In the midst of the sixth mass extinction, limited resources are forcing conservationists to prioritize which species and places will receive conservation action. Evolutionary distinctiveness measures the isolation of a species on its phylogenetic tree. Combining a species’ evolutionary distinctiveness with its globally endangered status creates an EDGE score. We use EDGE scores to prioritize the places and species that should...

In the UK, some of the oldest oil and gas installations have been in the water for over 40 years and have considerable colonisation by marine organisms, which may lead to both industry challenges and/or potential biodiversity benefits (e.g., artificial reefs). The project objective was to test the use of an automated image analysis software (CoralNet) on images of marine biofouling from offshore platforms on the UK continental...