Does phylogenetic diversity offer benefits to people?

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Integrating phylogenies into the fields of biodiversity and conservation was listed as one of four important "emerging trends" in a high-profile review in Nature in 2012. The long-term objective of my Discovery-funded research program since 2007 has been to (i) develop and use novel methods to investigate how we can use phylogenies to more efficiently prioritize particular populations, species or areas for conservation activity, and (ii) to apply the approach to document and predict biodiversity change. We have made significant contributions to this first "how" question, and we have undertaken several studies exploring the "where and what" questions directed at the effects of anthropogenic change on the Tree of Life. However, we have been carried along partly by the strength of arguments by others that the phylogeny is in fact a worthy focus of conservation attention. The short-term objective of this Discovery Grant cycle is to take a step back to ask the "why" question: I propose a series of comparative tests to help answer the basic question "What benefits does phylogenetic diversity (PD) offer to people?"  The proposed HQP-focussed projects will ask (i) how regional and local PD are linked (in expectation and with survey data); (ii) how local PD has changed through time (combining BioTIME data series with large-scale vertebrate and plant phylogenies); (iii) whether local PD is associated with plant ecosystem function in natural systems (using HerbDivNet data with L. Fraser and J. Pither); (iv) whether PD predicts more past human uses of plants (combining data from a SESYNC working group with plant phylogenies); (v) how neutral and putative adaptive genetic variance co-vary across populations (using genomic data from warblers and Atlantic salmon).