Abstract
Unequal patterns in research effort can result in inaccurate assessments of species extinction risk or ineffective management. A group of notable conservation concern are tropical island endemic birds, many of which are also forest-dependent, which increases their vulnerability to extinction. Yet, island bird species have received limited research attention compared to their continental congeners, despite this taxon being globally regarded as well-studied. We used the insular Caribbean, a globally important endemism hotspot with high rates of deforestation, to explore research bias of island and regional endemic forest-dependent birds. A review of the published literature (n = 992) found no significant increase in the number of studies over the search period. Research effort was significantly higher among species with threatened status, long generation time, wide habitat breadth and low to intermediate elevational distributions. Among family groups, the Psittacidae received the highest research effort, while the Cuculidae were the most underrepresented family (30-fold higher and six-fold less than expected, respectively). We found geographic biases in effort, with Jamaica having six-fold less and Puerto Rico eight times more research than expected for their level of endemism. These patterns likely reflect individual interests and limited capacity and funding, typical of Small Island Developing States. With over 50% of species in this review having declining population trends, we recommend prioritizing research that emphasises conservation- and management-relevant data across underrepresented families and islands, by fostering greater collaboration between researchers, practitioners and the existing local amateur ornithological community.
Highlights
Evaluating conservation and management effectiveness requires robust data (Sutherland et al 2004)
Research effort is influenced by factors such as extinction risk, phylogeny, life history, donor funding priorities, and country income, which means that for some species disproportionately less is known about their ecology or data relevant to conservation problems are not available
The mean number of published studies per species was highest for the subject categories ‘distribution and abundance’ (1.69 ± 2.12, n = 230), ‘conservation’ (1.60 ± 4.45, n = 217), and ‘ecology’ (1.40 ± 2.01, n = 190)
Summary
Evaluating conservation and management effectiveness requires robust data (Sutherland et al 2004). Research effort is influenced by factors such as extinction risk, phylogeny, life history, donor funding priorities, and country income (de Lima et al 2011; Ducatez and Lefebvre 2014; Freile et al 2014), which means that for some species disproportionately less is known about their ecology or data relevant to conservation problems are not available. Examining how these potential biases in research effort are manifested provides a foundation on which to explore what data are collected versus what is required for species conservation. Documenting patterns in research bias is an important step to assess potential gaps between conservation data needs and ecological research
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