We have a new paper out in Nature Climate Change that combines Species Distribution Models (SDMs), climate change and phylogenetic diversity metrics. This is very exciting as it is the first paper from our PD working group.
Some highlights:
-We explore the effect of climate change on various PD metrics (including endemism-based metrics) for all eucalypts across Australia. Eucalypts are stand dominants in many forests across the continent and are also of course inherently awesome.
-We present the first complete phylogenetic tree for eucalypts (657 species)
-We include SDMs for dispersal and no-dispersal scenarios for all species for the present and future projections (more on the models soon..)
-The results? Overall, there is a loss of PD within cells as well as between cells- so an increasingly homogenous PD landscape. Rare, ancient lineages are the most impacted, and some areas, such as the Kimberley Region will likely be increasingly important refugia for PD. The southern coastline is an important reservoir of both ‘old’ and ‘young’ lineages. This distinction is important as we might value old and young lineages for different reasons from a conservation perspective.
Quantitative Biodiversity Lab 