Abstract
A critical component of textbooks is fair representation of the material they cover. Within conservation biology, fair coverage is particularly important given Earth’s breadth of species and diversity of ecosystems. However, research on species tends to be biased towards certain taxonomic groups and geographic areas and their associated ecosystems, so it is possible that textbooks may exhibit similar biases. Considering the possibility of bias, our goal was to evaluate contemporary conservation biology textbooks to determine if they are representative of Earth’s biodiversity. We found that textbooks did not accurately reflect Earth’s biodiversity. Species, ecosystems, and continents were unevenly represented, few examples mentioned genetic diversity, and examples of negative human influence on the environment outweighed positive examples. However, in terms of aquatic versus terrestrial representation, textbooks presented a representative sample. Our findings suggest that modern conservation biology textbooks are biased in their coverage, which could have important consequences for educating our next generation of scientists and practitioners.
Highlights
IntroductionMuch research and discussion has occurred regarding taxonomic biases (i.e. research is not proportional to organisms’ frequency in nature; [1]) in scientific research, research publications, conservation funding, biodiversity databases, and conservation actions (e.g., species reintroductions)
Much research and discussion has occurred regarding taxonomic biases in scientific research, research publications, conservation funding, biodiversity databases, and conservation actions
Based on these criteria we found seven textbooks as follows: Conservation Biology for All [12]; Key Topics in Conservation Biology 2 [13]; A Primer of Conservation Biology, 5th edition [14]; An Introduction to Conservation Biology [15]; Fundamentals of Conservation Biology, 3rd edition [16]; Conservation Science, Bias in conservation biology textbooks
Summary
Much research and discussion has occurred regarding taxonomic biases (i.e. research is not proportional to organisms’ frequency in nature; [1]) in scientific research, research publications, conservation funding, biodiversity databases, and conservation actions (e.g., species reintroductions). Previous work on taxonomic bias has highlighted that birds and mammals are over-represented in scientific research [1], even though they account for less than 1% of described species diversity [3]. Such biases leave larger groups of organisms vastly under-studied and poorly understood. Butterflies and moths account for only 15% of insect species but were the subjects of 48% of insect studies [1]. While sea turtles account for only 0.1% of global reptile species richness, they were the subjects of 20.8% of reptile studies published in the wildlife research literature in the 1990s and 14.0% of such articles published in the 2000s [4].
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