Phylogeny and Conservation

[Stuart G. Poss]

I would like to respond in support of Dr. Kaufman's observations,
particularly for marine systems in which we have relatively limited
knowledge of how well traditional estimates of "phenotypes" reflect
underlying, but largely unstudied, genetic variation.

In my opinion, attempting to distinguish molecular and phenotypic or
perhaps even phylogentic vs. ecological/habitat evidence in assessing
conservation strategies is not particularly meaningful, since we really
don't have one kind of evidence without the others.  Certainly making
selections based on "most interesting/favorite taxa" alone, or "most
interest/favorite habitats", or "most interesting/favorite method of
analysis" alone would hardly be wise, since we must better understand
how species or groups of species targeted for conservation are likely to
respond to expected environmental changes (mostly anthropogenic in
origin in the near term), if our conservation strategies are to be
successful.  Clearly, information about phylogeny, genetic variation,
and ecological roles are all important in making such decisions.

Presumably, the outcomes of our experiments at conservation of
biodiversity with respect to individual species will largely be very
complex functions of what taxa are involved, what variability they now
possess, what phylogenetic baggage they bring that limits phenotypic
(including physiological) responses to change, and what stochastic
processes are relevant.

I believe that to maximize success, as measured by more biodiversity
conserved, we must build more interdisciplinary bridges between workers
pursuing molecular/phenotypic studies and ecologists/conservation
biologists across all taxa an disciplines, rather than futilely
attempting to decide which approach is more meaningful to conservation,
irrespective what level of resources we have to work with.  However, my
own personal bias would be toward broad habitat conservation, since our
knowledge of included taxa still remains probably too fragmentary or too
biased for economic/cultural/political reasons to provide a good basis
for sampling either by taxon/phylogeny.  Not being a coleopteran,
composite, nematode, or microbe, I shudder at the potential outcome of
statistically sampling by taxon/clade.

While the question of whether we have sufficient available resources is
critical as well as difficult, the question of how much time we have
left to to figure out "what we need to conserve" is also of the
essence.  Rough estimates of how fast species/habitats are being lost,
suggest that for a signficant fraction of total biodiversity, we don't
have all that much time left to get our act together (= achieve
consensus on a number of parallel decision-making paths?).  Establishing
conservation priorities must also involve measures of how relatively
immediate the need to conserve appears to be for various taxa/habitats.
In addition to an optimum mix of taxa/habitats to save, there may be an
optimum order in which they are saved to maximize total biodiversity
saved.  However, when we are forced choose among different kinds of
"uniqueness" to save, there may be great difficulty and much importance
placed upon making wise choices.


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Stuart G. Poss                       E-mail: sgposs at whale.st.usm.edu
Senior Ichthyologist & Curator       Tel: (601)872-4238
Gulf Coast Research Laboratory       FAX: (601)872-4204
P.O. Box 7000
Ocean Springs, MS  39566-7000
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