Clade composition of a plant community indicates its phylogenetic diversity.

ABSTRACT: Phylogenetic diversity quantification is based on indices computed from phylogenetic distances among species, which are derived from phylogenetic trees. This approach requires phylogenetic expertise and available molecular data, or a fully sampled synthesis-based phylogeny. Here, we propose and evaluate a simpler alternative approach based on taxonomic coding. We developed metrics, the clade indices, based on information about clade proportions in communities and species richness of a community or a clade, which do not require phylogenies. Using vegetation records from herbaceous plots from Central Europe and simulated vegetation plots based on a megaphylogeny of vascular plants, we examined fit accuracy of our proposed indices for all dimensions of phylogenetic diversity (richness, diverg

SUBMITTER: Bitomsky M 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC7160181 | biostudies-literature | 2020 Apr

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature