Climates and clades: biased methods, biased results

TL;DR

This paper critiques a study on climate change impacts on European biodiversity, highlighting potential biases and limitations in their phylogenetic diversity analysis, especially concerning plants.

Contribution

It questions the validity of previous conclusions about clade-specific impacts and overall phylogenetic diversity trends under climate change scenarios.

Findings

Concerns about biases in phylogenetic analyses

Potential misinterpretation of clade-specific extinction risks

Limitations in current methods for assessing phylogenetic diversity

Abstract

Thuiller et al. analyzed the consequences of anticipated climate change on plant, bird, and mammal phylogenetic diversity (PD) across Europe. They concluded that species loss will not be clade specific across the Tree of Life, and that there will not be an overall decline in PD across the whole of Europe. We applaud their attempt to integrate phylogenetic knowledge into scenarios of future extinction but their analyses raise a series of concerns. We focus here on their analyses of plants.