Properties of biodiversity indices that model future extinction risk

Fuente: arXiv
Salvato in:
Dettagli Bibliografici
Autori principali: Steel, Mike, Wicke, Kristina, Mooers, Arne
Natura: Preprint
Pubblicazione: 2026
Soggetti:
Accesso online:
Tags: Aggiungi Tag
Nessun Tag, puoi essere il primo ad aggiungerne!!
_version_ 1866914336178438144
author Steel, Mike
Wicke, Kristina
Mooers, Arne
author_facet Steel, Mike
Wicke, Kristina
Mooers, Arne
contents The loss of biodiversity due to the likely widespread extinction of species in the near future is a focus of current concern in conservation biology. One approach to measure the impact of this extinction is based on the predicted loss of phylogenetic diversity. These predictions have become a focus of the Zoological Society of London's 'EDGE2' program for quantifying biodiversity loss and involves considering the HED (heightened evolutionary distinctiveness) and HEDGE (heightened evolutionary distinctiveness and globally endangered) indices. Here, we show how to generalise the HED(GE) indices by expanding their application to more general settings (to phylogenetic networks, to feature diversity on discrete traits, and to arbitrary biodiversity measures). We provide a simple and explicit description of the mean and variance of such measures, and illustrate our results by an application to the phylogeny of all 27 extant Crocodilians. We also derive various equalities for feature diversity, and an inequality if species extinction rates are correlated with feature types.
format Preprint
id arxiv_https___arxiv_org_abs_2602_16059
institution arXiv
publishDate 2026
record_format arxiv
spellingShingle Properties of biodiversity indices that model future extinction risk
Steel, Mike
Wicke, Kristina
Mooers, Arne
Populations and Evolution
92D15
The loss of biodiversity due to the likely widespread extinction of species in the near future is a focus of current concern in conservation biology. One approach to measure the impact of this extinction is based on the predicted loss of phylogenetic diversity. These predictions have become a focus of the Zoological Society of London's 'EDGE2' program for quantifying biodiversity loss and involves considering the HED (heightened evolutionary distinctiveness) and HEDGE (heightened evolutionary distinctiveness and globally endangered) indices. Here, we show how to generalise the HED(GE) indices by expanding their application to more general settings (to phylogenetic networks, to feature diversity on discrete traits, and to arbitrary biodiversity measures). We provide a simple and explicit description of the mean and variance of such measures, and illustrate our results by an application to the phylogeny of all 27 extant Crocodilians. We also derive various equalities for feature diversity, and an inequality if species extinction rates are correlated with feature types.
title Properties of biodiversity indices that model future extinction risk
topic Populations and Evolution
92D15
url https://arxiv.org/abs/2602.16059