Natural Biological Entities and their Surrogates: Prerequisites to Effective on Conservation Strategies for Biodiversity

Richard Mayden
Biology Department, University of Alabama, P.O. Box 870344, Tuscaloosa, AL 35487-0344, (205) 348-1882

Biodiversity is the product of descent with modification. Descent is intrinsic to all organisms and all types of attributes are modified through a unique history. Patterns of descent reflect processes responsible for the origins and current existence of organisms-species-lineages. Phylogenetic systematics is the only method designed to recover these patterns, as well as reconstruct past evolutionary events of species, intraspecific entities, and their attributes. Species are fundamental in evolution; they are viewed as the nuclear elements of evolution. Thus, understanding species and their evolution is essential to understanding biological systems and their conservation. Only the Evolutionary Species Concept (ESC) is consistent with both the theoretical and empirical domains of evolutionary biology. The use of other concepts is inherently detrimental to our abilities to understand and conserve biodiversity. Furthermore, the rarity of many imperiled species or intraspecific entities often precludes any proactive conservation and recovery efforts. Knowledge of their phylogenetic relationships and assurance of their naturalness allows researchers to work with surrogate taxa (close relatives) to develop effective conservation and recovery strategies to be applied to imperiled taxa. Thus, only with input from systematics and the ESC can naturally occurring biodiversity have the opportunity to be recognized and conserved in perpetuity.