Applying evolutionary theory to biodiversity studies

我们想提供理论支持和实践指导，以帮助我们在濒临灭绝的情况下最好地保护进化历史。 每当一个物种灭绝时，它所包含的基因的相互作用复合体就会随之消亡，有些物种有许多近亲，因此在这段历史中存在大量冗余（想想不同的老鼠物种），而另一些物种则被隔离在生命之树上，因此也是这种遗传信息的唯一继承者（海象和山海狸是加拿大的主要例子）。 我们可以认为这些孤独的物种特别“独特”，独特性是评价生物多样性要素的多种方式之一。 该提案提出了一系列需要回答的问题：什么是衡量进化独特性的最可靠、最灵活、最直接的方法？ 不同的物种在哪些方面是不同的，它们在哪些方面是不同的？ 加拿大最具特色的物种是什么？最后，也是最重要的一点，加拿大人目前如何赋予个别物种价值？ 所有这些问题的答案应有助于我们欣赏和保护我们的生物遗产。

We would like to offer theoretical underpining and practical guidance for how we might best preserve evolutionary history in the face of imminent extinction. Every time a species goes extinct, the interacting complex of genes that it embodies dies with it. Some species have many close relatives, and so there is a lot of redundancy in this history (think of different mice species), while others are isolated on the Tree of Life and so are the sole conveyers of this genetic information (the Walrus and mountain beavers are prime Canadian examples). We can think of these lonely species as being particularly 'distinctive' and distinctiveness as one of many ways to value the elements of biodiversity. The proposal sets out a series of questions that need to be answered: what are the most robust, flexible and straightforward ways to measure evolutionary distinctiveness? In what ways are distinctive species expected to be different, and in what ways are they different? Which species are the most distinctive in Canada? Finally, and importantly, how do Canadians currently give value to individual species? Answers to all these questions should help us appreciate and safeguard our biological heritage.