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Article Dans Une Revue Biological Conservation Année : 2018

Using phylogeography to define conservation priorities: The case of narrow endemic plants in the Mediterranean Basin hotspot

Résumé

The preservation of rare and vulnerable narrow endemics is a key issue in biological conservation since they represents distinct evolutionary units emerging from various temporal processes. Phylogeography has proved to be a relevant tool for the distinction of evolutionary structures resulting from contrasted biogeographical events. However, the historical and evolutionary perspective provided by phylogeography is still curiously underused in plant conservation genetics. Here we perform a comprehensive review of almost all case studies related to the structure of genetic diversity of Mediterranean narrow endemic plants (MNEs) of the Mediterranean Basin hotspot. The use of genetic diversity structure for phylogeographical inference and for the definition of conservation units was examined for ninety-two studies corresponding to eighty-three taxa. Most of these taxa are perennial herbs with a narrow ecological niche. Geographical coverage is heavily biased since 91.5% of the analyzed MNEs are located in the northwestern part of the Mediterranean region. Half of the studied species have moderate to high genetic diversity, and genetic differentiation is geographically structured in 56% of the case studies indicating that MNEs are not "evolutionary dead-ends" but are sheltering a strong evolutionary legacy calling for conservation planning at populations' level. However, a minority of studies used these genetic structures to define conservation units. The main insight of this review is that phylogeography is generally overlooked in conservation genetics and that the design of conservation units has not been a priority issue, rather a way to enhance the scope of genetic diversity analyses. Nevertheless, the strong phylogeographic structure revealed in several studies of MNEs underlines the relevance of phylogeography and we argue that comparative phylogeography of several co-occurring taxa could greatly improve the proactive conservation planning of threatened endemic plants within biodiversity hotspots.
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Dates et versions

hal-01851876 , version 1 (31-07-2018)

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Frederic Medail, Alex Baumel. Using phylogeography to define conservation priorities: The case of narrow endemic plants in the Mediterranean Basin hotspot. Biological Conservation, 2018, 224, pp.258 - 266. ⟨10.1016/j.biocon.2018.05.028⟩. ⟨hal-01851876⟩
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