstructed 200 species-level phylogenetic trees using a DNA-based backbone and imputation methodology, then combined these trees with extinction risk estimates from IUCN Red List categories and Bayesian modelling. The results revealed that 21.2% of angiosperm evolutionary history — 307 of 1,445 billion years — is currently threatened, in the absence of conservation action. These values are higher than those estimated for gymnosperms or for most vertebrate clades. By ranking species according to avoidable expected loss, the authors also identified 9,945 evolutionarily distinct and globally endangered (EDGE) species, 5,869 of which have IUCN assessments and 4,076 of which do not.
This application of the EDGE approach to global angiosperms creates a practical framework for setting conservation priorities. Protecting all identified EDGE species, which make up less than 3% of flowering plant diversity, could safeguard 16.6% of threatened angiosperm evolutionary history. EDGE species also contain a higher proportion of useful species than threatened species, supporting the direct benefits to humanity of conserving evolutionary history.
