Perceptions Of Biodiversity Research Articles

How farmers think about insects: perceptions of biodiversity, biodiversity loss and attitudes towards insect-friendly farming practices

An alarming decrease of insects in number and variety calls for measures of protection and promotion, since insects are crucial for the functioning of ecosystems and provide multiple ecosystem services. Agricultural landscapes can provide vast insect habitats if they are managed accordingly. However, little is known about farmers’ problem awareness and attitudes toward insect biodiversity loss, related farming practises, or alternative acceptable insect-friendly solutions. To fill these research gaps, this paper aimed to reveal farmers’ perceptions and attitudes regarding these aspects in two German case studies. We conducted 23 semi-structured interviews with farmers in 2019 and qualitatively analysed them using semantic web analysis. Farmers mostly reported awareness of insects’ ecosystem services and disservices related to agricultural production rather than mentioning the holistic ecological importance of insects. About half of the farmers confirmed insect loss based on their own observations, whereas a similar number doubted there had been a decrease of insects. Most farmers are open-minded towards insect-friendly measures if financially compensated. The farmers also mentioned a joint societal responsibility for insects, economic pressure on farmers to use pesticides due to global market prices, and unbalanced agricultural policies. This study revealed in-depth insights into farmers’ thinking about insects and how farmers contextualise arguments. Our results identified overlaps in farmers’ mental models, which paves the way for co-designing insect-friendly farming practices in landscape labs. Local transformation efforts can also demonstrate new pathways for a shift on the higher levels.

Divergent farmer and scientist perceptions of agricultural biodiversity, ecosystem services and decision-making

Biodiversity-friendly management is pivotal for sustainable agriculture, but rarely put into practice by farmers despite mounting evidence of the social, environmental, and economic benefits of such practices. We investigated the reasons for this implementation challenge by conducting a transdisciplinary survey to identify differences between perceptions of 208 farmers and 98 environmental scientists from Germany and Austria toward biodiversity, ecosystem services and the decision-making processes shaping agricultural landscapes. Perceptions of biodiversity, agri-environment schemes and conservation measures differed significantly between scientists and farmers. While scientists valued scientific information as more important for agricultural decision-making, farmers valued government and agricultural-sector information sources. We found more “biodiversity-positive” perceptions in female-, organic-, and more highly-educated-farmers, highlighting opportunities for more targeted promotion of conservation schemes. Survey respondents were generally younger than the population averages for both farmers and scientists, and our results therefore provide important insights for the future of biodiversity-friendly farming and related conservation science. Our findings demonstrate the urgent need for enhanced communication platforms and cooperation between scientists and key agricultural stakeholders to establish open dialogues between agricultural research, practice, and policy.

What’s biodiversity got to do with it? Perceptions of biodiversity and restorativeness in urban parks

Gonçalves, P., F. Grilo, R. C. Mendes, K. Vierikko, B. Elands, T. A. Marques, and M. Santos-Reis. 2021. What’s biodiversity got to do with it? Perceptions of biodiversity and restorativeness in urban parks. Ecology and Society 26(3):25. https://doi.org/10.5751/ES-12598-260325

The phantom chorus: birdsong boosts human well-being in protected areas.

Spending time in nature is known to benefit human health and well-being, but evidence is mixed as to whether biodiversity or perceptions of biodiversity contribute to these benefits. Perhaps more importantly, little is known about the sensory modalities by which humans perceive biodiversity and obtain benefits from their interactions with nature. Here, we used a 'phantom birdsong chorus' consisting of hidden speakers to experimentally increase audible birdsong biodiversity during 'on' and 'off' (i.e. ambient conditions) blocks on two trails to study the role of audition in biodiversity perception and self-reported well-being among hikers. Hikers exposed to the phantom chorus reported higher levels of restorative effects compared to those that experienced ambient conditions on both trails; however, increased restorative effects were directly linked to the phantom chorus on one trail and indirectly linked to the phantom chorus on the other trail through perceptions of avian biodiversity. Our findings add to a growing body of evidence linking mental health to nature experiences and suggest that audition is an important modality by which natural environments confer restorative effects. Finally, our results suggest that maintaining or improving natural soundscapes within protected areas may be an important component to maximizing human experiences.

Evaluation of the cultural ecosystem services of wetland park

• The 9 CES types of the wetland park were quantitatively evaluated by SolVES model. • The gender of the respondents impacted the assessment of wetland CES. • The background environmental variable was indirect driving factor of the CES value. • Wetland was the most important environmental data for the CES of the wetland park. • CES transfer from XNWP to GNUWP provided valid results. One of effective ways to maintain and expand the protected area of wetlands is the development and construction of wetland parks. As urbanization increases, deep insight on the relationships between wetland cultural ecosystem services and natural environment has become critical. In this paper, we identified and mapped the cultural ecosystem services of two wetland parks (the Xiuhu National Wetland Park and the Guanyintang National Urban Wetland Park) by using the Social Values for Ecosystem Services model and the preference survey data. The results show that 1) the highest score of the cultural ecosystem services of Xiuhu National Wetland Park is the biodiversity perception value with a max value index of 10, and then future value and history value with a max value index of 9, aesthetic value and recreation value with a max value index of 8, and culture value, learning value, spiritual value and therapeutic value with a max value index of 7; 2) subjectively, the gender of the respondents affected the evaluation of cultural ecosystem services. The male prefers the aesthetic value, culture value, recreation value, spiritual value and therapeutic value, while female prefers the history value; 3) objectively, the cultural ecosystem services of wetland is affected by various environmental data layers; 4) the cultural ecosystem services values are transferred from Xiuhu National Wetland Park to Guanyintang National Urban Wetland Park, and the transferred value of Guanyintang National Urban Wetland Park has performed well. Our findings suggest that the Social Values for Ecosystem Services model is appropriate to serve such small-scale wetland park and our results can provide a scientific basis for wetland park managers and planners to optimize the cultural ecosystem services and protect wetland resources.

The Nature of Reality: Human Stress Recovery During Exposure to Biodiverse, Multisensory Virtual Environments.

Immersive virtual environments (IVEs) were used to test the effects of biodiversity on recovery from induced stress. Three natural environments and one urban environment were used to represent ordinal levels of biodiversity (none, low, moderate, and high). The four IVEs comprised visual, auditory, and olfactory stimuli. An additional high biodiversity IVE without auditory or olfactory stimuli was also included to study the effects of multisensory stimulation per se on recovery from stress and perceptions of biodiversity. Following stress induction via a novel IVE Trier Social Stress Test (TSST-IVE), heart rate and five self-reported well-being measures were used to assess participants’ recovery after immersion in one of the five IVEs. The results showed consistent well-being responses across both self-reported and physiological measures, suggesting biodiversity does directly affect human well-being. However, the relationship was not linear. For most measures of well-being, stress recovery was least effective in the urban IVE, consistent with past research. The low biodiversity IVE elicited the greatest improvement in all well-being measures except self-reported calmness. One could speculate that the landscape features of the least biodiverse IVE may elicit subconscious preferences toward savanna-like landscapes, as suggested by previous studies. The IVE depicting a moderate level of biodiversity was the least restorative of the natural environments. A multisensory experience was associated with better recovery in all measures of well-being than a visual-only experience, and perceptions of landscape components significantly differed between two identical nature scenes when auditory and olfactory stimuli were removed. Nuances in the data and implications of the findings are discussed. The results signal a need for caution and question the assumption that cultural ecosystem services align with positive outcomes for biodiversity conservation.

Influence of a participatory process in the assessment and perception of biodiversity by communities surrounding forest fragments of Armenia, Quindío

La relación entre la biodiversidad y los grupos sociales es sumamente compleja; la humanidad depende esencialmente de los sistemas biológicos, sin embargo, sus acciones amenazan con destruirlos, surgiendo así los problemas ambientales, como la fragmentación de hábitat. Los fragmentos boscosos persistentes tras la urbanización de la ciudad de Armenia, son potencialmente muy biodiversos, y dado que la participación de la comunidad en la gestión y valoración de la biodiversidad, es fundamental para su conservación; se tuvo como objetivo, evaluar la influencia de un proceso participativo en la valoración y percepción de la biodiversidad por las comunidades locales aledañas a fragmentos boscosos de la ciudad. Se identificó mediante encuestas y diálogo de saberes, la percepción y valoración de las comunidades locales aledañas a tres fragmentos boscosos, en torno a plantas, mamíferos, aves, mariposas y escarabajos coprófagos; después de la implementación de un proceso participativo de reconocimiento de la biodiversidad y educación ambiental, se implementaron nuevamente las estrategias metodológicas anteriormente mencionadas, y se compararon y analizaron estadísticamente los resultados obtenidos en los dos momentos. Se encontró que la percepción y valoración de la biodiversidad por las comunidades locales es variable para los cinco grupos biológicos evaluados, y la valoración de la biodiversidad antes y después del proceso, fue significativamente diferente (p<0,05). La influencia del proceso participativo, en el cambio de percepción y valoración de la biodiversidad por las comunidades locales aledañas a los fragmentos boscosos de Armenia, puede favorecer su conservación y la de su biodiversidad asociada.

Evidences of plant blindness in a Brazilian urban green space with plaqued trees

Plant blindness is a recurrent issue in many urban green spaces. As an element of biodiversity perception, it is socially and individually determined. This paper brings up evidences of plant blindness through a quali-quantitative analysis of 49 interviews on an urban green area of the São Paulo state whose several trees have been recently plaqued. Respondents were not able to correctly identify plant elements and undervalued richness of different types of plants. Despite pointing out the necessity of green spaces in improving quality of life, respondents underestimated the importance of maintaining not only a green space, but a biodiverse one. We discuss the perception of a “good” green space is less associated with species richness, and more with passers-by expectations on a green space and with an innate plant blindness. We suppose informative plaques may play a role in reduce plant blindness, since plaques individualize plants that were once seen as components of a monotonous green landscape.

In Pursuit of Urban Sustainability: Predicting Public Perceptions of Park Biodiversity Using Simple Assessment Tools

In the face of ongoing global species loss, it is vital that urban societies see the value of biodiversity. However, practical strategies to enhance society’s appreciation of biodiversity are limited by the disparity that exists between public perceptions and expert assessments of biodiversity. To enhance our understanding of this disparity, and to provide insight into the visual cues that influence laypeople’s perceptions of biodiversity, four novel non-expert-dependent assessment tools—along with estimates of vegetation cover and bird species richness—were used to examine the attributes of 134 Australian urban parks. Ordinal regression modelling was used to explore the ability of these tools to predict perceptions of biodiversity and naturalness collected via a public questionnaire that yielded 1894 individual green space perception responses from 840 individuals. Despite researchers theorising otherwise, changes in structural variation were too subtle to significantly influence perceptions. Vegetation cover, habitat diversity, and a proposed Urban Park Naturalness Index (UPNI) were the strongest predictors of perceived biodiversity, explaining 31% of respondent perceptions. Bird species richness significantly influenced perceptions of naturalness but not biodiversity. Despite a relatively weak correlation between perceptions and objective measures (Nagelkerke R-squared = 0.307), we demonstrate how subtle changes in assessed attributes significantly affect predicted perceptions of the environment. For example, every additional habitat type within a park increases the odds of it being in a higher perceived biodiversity category by 31.7%. We suggest further development of simple assessment tools, such as the UPNI, that provide valuable insights into human responses to nature, and can aid the sustainable design and management of urban green space.

Gaming for Active Nature Engagement. Animal Diplomacy Bureau: designing games to engage and create player agency in urban nature.

As humans migrate into cities, the opportunity for interactions between individuals and nature diminishes. Nature encounters in cities, are increasingly occurring in human managed wildlife areas e.g. city parks or reserves, offering a polarised perception of biodiversity. This alienation of nature is termed, by Robert M Pyle, as the ‘extinction of experience’. When people are no longer actively engaged in nature, a lack of awareness and knowledge towards local wildlife arises, resulting in demands to reconnect people to nature. The paper documents the Animal Diplomacy Bureau (ADB), a series of designed game experiments providing people with agency over their nature. The games offer means for players to gain in-depth knowledge about local wildlife purposes in city parks, whilst creating a platform to discuss their concerns about a ‘more-than human city’. The games use digital & non-digital roleplay envisioning alternate worlds, site and species- specific stories, a mix of cooperative and competitive group dynamics and in-depth discussions. The process opened up the agency for how players would approach the issue of engaging nature to provoke new design responses. The study developed a framework for playful and self-exploratory design approaches bridging people to nature. The game's methods were developed with expert peers, design led research and a series of public engagements. ADB's framework, transformed research tools into instruments of agency by giving players the knowledge to understand and be directly involved in the imagining of a more wildlife friendly city. The authors believe the lessons can be translated into other fields.

Urban freshwaters, biodiversity, and human health and well‐being: Setting an interdisciplinary research agenda

The findings of a national workshop that explored the social and environmental impacts, challenges, and research opportunities associated with the role of urban freshwaters for improved public health are discussed. Bringing together the collective expertise of academics, practitioners, policy, and user‐groups from urban aquatic ecology and human health backgrounds, this commentary develops a progressive agenda for future research by synthesizing current understandings and knowledge of urban aquatic biodiversity relative to health‐related ecosystem service outcomes, from a cross‐sectoral and cross‐disciplinary perspective. Key areas include (a) a need for greater interaction between sectors to maximize opportunities for collaboration and to promote the cobenefits (both environmental and health) associated with urban freshwater ecosystems; and (b) the need for a unified understanding and operationalization of the definition of aquatic biodiversity across sectors and disciplines, to improve our understanding of whether actual freshwater biodiversity or the perception of biodiversity is important for maximizing gains in health. Methods of valuation relating to ecosystem services and resource allocation and investment in urban freshwaters are critical in ensuring that research addresses the pathways and contexts within which health and environmental benefits from blue space can be maximized.This article is categorized under: Human Water > Value of Water

The Wellbeing Benefits Associated with Perceived and Measured Biodiversity in Australian Urban Green Spaces

There are few studies examining the wellbeing benefits from exposure to natural environments differing in ecological attributes, such as biodiversity, and they have not had consistent results. This study progresses our understanding of the nuanced relationship between nature and wellbeing by analyzing the self-reported benefits derived from urban green spaces varying in a range of objectively measured biodiversity attributes such as bird species richness, habitat diversity, and structural heterogeneity. Respondents’ (n = 840) perceptions of biodiversity and naturalness were also examined. We identified the biodiversity attributes most strongly associated with particular benefits, as well as the types of parks where those benefits were significantly more likely to occur. Findings suggest that perceived, rather than objective measures of biodiversity are better predictors of subjective wellbeing benefits. Of the assessed biodiversity attributes, vegetation cover consistently correlated most strongly with psychological benefits. Stress reduction and mood improvement were greatest in nature parks and lowest in pocket parks. Increases in each biodiversity attribute significantly affected psychological wellbeing at different thresholds, suggesting the relationship between biodiversity and wellbeing is not linear. Thresholds of sensitivity for park attributes are discussed, with vegetation cover, naturalness, structural heterogeneity, and park type emerging as the most useful differentiators for studying human responses to nature. Our findings can help inform green space planning to maximize environmental benefits and health benefits concurrently.

Development and appraisal of new biodiversity loss and conservation game (BLACOG) in assessing students’ knowledge, attitude and perception of biodiversity conservation

Educational programmes have for long been used in biodiversity conservation; however introduction of board games in these efforts is a new concept, which is believed, will result in greater achievements. This study developed and used a new educational board game, biodiversity loss and conservation game (BLACOG) and a test-questionnaire to appraise the knowledge, attitude and perception of biodiversity (KAPOB) among secondary school students in Abeokuta, Nigeria. Students (n=283) were selected randomly from three schools, two of the schools serving as Experimental Groups while the third served as the control-group. The test-questionnaire, rated on a Likert scale, was administered to both the control and experimental groups prior to and after five exposures to the game, though the control-group did not have any exposure to the game. Data obtained were tested for significant differences in the mean scores of the respondents in the tests prior to and after the game. T-test comparison of the mean scores of the pre- and post-tests of the Control Group was not significantly different (p=0.207). The mean scores in the post-test were significantly higher than the pre-test scores in both of the experimental schools. The results also showed that, though the mean scores of the pre-tests of the control and experimental groups were not significantly different, the mean score in the post-test of the Experimental Group was significantly higher than in the control group. This study showed that the use of BLACOG had significantly positive effects on the KAPOB of the experimental group and that the game could become a veritable educational tool for teaching biodiversity conservation in schools.Keywords: Conservation education; biodiversity conservation; biodiversity loss; biodiversity education game.

Social Underpinnings of Ecological Knowledge: Business Perceptions of Biodiversity as Social Learning

Biodiversity loss presents a serious business risk, particularly for natural resource–based sectors. Improved ecological knowledge has been identified as a means to change perceptions and motivate operational reform regarding biodiversity, but the processes by which businesses gain such knowledge remain unclear. One possible process is to use social learning. Social learning describes processes of ecological knowledge transfer and identifies essential components of successful learning processes. Social learning is applied to forestry and salmon farming in Chile. The role of the Forestry Stewardship Council (FSC) as a “bridging organisation,” prompting learning by forestry firms, contrasts with the absence of such an organisation in salmon farming. This article demonstrates how even with improved ecological knowledge firms may not fully transform operations, instead seeking to protect core activities from substantive reform. The article reflects on potential applications of social learning to other socioecological contexts, and areas for future research regarding business and biodiversity.

A characterization of media representation of biodiversity and implications for public perceptions and environmental policy: the case of Québec, Canada

The term biodiversity is widely used by scientists, international policy makers and the general public. Its representation in mass media plays a key role in shaping public perceptions of biodiversity and informing the public about scientific developments with implications for ecosystem conservation and management. Our exploratory case study of major newspapers in the province of Quebec, Canada, characterized the representation of biodiversity in the media from 2006 to 2012 in 567 articles. We showed that biodiversity was not explicitly defined in the media, yet consistently associated with positive outcomes, views and beliefs. The term was used as a catch-all argument frequently supporting proponent and opponent views regarding an issue or project. Overall, the definitions, uses and values associated with biodiversity did not change significantly over the study period, except for a small increase of the term in news media during the 2010 International Year of Biodiversity compared to the average. There was, however, evidence of a shift towards ecosystem services associated with the concept following 2010. As such, potential linkages between biodiversity and ecosystem services reflected in the scientific literature seem to be reflected in media discourse. We discuss these trends and contrast them with the representation of other core environmental issues such as climate change and sustainable development.

Perceived health benefits of managed and unmanaged meadows in a mountain biosphere reserve – an experimental study in the Austrian Alps

Many societies are faced with a growing prevalence of poor health because of stress and sedentary lifestyles. Natural and semi-natural landscapes are increasingly seen as restorative settings, compensating for negative psycho-physiological effects on humans. The extent of these positive effects, however, may depend on the landscape’s degree of naturalness and perceptions of biodiversity, scenic beauty and restorativeness. We assessed the perceived health benefits for 22 participants (age M = 27 years) who twice visited a managed and an abandoned meadow in the Austrian Großes Walsertal Biosphere Reserve. This study found that perceived health benefits did not differ between the managed and unmanaged meadows; participants reported a positive effect of their stays in both meadows on attention restoration, stress reduction and well-being. However, differences between the meadow types did emerge in terms of perceptions of their naturalness and biodiversity, and of perceptions of them as restorative places. Potentially, these restorative benefits can be used for new health-related offers for visitors to mountain biosphere reserves.

Social Perceptions of Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services in the Ecuadorian Amazon

The Amazon basin is widely recognized for its high biological and cultural diversity, enabling the provision of many ecosystem services. This study explores social perceptions of some of the features of biodiversity and ecosystem services in a tropical forest in Sangay Parish, Ecuador. Following a survey of residents, we identified three groups whose perceptions vary in relation to socioeconomic characteristics, cultural backgrounds, lifestyles, and the benefits obtained from the Sangay forest. Mestizo professionals, with a better socioeconomic situation, identify more regulation and cultural services; Shuar farmers have a comprehensive knowledge of biodiversity features and rely on provisioning services; and Shuar gatherers consume more forest products but are the least likely to formally recognize ecosystem services. We emphasize the importance of identifying social groups within a population and understanding their particular characteristics and perspectives before developing conservation and land use planning policies.

Internet scientific name frequency as an indicator of cultural salience of biodiversity

Public interest in nature is an important driver of the success of conservation actions, such that increasing public awareness of biodiversity has become a major conservation goal (i.e. Aichi Target 1). Macro-scale monitoring of public interest towards nature has thus far been difficult, but the enormous quantity of information generated by the internet allows for new approaches using culturomic techniques. For example, other things being equal, we would expect that the vernacular (common) names of charismatic species with high levels of public interest (e.g. tiger, elephant) to appear on more web-pages than less ‘cultural’ species. Nevertheless, deriving metrics from such data is challenging because vernacular names often have multiple meanings (e.g. teal, jaguar) that could significantly bias culturomic metrics of cultural visibility. Scientific binomial names of species potentially avoid this problem because Latin is a ‘dead’ language and the scientific name typically applies only to the biological organism. Here, we investigate whether standard scientific names: i) are a robust proxy of web salience of vernacular species names, and; ii) have the same statistical relationship with vernacular species names across different cultural and language groups. Automated internet searches were carried out for scientific and vernacular names from a global bird species list and six national bird species lists (Australia, Brazil, Indonesia, Spain, Tanzania and USA). For national searches the results were restricted to country web domains. We found strong and consistent correlations between vernacular and scientific species names at both global and country level, independent of language and cultural differences. The universality of this relationship suggests that the web salience of scientific species names is a robust, cross-cultural indicator of species ‘culturalness’. Potential applications of this indicator include: i) the development of new indicators to assess public perceptions of biodiversity; ii) systematic identification of species with high cultural visibility; iii) empirical identification of the biogeographic, ecological, morphological and cultural characteristics of species that influence cultural visibility, globally and in different cultural settings, and; iv) near real-time monitoring of changes in species ‘culturalness’. The capture and processing of internet data is technically non-trivial, but can be replicated at low cost and has enormous potential for the creation of new macro-scale metrics of human-nature interactions.

Variation in public perceptions and attitudes towards terrestrial ecosystems

Biodiversity is a global asset of inestimable value which is threatened by human activities. Biodiversity exists within ecosystems, which enjoy differing levels of conservation. The ways in which humans regard ecosystems can play an important role in identifying strategies to change human behaviour, thereby achieving conservation goals. We investigated how preference, scenic attractiveness, perceptions of biodiversity and conservation value varied between five terrestrial ecosystems in Victoria, Australia (503 respondents). We document, for the first time, distinct ecosystem preferences, with people favouring wet forest, followed by dry forest, arid woodland/shrubland, heathland and then grassland. The ecological worldview of the respondent (i.e., the set of beliefs that guide the way a person interacts with the natural world), their familiarity with the habitat and perceived scenic attractiveness influenced the conservation value assigned by the members of the public to each ecosystem. The conservation and biodiversity value assigned to each ecosystem was higher where people were familiar with the ecosystem, considered it attractive, and held an ecocentric worldview. These aspects may correlate with public attitudes and represent key elements which could be used to engender higher levels of support for less appreciated ecosystems. Enhanced support may then underpin better conservation outcomes.

Traditional ecological knowledge, shifting baselines, and conservation of Fijian molluscs

Understanding a region’s ecological history is crucial in formulating conservation plans. In the absence of conventional datasets, historical data and traditional ecological knowledge of local communities can elucidate trends over time and help set goals for preservation and restoration. These methods can contribute to the conservation of biologically and culturally significant species, including coral reef molluscs, in the South Pacific, which have experienced intensified threats such as overfishing and habitat degradation in recent decades. Through fisher interviews in a small coastal community in Fiji, we investigate changes in distribution, biomass, and human perception of common mollusc populations in a Fijian reef. We found evidence of a decline in mollusc populations, but only older fishers with more fishing experience perceived this decline, suggesting a shift in baseline perceptions of biodiversity.