Drivers of taxonomic bias in conservation research: a global analysis of terrestrial mammals

Abstract

Scientific knowledge of species and the ecosystems they inhabit is the cornerstone of modern conservation. However, research effort is not spread evenly among taxa (taxonomic bias), which may constrain capacity to identify conservation risk and to implement effective responses. Addressing such biases requires an understanding of factors that promote or constrain the use of a particular species in research projects. To this end, we quantified conservation science knowledge of the world's extant non-marine mammal species (n = 4108) based on the number of published documents in journals indexed on Clarivate Analytics' Web of Science TM. We use an innovative hurdle model approach to assess the relative importance of several ecological, biogeographical and cultural factors for explaining variation in research production between species. The most important variable explaining the presence/ absence of conservation research was scientific capacity of countries within the range of the species, followed by body mass and years since the taxonomic description. Research volume (more than one document) was strongly associated with number of years since the data describing on that species, followed by scientific capacity within the range of species, high body mass and invasiveness. The threat status was weakly associated to explain the presence/absence and research volume in conservation research. These results can be interpreted as a consequence of the dynamic interplay between the perceived need for conservation research about a species and its appropriateness as a target of research. As anticipated, the scientific capacity of the countries where a species is found is a strong driver of conservation research bias, reflecting the high variation in conservation research funding and human resources between countries. Our study suggests that this bias could be most effectively reduced by a combination of investing in pioneering research, targeted funding and supporting research in countries with low scientific capacity and high biodiversity.

The geographic bias of mammal studies: a comparison of a half a century of research on Palearctic and Neotropical mammals

“…This bias can be explained by several factors (e.g. research investment, species richness or scientific infrastructure), but whatever the cause, having less scientific information on Neotropical mammals can affect their conservation (dos Santos et al, 2020), because sound research is essential to ensure that conservation efforts are efficient (Sutherland et al, 2019). Therefore, the worldwide scientific community should reduce this bias, for example, by promoting collaboration between scientists from Palearctic and Neotropical regions, by facilitating the access of Neotropical journals to WoS and Scopus, or by helping increase the financial support to research projects on Neotropical mammals.…”

“…Previous scientific works whose aims were to identify patterns in wildlife research efforts also used the scientific and common names in the search criteria (e.g. Fleming & Batemandos, 2016;Jarić, Roberts, Gessner, Solow, & Courchamp, 2017;dos Santos et al, 2020). The search criteria for every species were detailed in Digital Appendix 1.…”

“…There are multiple causes explaining differential research effort among regions or countries, including geographical and environmental variables such as the remoteness and accessibility of the study area, the presence of protected areas, and biodiversity indexes (such as the number of vertebrates species) of the area (Martin, Blossey, & Ellis, 2012;Hickisch et al, 2019), or socio-economic variables of the countries such as the per capita income, the research and development (R&D) investment, funding availability, and the number of researchers itself (King, 2004;Guerrero-Casado, 2017;Vinkler, 2018;Allik, Lauk, & Realo, 2020). Concerning wild animal species, there are also important biases: birds and mammals, threatened species, more abundant species, organisms with larger distribution ranges, charismatic or emblematic species, and large-bodied species are overrepresented in the scientific literature when compared with other animal groups (Brooke, Bielby, Nambiar, & Carbone, 2014;Donaldson et al, 2016;dos Santos et al, 2020). In addition to the total number of publications, the region also influences the citation in conservation research papers: the countries with a high gross domestic product (GDP) and governance quality are more cited (Meijaard, Cardillo, Meijaard, & Possingham, 2015).…”

Puma–livestock conflicts in the Americas: a review of the evidence

“…Several factors may underlie these differences. Differential availability of economic resources for wildlife research is likely to play a major role (dos Santos et al 2020), but this gap may also reflect the value ascribed to wildlife in North American society. In the 19th and 20th Centuries, in Canada and the USA, wildlife conservation began to play an important role in society, which led people to consider wildlife as a resource in the public domain and science as a fundamental tool to regulate the protection of wildlife (the ‘North American Model of Wildlife Conservation’; Organ et al 2012).…”

Quantifying the taxonomic bias in enzymology

“…| CONCLUSIONSSevere taxonomic biases have been quantified in other branches of biology. For example, it is widely acknowledged that the fields of ecology and conservation biology have been overly focused on a handful of charismatic, highly fundable animal species 26,[34][35][36]. In the case of biochemistry, it is equally clear we have a highly biased view of enzymatic diversity at all taxonomic levels.…”