Selectivity in Mammalian Extinction Risk and Threat Types: a New Measure of Phylogenetic Signal Strength in Binary Traits

The strength of phylogenetic signal in extinction risk can give insight into the mechanisms behind species' declines. Nevertheless, no existing measure of phylogenetic pattern in a binary trait, such as extinction-risk status, measures signal strength in a way that can be compared among data sets. We developed a new measure for phylogenetic signal of binary traits, D, which simulations show gives robust results with data sets of more than 50 species, even when the proportion of threatened species is low. We applied D to the red-list status of British birds and the world's mammals and found that the threat status for both groups exhibited moderately strong phylogenetic clumping. We also tested the hypothesis…

• EC
  European Commission