Conservation unit allows assessing vulnerability and setting conservation priorities for a Mediterranean endemic plant within the context of extreme urbanization

Abstract

Current biodiversity patterns are a temporary state in a continuum of ecological and evolutionary changes. Conservation policies must incorporate this dynamic to ensure the long-term conservation of biodiversity which is particularly challenging in a context of extreme urbanization. An original approach, rarely used for plant conservation, is to define conservation units to set conservation priorities within species by combining ecological and evolutionary divergences. In the Maritime Alps (southern France), the ecological and evolutionary divergences between the populations of Acis nicaeensis has allowed us the determination of conservation units of this endemic plant threatened by severe urbanization and land-use changes. Phylogeographical data (cpDNA haplotype) were considered as a proxy for evolutionary legacy, and ecological data (multivariate analysis of habitat) were used as a proxy for ecological distinctiveness. Our goal was to explore the potential of this approach to assess vulnerability and set conservation priorities for narrow endemic species in the context of conflict between biodiversity and human activities. The results highlight five different conservation units within A. nicaeensis distribution. Genetic and ecological divergences are present at fine-scale. This pattern is highly endangered by urbanisation. This study highlights the vulnerability of conservation units near the coast whose Communicated by Daniel Sanchez Mata.

Using phylogeography to define conservation priorities: The case of narrow endemic plants in the Mediterranean Basin hotspot

“…Only two papers developed their own approach, the first one with the definition of Relevant genetic units for conservation (RGUC) (Pérez-Collazos et al 2008), and the second one including a precise methodology to design how many and which populations to conserve for preserving 99% of genetic diversity (Caujapé-Castells & Pedrola-Montfort 2004). Only two papers introduced their issue with a short review of these concepts of conservation genetics (Pérez-Collazos et al 2008, Pouget et al 2017.…”

“…Pouget et al 2013). However, the concept of genetic and ecological exchangeability (Crandall et al 2000) was very rarely used to design conservation priorities (Pouget et al 2013(Pouget et al , 2017 despite the importance of environmental heterogeneity and local adaptation for conservation issues within the MBR . The importance of the persistence process for the maintenance of local biodiversity is generally underestimated, or even not taken into account, in studies that model the biogeographical destiny of species in the face of global changes (but see Randin et al 2009).…”

“…But this approach has been addressed almost exclusively for vertebrate species and very few studies concern plants (e.g. Swarts et al 2014, Pouget et al 2017. This distortion between conservation genetics approaches and the numerous insights of phylogeographic studies for plants is quite surprising.…”

“…Nielsen et al 2016), it is important to examine if this genetic metric is properly considered into conservation planning of Mediterranean narrow endemic plants (MNEs). Previous studies have shown that despite their narrow geographical ranges MNEs can be characterized by several lineages and CUs concerned by different threats (e.g Pouget et al 2017).…”

Assessing vulnerability of listed Mediterranean plants based on population monitoring

“…Land use change and modifications of human practices are a major threat to rare species populations in the Mediterranean region (Amat, Vargas, & Gómez, 2013;Andrieu, Thompson, & Debussche, 2007;Domínguez Lozano, Moreno Saiz, & Sainz Ollero, 2003;Gauthier et al, 2017;Hardion et al, 2015;Minuto, Casazza, & Profumo, 2004;Pouget, Baumel, Diadema, & Médail, 2016;Salanon, Gandioli, Kulesza, & Pintaud, 1994). Initially, eight populations were "expected" to have some form of impact and indeed one population of each of S. capensis, O. mitissima and C. lineatus showed a significant decrease in both occupation and abundance, and the latter two populations disappeared before the end of the study.…”