Biodiversity Science: Open Access: Biodiversity Conservation and Phylogenetic Systematics

Biological conservation has oft been hampered by those who have maintained that priorities for action should only be established using approaches that are easily understood by the general public. The same demand has not been made in many other arenas of human endeavor (e.g. medicine, nuclear power), and neither should it constrain biological conservation. That said, there does remain a substantial challenge of encouraging an informed citizenry around the justification and goals of

using a phylogenetic diversity approach, and gaining their support. Only by so doing will there be a genuine chance of aligning the multitude of biodiversity-critical decisions being made each and every day across the continents and oceans.

This is an excerpt from the introduction to a new book in the Springer Series Topics in Biodiversity and Conservation. The good news - the entire book is open access available either as full pdf or even as epub (which I just uploaded on my iPad). Of course you can also just download individual chapters:

Phylogenetics and Conservation Biology: Drawing a Path into the Diversity of Life

Roseli Pellens, Philippe Grandcolas

The Value of Phylogenetic Diversity

Christopher Lean, James Maclaurin

The PD Phylogenetic Diversity Framework: Linking Evolutionary History to Feature Diversity for Biodiversity Conservation

Daniel P. Faith

Reconsidering the Loss of Evolutionary History: How Does Non-random Extinction Prune the Tree-of-Life?

Kowiyou Yessoufou, T. Jonathan Davies

Phylogenetics and Conservation in New Zealand: The Long and the Short of It

Steven A. Trewick, Mary Morgan-Richards

What Is the Meaning of Extreme Phylogenetic Diversity? The Case of Phylogenetic Relict Species

Philippe Grandcolas, Steven A. Trewick