The challenge of biased evidence in conservation
OA Location
Author(s)
Type
Journal Article
Abstract
Efforts to tackle the current biodiversity crisis need to be as efficient and effective as possible given chronic underfunding. To inform decision-makers of the most effective conservation actions, it is important to identify biases and gaps in the conservation literature to prioritize future evidence generation. We used the Conservation Evidence database to assess the state of the global literature that tests conservation actions for amphibians and birds. For the studies in the database, we investigated their spatial and taxonomic extent and distribution across biomes, effectiveness metrics, and study designs. Studies were heavily concentrated in Western Europe and North America for birds and particularly for amphibians, and temperate forest and grassland biomes were highly represented relative to their percentage of land coverage. Studies that used the most reliable study designs—before-after control-impact and randomized controlled trials—were the most geographically restricted and scarce in the evidence base. There were negative spatial relationships between the numbers of studies and the numbers of threatened and data-deficient species worldwide. Taxonomic biases and gaps were apparent for amphibians and birds—some entire orders were absent from the evidence base—whereas others were poorly represented relative to the proportion of threatened species they contained. Metrics used to evaluate effectiveness of conservation actions were often inconsistent between studies, potentially making them less directly comparable and evidence synthesis more difficult. Testing conservation actions on threatened species outside Western Europe, North America, and Australasia should be prioritized. Standardizing metrics and improving the rigor of study designs used to test conservation actions would also improve the quality of the evidence base for synthesis and decision-making.
Date Issued
2021-02-01
Date Acceptance
2020-04-29
Citation
Conservation Biology, 2021, 35 (1), pp.249-262
ISSN
0888-8892
Publisher
Wiley
Start Page
249
End Page
262
Journal / Book Title
Conservation Biology
Volume
35
Issue
1
Copyright Statement
© 2020 The Authors. Conservation Biology published by Wiley Periodicals LLC on behalf of Society for Conservation Biology. This is an open access article under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits use, distribution and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
License URL
Identifier
https://www.webofscience.com/api/gateway?GWVersion=2&SrcApp=PARTNER_APP&SrcAuth=LinksAMR&KeyUT=WOS:000565959300001&DestLinkType=FullRecord&DestApp=ALL_WOS&UsrCustomerID=a2bf6146997ec60c407a63945d4e92bb
Subjects
bias
Biodiversity & Conservation
Biodiversity Conservation
conservation evidence
conservation research
decision-making
Ecology
ECOLOGY
Environmental Sciences
Environmental Sciences & Ecology
evidence-based conservation
GLOBAL DISTRIBUTION
Life Sciences & Biomedicine
PHYLOGENY
prioritization
Science & Technology
study design
synthesis
TAXONOMIC BIAS
TRENDS
Publication Status
Published
Coverage Spatial
United States
Date Publish Online
2020-06-24