Biology subjects

Courchamp, F.

Publications and source records attributed to Courchamp, F..

2 recordsLinked to original sources

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↗

bioRxiv2017

Gender-biased perceptions of important ecology articles

Gender bias is still unfortunately rife in the sciences, and men co-author most articles (> 70%) in ecology. Whether ecologists subconsciously rate the quality of their peers work more favourably if men are the dominant co-authors is still unclear. To test this hypothesis, we examined how expert ecologists ranked important ecology articles based on a previously compiled list. Women proposed articles with a higher average proportion of women co-authors (0.18) than did men proposers (0.07). For the 100 top-ranked articles, women voters placed more emphasis on articles co-authored by women (0.06) than did men (0.02). However, women voters were still biased because they ranked men-dominated articles more highly, albeit not by as much as men did. This effect disappeared after testing read-only articles. This indicates a persistent, subconscious bias that men-dominated articles are considered to be of higher quality before actual assessment. We add that ecologists need to examine their own subconscious biases when appointing students, hiring staff, and choosing colleagues with whom to publish.

ecology↗