1 Assessing symbiont extinction risk using cophylogenetic data 2 3 Jorge Doña1 and Kevin P. Johnson1 4 5 1. Illinois Natural History Survey, Prairie Research Institute, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign, 6 1816 S. Oak St., Champaign, IL 61820, USA 7 8 *Corresponding authors: Jorge Doña & Kevin Johnson; e-mail:
[email protected] &
[email protected] 9 10 Abstract: Symbionts have a unique mode of life that has attracted the attention of ecologists and 11 evolutionary biologists for centuries. As a result of this attention, these disciplines have produced 12 a mature body of literature on host-symbiont interactions. In contrast, the discipline of symbiont 13 conservation is still in a foundational stage. Here, we aim to integrate methodologies on symbiont 14 coevolutionary biology with the perspective of conservation. We focus on host-symbiont 15 cophylogenies, because they have been widely used to study symbiont diversification history and 16 contain information on symbiont extinction. However, cophylogenetic information has never been 17 used nor adapted to the perspective of conservation. Here, we propose a new statistic, 18 “cophylogenetic extinction rate” (Ec), based on coevolutionary knowledge, that uses data from 19 event-based cophylogenetic analyses, and which could be informative to assess relative symbiont 20 extinction risks. Finally, we propose potential future research to further develop estimation of 21 symbiont extinction risk from cophylogenetic analyses and continue the integration of this existing 22 knowledge of coevolutionary biology and cophylogenetics into future symbiont conservation 23 studies and practices. 24 25 Keywords: coevolution, coextinction risk, conservation biology, cophylogenies, host-symbiont 26 interactions, parasites.