Reviewing taxonomic bias in a megadiverse country: primary biodiversity data, cultural salience, and scientific interest of South African animals

Result code in IS VaVaI

<a href="https://www.isvavai.cz/riv?ss=detail&h=RIV%2F00216224%3A14310%2F22%3A00128107" target="_blank" >RIV/00216224:14310/22:00128107 - isvavai.cz</a>

Result on the web

<a href="https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2020-0092" target="_blank" >https://doi.org/10.1139/er-2020-0092</a>

DOI - Digital Object Identifier

<a href="http://dx.doi.org/10.1139/er-2020-0092" target="_blank" >10.1139/er-2020-0092</a>

Result language

angličtina

Original language name

Reviewing taxonomic bias in a megadiverse country: primary biodiversity data, cultural salience, and scientific interest of South African animals

Original language description

Taxonomic bias, resulting in some taxa receiving more attention than others, has been shown to persist throughout history. Such bias in primary biodiversity data needs to be addressed because the data are vital to environmental management. This study reviews taxonomic bias in South African primary biodiversity data obtained from the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). The focus was specifically on animal classes, and regression analysis was used to assess the influence of scientific interest and cultural salience on taxonomic bias. A higher resolution analysis of the two explanatory variables' influence on taxonomic bias is conducted using a generalised linear model on a subset of herpetofaunal families from the focal classes. Furthermore, the potential effects of cultural salience and scientific interest on a taxon's extinction risk are investigated. The findings show that taxonomic bias in South Africa's primary biodiversity data has similarities with global scale taxonomic bias. Among animal classes, there is strong bias towards birds while classes such as Polychaeta and Maxillopoda are under-represented. Cultural salience has a stronger influence on taxonomic bias than scientific interest. It is, however, unclear how these explanatory variables may influence the extinction risk of taxa. We recommend that taxonomic bias can be reduced if primary biodiversity data collection has a range of targets that guide (but do not limit) accumulation of species occurrence records per habitat. Within this range, a lower target of species occurrence records accommodates species that are difficult to detect. The upper target means occurrence records for any species are less urgent but nonetheless useful and thus data collection efforts can focus on species with fewer occurrence records.

Czech name

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Czech description

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Type

J_imp - Article in a specialist periodical, which is included in the Web of Science database

CEP classification

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OECD FORD branch

10511 - Environmental sciences (social aspects to be 5.7)

Project

—

Continuities

I - Institucionalni podpora na dlouhodoby koncepcni rozvoj vyzkumne organizace

Publication year

2022

Confidentiality

S - Úplné a pravdivé údaje o projektu nepodléhají ochraně podle zvláštních právních předpisů

Name of the periodical

ENVIRONMENTAL REVIEWS

ISSN

1208-6053

e-ISSN

1181-8700

Volume of the periodical

30

Issue of the periodical within the volume

1

Country of publishing house

CA - CANADA

Number of pages

11

Pages from-to

39-49

UT code for WoS article

000770290800005

EID of the result in the Scopus database

2-s2.0-85126616728