BioProject

Agriculturally driven land use change threatens global biodiversity and has the potential to reshape the tree of life by favoring the persistence of some lineages over others. More...

Agriculturally driven land use change threatens global biodiversity and has the potential to reshape the tree of life by favoring the persistence of some lineages over others. Yet it is unclear if loss of phylogenetic diversity compromises the delivery of ecosystem services. To address this critical knowledge gap, we combine extensive land cover, pollinator survey and crop data with a complete time-calibrated phylogenomic tree for this diverse bee community. Pollinator communities in highly agricultural landscapes contain 230 million fewer years of evolutionary history and loss of pollinator phylogenetic diversity was strongly associated with reduced crop yield and quality. Our study is the first to link landscape mediated changes in the phylogenetic structure of natural communities to the disruption of ecosystem services. Practices that measure their success only by the number of species conserved may fail to protect the full diversity of life impacted by these stressors. Less...