Widespread Biases in Ecological and Evolutionary Studies

Abstract

<jats:title>Abstract</jats:title> <jats:p>There has been widespread discussion of biases in the sciences. The extent of most forms of bias has scarcely been confronted with rigorous data. In the present article, we evaluated the potential for geographic, taxonomic, and citation biases in publications between temperate and tropical systems for nine broad topics in ecology and evolutionary biology. Across 1,800 papers sampled from 60,000 peer-reviewed, empirical studies, we found consistent patterns of bias in the form of increased numbers of studies in temperate systems. Tropical studies were nearly absent from some topics. Furthermore, there were strong taxonomic biases across topics and geographic regions, as well as evidence for citation biases in many topics. Our results indicate a strong geographic imbalance in publishing patterns and among different taxonomic groups across a wide range of topics. The task ahead is to address what these biases mean and how they influence the state of our knowledge in ecology and evolution.</jats:p>

Gradual replacement of wild bees by honeybees in flowers of the Mediterranean Basin over the last 50 years

“…The latter two regions are prominent examples of ecologically understudied areas (Martin et al 2012) and, as far as I know, have been never considered in quantitative analyses of bee population trends. The empirical evidence available, therefore, supports the view that, to the extent that broad extrapolations on “pollinator decline” or “pollination crisis” were inspired or supported by honeybee declines (see, e.g., Ghazoul 2005, Potts et al 2010, Ollerton 2017, for reviews), such generalizations exemplify distorted ecological knowledge arising from geographically biased data (Ghazoul 2005, Martin et al 2012, Archer et al 2014, Culumber et al 2019).…”

“…The structure and dynamics of ecological communities can vary tremendously across biomes and continents. Critical elements of ecological knowledge will thus be closely tied to the particular location where it is attained, and attempts at extrapolations which are based on limited, spatially biased ecological data may produce distorted or erroneous inferences (Martin et al 2012, Culumber et al 2019). For instance, unawareness of geographical sampling biases has been pointed out as one possible weakness of generalizations on “pollinator decline” and “pollination crisis” (Ghazoul 2005, Archer 2014, Herrera 2019, Jamieson et al 2019), two topics that have recently elicited considerable academic and societal interest because of the importance of animal pollination for the reproduction of many wild and crop plants (Ollerton et al 2014, Senapathi et al 2015, Breeze et al 2016, Ollerton 2017).…”

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“…The collaborative map is a true celebration of the diversity of vegetation on our planet, with user-submitted photo points from 64 countries and every continent! However, many areas in the world are grossly underrepresented -a far too familiar tale in the ecological sciences (Culumber et al 2019). For example, all terrestrial biomes are represented, but tropical and tundra regions are sparse (Fig 3A).…”

Growth–reproduction trade‐off and fecundity regulate population stability in Amazon floodplain fishes

“…Empirical evidence that life‐history traits regulate population stability comes almost exclusively from studies carried out in temperate regions. Assessing the factors that regulate population stability requires continuous monitoring over long periods, which explains the scarcity of studies in the tropics (Culumber et al., 2019). The contribution of life‐history traits and harvesting to population stability in species‐rich tropical regions can foster comparisons with temperate regions and allow a better understanding of populations ecology.…”