title: Four barriers to the global understanding of biodiversity conservation: wealth, language, geographical location and security.
abstract: Global biodiversity conservation is seriously challenged by gaps and heterogeneity in the geographical coverage of existing information. Nevertheless, the key barriers to the collection and compilation of biodiversity information at a global scale have yet to be identified. We show that wealth, language, geographical location and security each play an important role in explaining spatial variations in data availability in four different types of biodiversity databases. The number of records per square kilometre is high in countries with high per capita gross domestic product (GDP), high proportion of English speakers and high security levels, and those located close to the country hosting the database; but these are not necessarily countries with high biodiversity. These factors are considered to affect data availability by impeding either the activities of scientific research or active international communications. Our results demonstrate that efforts to solve environmental problems at a global scale will gain significantly by focusing scientific education, communication, research and collaboration in low-GDP countries with fewer English speakers and located far from Western countries that host the global databases; countries that have experienced conflict may also benefit. Findings of this study may be broadly applicable to other fields that require the compilation of scientific knowledge at a global level.
authors: Conservation Science Group, Department of Zoology, University of Cambridge, Downing Street, Cambridge CB2 3EJ, UK. amatatsu830@gmail.com
authors: Tatsuya
authors: T
authors: Amano
authors: William J
authors: WJ
authors: Sutherland
mesh_terms: D044822:Biodiversity; D003247:Conservation of Natural Resources / Q000379:methods; D016208:Databases, Factual; D012959:Socioeconomic Factors
references: J Anim Ecol. 2012 Nov;81(6):1211-1222
references: 22640486
references: Nature. 2004 Jul 15;430(6997):311-6
references: 15254529
references: Philos Trans R Soc Lond B Biol Sci. 2011 Sep 27;366(1578):2623-32
references: 21844041
references: Nature. 2010 Aug 26;466(7310):1098-101
references: 20668450
references: Nature. 2003 Jan 2;421(6918):57-60
references: 12511952
references: Anim Behav. 1998 Oct;56(4):801-809
references: 9790690
references: PLoS Biol. 2010 Jun 01;8(6):e1000385
references: 20532234
references: Nature. 2011 Oct 12;478(7369):337-42
references: 21993620
references: PLoS One. 2007 Nov 07;2(11):e1124
references: 17987112
references: Nature. 2006 Nov 2;444(7115):93-6
references: 17080090
references: Science. 2004 Feb 27;303(5662):1333-5
references: 14988554
references: Science. 2010 May 28;328(5982):1164-8
references: 20430971
references: Science. 2010 Oct 1;330(6000):24
references: 20929783
references: Science. 2006 Jul 7;313(5783):58-61
references: 16825561
references: Conserv Biol. 2009 Apr;23(2):317-27
references: 19040654
references: Nature. 2001 Jun 14;411(6839):738
references: 11459032
references: Science. 2009 Sep 18;325(5947):1503-4
references: 19762630