Conserving evolutionarily distinct species is critical to safeguard human well-being.

ABSTRACT: Although there is growing interest in safeguarding the Tree of Life to preserve the human benefits that are directly provided by biodiversity, their evolutionary distribution remains unknown, which has hampered our understanding of the potential of phylodiversity indicators to evince them. Here, I drew on a global review of plant benefits and comprehensive phylogenetic information to breakdown their evolutionary distribution and thereby show why the commonly used Phylogenetic Diversity and Evolutionary Distinctiveness indicators can unequivocally help to preserve these natural services. Beneficial species clumped within phylogenetically overdispersed genera and closely related species often contributed very few and redundant benefits, suggesting that multiple plant lineages are required to

SUBMITTER: Molina-Venegas R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC8683420 | biostudies-literature | 2021 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature