Table 2.

Mean loss of biodiversity value when high global scoring species (in global top 500) are lost from each of 4628 communities. (PD value represents the (total community PD minus PD of community when all of the top 500 species are removed). Random represents the loss when an equal number of species are removed randomly. Mean pairwise distance (trait) value represents change in mean pairwise trait distance from the unaltered community to the community with all of the top 500 species removed. Positive values represent more closely related species in depleted community, and zero represents no change in the average relatedness of communities.)

metric	biodiversity measure	top 500	random	p
APD	PD	1080.39	446.67	>0.001
ED	PD	556.74	264.37	>0.001
PE	PD	489.99	294.87	0.03
APD	mean pairwise trait distance (TAPD)	0.032	0	>0.001
ED	mean pairwise trait distance (TAPD)	0.012	0	0.08
PE	mean pairwise distance (TAPD)	0.008	0	0.14