Please use this identifier to cite or link to this item: https://biore.bio.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/6358
Title: Drivers of species knowledge across the tree of life
Authors: Mammola, Stefano
Adamo, Martino
Antić, Dragan 
Calevo, Jacopo
Cancellario, Tommaso
Cardoso, Pedro
Chamberlain, Dan
Chialva, Matteo
Durucan, Furkan
Fontaneto, Diego
Goncalves, Duarte
Martínez, Alejandro
Santini, Luca
Rubio-Lopez, Iñigo
Sousa, Ronaldo
Villegas-Rios, David
Verdes, Aida
Correia, Ricardo A.
Issue Date: 17-Oct-2023
Rank: M21a
Journal: eLife
Abstract: 
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 sociocultural factors. Across a random selection of 3019 species
spanning 29 Phyla/Divisions, we show that sociocultural 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 International Union for Conservation of Nature
Red List. Furthermore, large-bodied, broadly distributed, and taxonomically unique species receive
more scientific and societal attention, whereas colorfulness and phylogenetic proximity to humans
correlate exclusively with societal attention. These results highlight a favoritism toward 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.
URI: https://biore.bio.bg.ac.rs/handle/123456789/6358
DOI: 10.7554/eLife.88251
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