The south-west Australian flora shows a diverse array of evolutionary patterns
and exceptionally high species diversity. A significant component of this
flora consists of relictual species which often have naturally fragmented and
geographically restricted distributions. Many of these species appear to
apportion significant levels of genetic diversity among populations. Diversity
at both the population and species level presents a major challenge to the
development of appropriate conservation strategies for this flora. To be
effective these strategies should not only aim to preserve current levels of
species diversity, but also consider intraspecific variation and the
evolutionary and ecological processes associated with the generation and
maintenance of that variation. The identification and characterisation of
conservation units, based on population genetic structure and phylogeographic
patterns within species, provide a useful basis upon which more general
conservation principals can be developed for the maintenance of these
processes. Population genetic structure and phylogeographic studies are used
to show how conservation units can be identified in
Lambertia orbifolia,
Acacia anomala,
Stylidium coroniforme,
Stylidium nungarinense and
Banksia cuneata, and taxa from a range of other genera.
Determining conservation units in these taxa defines not only suitable units
for their conservation but also the appropriate geographical scale for
management. These findings indicate the potential this approach can have in
determining strategies and priorities for the conservation of the south-west
Australian flora.
Assessment of the population genetic structure of Sphyrna lewini to identify conservation units in the Mexican Pacific
