Phylogenetically‐Informed Crayfish Conservation in the Face of Climate Change.
Name
Animal_Conservation_-_2026_-_Pipins_-_Phylogenetically_Informed_Crayfish_Conservation_in_the_Face_of_Climate_Change.pdf
Description
visibility:open
Size
2.38 MB
Format
Adobe PDF
Checksum (CRC64NVME)
8W05cHk634Q=
Resource type
Journal article
Date published
February 19, 2026
Abstract
Crayfish are an ancient clade of freshwater decapods that play vital and diverse ecological roles in the freshwater systems that they inhabit. One third of assessed crayfish species is threatened with extinction and 87% are highly sensitive to climate change. However, the extent to which the evolutionary history of crayfish is threatened, especially by climate change, remains unclear. To address this, we produced a phylogenetically informed species prioritisation for the conservation of crayfish and explored the consequences of projected climate change scenarios on crayfish phylogenetic diversity. We used the EDGE2 metric to highlight 70 priority species for conservation. Their combined threatened evolutionary history accounts for 40.7% of the expected phylogenetic diversity loss for all 673 crayfish. Of these priority species, 45.7% are vulnerable to climate change, with the majority (32 species) located in Australia. Under a high warming scenario, individual species that are more evolutionarily distinct are projected to be disproportionately affected. The extinction of climate change vulnerable species could cause the loss of up to 26.3% more phylogenetic diversity than the random expectation, equivalent to 409 million years of evolutionary history. Our results highlight the need to consider climate change effects on phylogenetic diversity to fully understand its impact on biodiversity. If actions were taken to avoid a worst‐case warming scenario in favour of an intermediate scenario, we could safeguard 251 million years of unique crayfish evolutionary history.
Funder
| Funder name | Awards |
Natural Environment Research Council, United Kingdom | NE/S007415/1 |
Rufford Foundation, United Kingdom | |
Oulun Yliopisto, Finland | VisitANTS Visiting Scholar |
Research England, United Kingdom | |
Journal title
Animal Conservation
Article number
acv.70040
Publisher
Published by John Wiley & Sons Ltd on behalf of Zoological Society of London.
Place of publication
UK
ISSN
1367-9430
eISSN
1469-1795
Date accepted
September 30, 2025
Official URL
Rights statement
In Copyright
Additional information
IF = 2.6 (2024)