Biology subjects

Pipins, S.

Publications and source records attributed to Pipins, S..

5 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2026

A framework for measuring national trends in the extinction risk of evolutionarily distinct species using the EDGE Index

The biodiversity crisis is threatening evolutionarily distinct species, those that constitute long periods of unique evolutionary history or that are from highly imperilled lineages. The EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) index was designed to track the changing extinction risks of these species and is listed as an indicator in the Kunming-Montreal Global Biodiversity Framework. Here, we provide a set of guidelines for calculating the EDGE index at the national level and for addressing data uncertainty. We distinguish two approaches for calculating a country-level EDGE index, either generated directly by using national data or from disaggregated global data. Using two national Red Lists, we show the contrasting state of high evolutionarily distinct nesting birds across French territories, and the elevated threat status of high evolutionarily distinct endemic species for South African vertebrates. Using global extinction risk data, we then reveal the deteriorating state of birds, mammals, and amphibians over time, and we highlight the countries with the highest proportions of threatened evolutionarily distinct species. Application of these guidelines should aid countries in monitoring their evolutionarily irreplaceable species, which in turn can help target local conservation actions, while contributing to global efforts to preserve the tree of life.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Safeguarding evolutionary history in a biodiversity hotspot: downscaling the EDGE metric to a regional application

In the face of accelerating biodiversity loss, phylogenetically informed approaches offer critical insights for conservation planning from an evolutionary perspective. The EDGE (Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered) metric combines phylogenetic singularity with extinction risk to identify taxa that represent unique evolutionary history under threat. In this study, we focus on the global conservation relevance of angiosperms native to a regional biodiversity hotspot, the Iberian Peninsula. Our aim was to identify areas with a high concentration of EDGE species and to evaluate how effectively the current protected area network encompasses them. Our findings reveal that threatened evolutionary history is primarily concentrated in mountainous and coastal regions. While several EDGE zones --areas containing unique and endangered evolutionary lineages-- overlap with existing protected areas, particularly in mountains, others harbouring few but evolutionarily unique and highly threatened taxa remain largely unprotected. This study highlights the value of applying global conservation metrics such as EDGE at regional scales. Our results provide a foundation for integrating evolutionary history into conservation prioritization in the Iberian Peninsula and offer a replicable framework for implementing the EDGE approach in other biodiversity-rich regions. Impact statementIn the Iberian Peninsula, there are 22 EDGE zones that account for over 90% of angiosperm threatened evolutionary history.

plant biology↗

bioRxiv2025

Phylogenetically-informed crayfish conservation in the face of climate change

Crayfish are an ancient clade of freshwater decapods that play vital and diverse ecological roles in the freshwater systems that they inhabit. One third of assessed crayfish species are threatened with extinction and 87% are highly sensitive to climate change. However, the extent to which the evolutionary history of crayfish is threatened, especially by climate change, remains unclear. To address this, we produced a phylogenetically-informed species prioritisation for the conservation of crayfish and explored the consequences of projected climate change scenarios on crayfish phylogenetic diversity. We used the EDGE2 metric to highlight 70 priority species for conservation. Their combined threatened evolutionary history accounts for 40.7% of the expected phylogenetic diversity loss for all 673 crayfish. Of these priority species, 45.7% are vulnerable to climate change, with the majority (32 species) located in Australia. Under a high warming scenario, individual species that are more evolutionarily distinct are projected to be disproportionately affected. The extinction of climate change vulnerable species could cause the loss of up to 26.3% more phylogenetic diversity than the random expectation, equivalent to 409 million years of evolutionary history. Our results highlight the need to consider climate change effects on phylogenetic diversity to fully understand its impact on biodiversity. If actions were taken to avoid a worst-case warming scenario in favour of an intermediate scenario, we could safeguard 251 million years of unique crayfish evolutionary history.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2025

300 billion years of angiosperm evolution at risk of extinction

Extinction results in not only loss of species, but also loss of the unique evolutionary history that they represent and the irreplaceable features they exhibit. There is broad consensus regarding the necessity to optimise the preservation of the tree of life by including evolutionary information in conservation prioritisation, a notion also endorsed by major policy frameworks1-4. However, evolutionarily-informed prioritisations are lacking for most plants, resulting in a taxonomic imbalance in the evolutionary information incorporated in global biodiversity analyses, which has undermined conservation for decades. Here, we use comprehensive species-level phylogenetic trees, and extinction risk estimates, to generate the first global assessment of angiosperm evolutionary history at risk, and to identify phylogenetically-informed conservation priorities for the worlds flowering plants. We estimate that more than one fifth of angiosperm evolutionary history is at risk of extinction in the short term. Using the Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered5,6 approach, we identify 9,945 threatened plant species that disproportionately account for total evolutionary history at risk. Species and area prioritisations incorporating evolutionary history are urgently needed to correct imbalances between plants and animals, monitor the effectiveness of conservation efforts, and optimise conservation resource allocation in the face of increasing human pressures on Earths biodiversity.

evolutionary biology↗

bioRxiv2023

Advancing EDGE Zones: spatial priorities for the conservation of tetrapod evolutionary history

The biodiversity crisis is set to prune the Tree of Life in a way that threatens billions of years of evolutionary history. To secure this evolutionary heritage along with the benefits it provides to humanity, there is a need to understand where in space the greatest losses are predicted to occur. We therefore present threatened evolutionary history mapped for all tetrapod groups, globally and within Biodiversity Hotspots, and identify priority regions of Evolutionarily Distinct and Globally Endangered (EDGE) species at both a grid cell and national level. We find that threatened evolutionary history peaks in Cameroon, whilst EDGE species richness peaks in Madagascar. We refined and advanced the 2013 EDGE Zone concept for spatially prioritising phylogenetic diversity using a novel complementarity procedure with uncertainty incorporated for 33,628 tetrapod species. This involved using extinction risk, phylogenetic, and spatial data to iteratively select areas with the highest accumulated threatened evolutionary history driven by unique species compositions. We identify 25 priority EDGE Zones, which are insufficiently protected and disproportionately exposed to high levels of human pressure. Together, the 25 EDGE Zones occupy 0.723% of the worlds surface but harbour one-third of the worlds threatened evolutionary history, half of which is endemic to these grid cells. They also contain part of the distribution of 918 EDGE tetrapod species, representing near one-third of all EDGE species, with 480 being endemic. Our tetrapod EDGE Zones highlight areas of immediate concern for researchers, practitioners, policymakers, and communicators looking to safeguard the Tree of Life.

zoology↗