Environmental Sciences Commons^™

Sporti: The Species Originality And Rarity Index Combines Phylogenetic And Functional Originality With Rarity Metrics To Provide A New Perspective On Species Rarity, Michael Cunningham-Minnick, Joan Milam, David I. King

Environmental Conservation Faculty Publication Series

Methods used to assign rarity among species are fundamental to our ecological understanding and conservation of species that are most vulnerable to extinction or extirpation. Bees (Hymenoptera: Apoidea: Anthophila) are at the forefront of declines in pollinator diversity and a comprehensive understanding of their conservation requirements in any landscape is essential. Rarity is generally defined in terms of numerical abundance and geographical distribution, though aspects of species life history, such as degree of specialization and taxonomic relatedness, are also widely recognized as important. Incomplete information on the life histories of many taxa obliges ecologists to rely on species-level classifications of …