Reintroductions of birds and mammals involve evolutionarily distinct species at the regional scale.

ABSTRACT: Reintroductions offer a powerful tool for reversing the effects of species extirpation and have been increasingly used over recent decades. However, this species-centered conservation approach has been criticized for its strong biases toward charismatic birds and mammals. Here, we investigated whether reintroduced species can be representative of the phylogenetic diversity within these two groups at a continental scale (i.e., Europe, North and Central America). Using null models, we found that reintroduced birds and mammals of the two subcontinents tend to be more evolutionarily distinct than expected by chance, despite strong taxonomic biases leading to low values of phylogenetic diversity. While evolutionary considerations are unlikely to have explicitly driven the allocation of reintrod

SUBMITTER: Thevenin C 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC5879658 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature