Biology subjects

Correia, R. A.

Publications and source records attributed to Correia, R. A..

3 recordsLinked to original sources

bioRxiv2023

Drivers of species knowledge across the Tree of Life

Knowledge of biodiversity is unevenly distributed across the Tree of Life. In the long run, such disparity in awareness unbalances our understanding of life on Earth, influencing policy decisions and the allocation of research and conservation funding. We investigated how humans accumulate knowledge of biodiversity by searching for consistent relationships between scientific (number of publications) and societal (number of views in Wikipedia) interest, and species-level morphological, ecological and socio-cultural factors. Across a random selection of 3,019 species spanning 29 Phyla/Divisions, we show that socio-cultural factors are the most important correlates of scientific and societal interest in biodiversity, including the fact that a species is useful or harmful to humans, has a common name and is listed in the IUCN Red List. Furthermore, large-bodied, broadly distributed and taxonomically unique species receive more scientific and societal attention, whereas colorfulness and phylogenetic proximity to humans correlates exclusively with societal attention. These results highlight a favoritism towards limited branches of the Tree of Life, and that scientific and societal priorities in biodiversity research broadly align. This suggests that we may be missing out on key species in our research and conservation agenda simply because they are not on our cultural radar.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2019

Societal attention toward extinction threats

Public attention and interest in the fate of endangered species is a crucial prerequisite for effective conservation programs. Societal awareness and values will largely determine whether conservation initiatives receive necessary support and lead to adequate policy change. Using text data mining, we assessed general public attention toward climate change and biological invasions, which represent two key threats for endangered amphibian, reptile, bird and mammal species in three European countries (France, Germany and the United Kingdom). Our analysis revealed that public attention patterns differed among species groups and countries but was globally higher for climate change than for biological invasions. Both threats received better recognition in threatened than in non-threatened species, as well as in native species than in species from other countries and regions. The relative level of attention toward the two threats corresponded well with the listing of the threats and their severity within the IUCN Red List. We conclude that more efficient communication regarding the threat from biological invasions should be developed, and that conservation practitioners should take advantage of the existing attention toward the threat of climate change.

ecology↗

bioRxiv2018

On the overlap between scientific and societal taxonomic attention - insights for conservation

Attention directed at different species by society and science is particularly relevant within the field of conservation, as societal preferences will strongly impact support for conservation initiatives and their success. Here, we assess the association between societal and research interests in four charismatic and threatened species groups, derived from a range of different online sources and social media platforms as well as scientific publications. We found a high level of concordance between scientific and societal taxonomic attention, which was consistent among assessed species groups and media sources. Results indicate that research is apparently not as disconnected from the interests of society as it is often reproached, and that societal support for current research objectives should be adequate. While the high degree of similarity between scientific and societal interest is both striking and satisfying, the dissimilarities are also interesting, as new scientific findings may constitute a constant source of novel interest for the society.

ecology↗