“There are so many overlooked species, and when we get to know them, they’re just as charismatic and beautiful as the species we know,” Gums says. According to the EDGE2 metric, the highest priority mammal should be the mountain pygmy possum. This is a small marsupial that lives wild across several square kilometers of Australia’s Victorian Alps. Among the mammals without good conservation data, the most acute is the long-eared gymnast, a relative of the hedgehog found mainly in Laos. EDGE rankings are also calculated for amphibians, birds, corals, reptiles, sharks, rays, and gymnosperms, a group of plants that includes conifers and cycads.
It has become common to think of animals in terms of their evolutionary characteristics. The EDGE indicator was one of the indicators selected for the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework, a major biodiversity agreement adopted by the United Nations in December 2022. Gumbs is vice-chair of the Phylogenetic Diversity Task Force of the International Union for Conservation of Nature, the group that compiles the Red List of Species at Risk. Instead of concentrating on one species, Gumbs said, the focus is on protecting entire ecosystems that preserve many evolutionarily different plants and animals.
Of course, evolutionary features are just one way of thinking about conservation priorities. Groups deciding which projects to fund, where to locate protected areas, and which species to focus on tend to consider a variety of factors before making big decisions. But the EDGE2 indicator has an interesting point, says Rafael Molina Venegas, professor of plant biodiversity at the Autonomous University of Madrid in Spain. If we think of every species in the world as a unique book, evolutionarily different species are like a very old unique book that has only been copied by a handful. Losing these rare species means losing forever a treasure trove of the world’s evolutionary history.
And there is another reason to care about evolutionary traits. A study by Molina Venegas found that choosing plant species based on their evolutionary uniqueness conserves more useful plant species for humans than a random approach to species selection. got it. In other words, the pursuit of uniqueness seems to be a practical way of thinking about which species to protect.
One way to think about the EDGE metric is to imagine Armageddon. It’s been a year since a rogue asteroid destroyed Earth. Fortunately, scientists have identified a completely empty Earth-like planet elsewhere in the universe. All we have to do is decide which species to pack in our spaceships and bring to new planets.Molina Venegas says evolutionary traits may not be a bad starting point. That way we can bring different creatures, each with their own function on the new planet. ’ he says.
In many ways, humanity is waking up to a slow-motion Armageddon on Earth’s biodiversity. We don’t have spacecraft ready just yet, but we do need to think carefully about the tools we need to stem the loss of our irreplaceable species. Our way of thinking about biodiversity is also an important tool. Everyone wants to save animals, but we live in a world where species compete for limited conservation resources and with the voracious expansion of humanity. The calculations will not add up unless you make hard decisions about .
