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      Spatial and topical imbalances in biodiversity research

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          Abstract

          The rapid erosion of biodiversity is among the biggest challenges human society is facing. Concurrently, major efforts are in place to quantify changes in biodiversity, to understand the consequences for ecosystem functioning and human wellbeing, and to develop sustainable management strategies. Based on comprehensive bibliometric analyses covering 134,321 publications, we report systematic spatial biases in biodiversity-related research. Research is dominated by wealthy countries, while major research deficits occur in regions with disproportionately high biodiversity as well as a high share of threatened species. Similarly, core scientists, who were assessed through their publication impact, work primarily in North America and Europe. Though they mainly exchange and collaborate across locations of these two continents, the connectivity among them has increased with time. Finally, biodiversity-related research has primarily focused on terrestrial systems, plants, and the species level, and is frequently conducted in Europe and Asia by researchers affiliated with European and North American institutions. The distinct spatial imbalances in biodiversity research, as demonstrated here, must be filled, research capacity built, particularly in the Global South, and spatially-explicit biodiversity data bases improved, curated and shared.

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          Most cited references45

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          The Matthew Effect in Science: The reward and communication systems of science are considered.

          R K Merton (1968)
          This account of the Matthew effect is another small exercise in the psychosociological analysis of the workings of science as a social institution. The initial problem is transformed by a shift in theoretical perspective. As originally identified, the Matthew effect was construed in terms of enhancement of the position of already eminent scientists who are given disproportionate credit in cases of collaboration or of independent multiple discoveries. Its significance was thus confined to its implications for the reward system of science. By shifting the angle of vision, we note other possible kinds of consequences, this time for the communication system of science. The Matthew effect may serve to heighten the visibility of contributions to science by scientists of acknowledged standing and to reduce the visibility of contributions by authors who are less well known. We examine the psychosocial conditions and mechanisms underlying this effect and find a correlation between the redundancy function of multiple discoveries and the focalizing function of eminent men of science-a function which is reinforced by the great value these men place upon finding basic problems and by their self-assurance. This self-assurance, which is partly inherent, partly the result of experiences and associations in creative scientific environments, and partly a result of later social validation of their position, encourages them to search out risky but important problems and to highlight the results of their inquiry. A macrosocial version of the Matthew principle is apparently involved in those processes of social selection that currently lead to the concentration of scientific resources and talent (50).
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            Freshwater biodiversity: importance, threats, status and conservation challenges.

            Freshwater biodiversity is the over-riding conservation priority during the International Decade for Action - 'Water for Life' - 2005 to 2015. Fresh water makes up only 0.01% of the World's water and approximately 0.8% of the Earth's surface, yet this tiny fraction of global water supports at least 100000 species out of approximately 1.8 million - almost 6% of all described species. Inland waters and freshwater biodiversity constitute a valuable natural resource, in economic, cultural, aesthetic, scientific and educational terms. Their conservation and management are critical to the interests of all humans, nations and governments. Yet this precious heritage is in crisis. Fresh waters are experiencing declines in biodiversity far greater than those in the most affected terrestrial ecosystems, and if trends in human demands for water remain unaltered and species losses continue at current rates, the opportunity to conserve much of the remaining biodiversity in fresh water will vanish before the 'Water for Life' decade ends in 2015. Why is this so, and what is being done about it? This article explores the special features of freshwater habitats and the biodiversity they support that makes them especially vulnerable to human activities. We document threats to global freshwater biodiversity under five headings: overexploitation; water pollution; flow modification; destruction or degradation of habitat; and invasion by exotic species. Their combined and interacting influences have resulted in population declines and range reduction of freshwater biodiversity worldwide. Conservation of biodiversity is complicated by the landscape position of rivers and wetlands as 'receivers' of land-use effluents, and the problems posed by endemism and thus non-substitutability. In addition, in many parts of the world, fresh water is subject to severe competition among multiple human stakeholders. Protection of freshwater biodiversity is perhaps the ultimate conservation challenge because it is influenced by the upstream drainage network, the surrounding land, the riparian zone, and - in the case of migrating aquatic fauna - downstream reaches. Such prerequisites are hardly ever met. Immediate action is needed where opportunities exist to set aside intact lake and river ecosystems within large protected areas. For most of the global land surface, trade-offs between conservation of freshwater biodiversity and human use of ecosystem goods and services are necessary. We advocate continuing attempts to check species loss but, in many situations, urge adoption of a compromise position of management for biodiversity conservation, ecosystem functioning and resilience, and human livelihoods in order to provide a viable long-term basis for freshwater conservation. Recognition of this need will require adoption of a new paradigm for biodiversity protection and freshwater ecosystem management - one that has been appropriately termed 'reconciliation ecology'.
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              Global biodiversity: indicators of recent declines.

              In 2002, world leaders committed, through the Convention on Biological Diversity, to achieve a significant reduction in the rate of biodiversity loss by 2010. We compiled 31 indicators to report on progress toward this target. Most indicators of the state of biodiversity (covering species' population trends, extinction risk, habitat extent and condition, and community composition) showed declines, with no significant recent reductions in rate, whereas indicators of pressures on biodiversity (including resource consumption, invasive alien species, nitrogen pollution, overexploitation, and climate change impacts) showed increases. Despite some local successes and increasing responses (including extent and biodiversity coverage of protected areas, sustainable forest management, policy responses to invasive alien species, and biodiversity-related aid), the rate of biodiversity loss does not appear to be slowing.
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                Author and article information

                Contributors
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Formal analysisRole: VisualizationRole: Writing – original draft
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: ConceptualizationRole: SupervisionRole: Writing – review & editing
                Role: Editor
                Journal
                PLoS One
                PLoS ONE
                plos
                plosone
                PLoS ONE
                Public Library of Science (San Francisco, CA USA )
                1932-6203
                5 July 2018
                2018
                : 13
                : 7
                : e0199327
                Affiliations
                [1 ] Leibniz-Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB), Berlin, Germany
                [2 ] Institute of Biology—Freie Universität Berlin, Berlin, Germany
                [3 ] Berlin-Brandenburg Institute of Advanced Biodiversity Research (BBIB), Berlin, Germany
                [4 ] Der Wissenschaftsfond (FWF), Vienna, Austria
                Council for Scientific and Industrial Research, INDIA
                Author notes

                Competing Interests: The publication of this article was supported by the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft and the Cross‐Cutting Research Domain Aquatic Biodiversity of the Leibniz‐Institute of Freshwater Ecology and Inland Fisheries (IGB). This does not alter our adherence to all the PLOS ONE policies on sharing data and materials.

                Author information
                http://orcid.org/0000-0001-8890-364X
                Article
                PONE-D-18-04616
                10.1371/journal.pone.0199327
                6033392
                29975719
                1bc77ed7-b2f8-4c93-8d3d-56ea7ed56606
                © 2018 Tydecks et al

                This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

                History
                : 11 February 2018
                : 5 June 2018
                Page count
                Figures: 3, Tables: 3, Pages: 15
                Funding
                Funded by: funder-id http://dx.doi.org/10.13039/501100001659, Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft;
                Award ID: DFG; JE 288/9-1
                Award Recipient :
                JMJ received financial support from the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG; JE 288/9-1). The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.
                Categories
                Research Article
                Biology and Life Sciences
                Ecology
                Biodiversity
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Ecology
                Biodiversity
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                Conservation Science
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                Ecology
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                Species Diversity
                Ecology and Environmental Sciences
                Ecology
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                Species Diversity
                Biology and Life Sciences
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                Eukaryota
                Animals
                Vertebrates
                Amniotes
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                Biology and Life Sciences
                Marine Biology
                Marine Conservation
                Earth Sciences
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                Marine Biology
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                Custom metadata
                The data underlying this study have been uploaded to Dryad and are accessible using the following DOI: 10.5061/dryad.q7mk04m.

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