he environmental DNA (eDNA) approach has already been established as a valuable tool for the dete... more he environmental DNA (eDNA) approach has already been established as a valuable tool for the detection and monitoring of rare and elusive species. However, its application is not limited to assessing whether or not a species is present in a given area. In this study, we collected environmental data from 48 aquatic locations that had previously been investigated in an eDNA-based study. We sought to determine the abiotic and biotic factors that could explain the presence or non-detection of Hula painted frog DNA at those locations, in order to characterize this rare species’ little studied habitat requirements. We found that the detection probability of this species decreased substantially with increasing phosphorus loads as well as in the presence of the wetland plant Lythrum salicaria. By contrast, the detection probability increased markedly when Phragmites australis or Ludwigia stolonifera constituted part of the dominant aquatic vegetation. Our results expand the knowledge on this elusive frog species and contribute valuable information for future habitat restoration plans. They further show that eDNA data can also be used to characterize the putative habitats of species where such data are scarce or even totally lacking.
Deciphering global trends in phylogenetic endemism is crucial for understanding broad-scale evolu... more Deciphering global trends in phylogenetic endemism is crucial for understanding broad-scale evolutionary patterns and the conservation of key elements of biodiversity. However, knowledge to date on global phylogenetic endemism and its determinants has been lacking. Here, we conduct the first global analysis of phylogenetic endemism patterns of land vertebrates (>30,000 species), their environmental correlates, and threats. We found that low temperature seasonality and high topographic heterogeneity were the main global determinants of phylogenetic endemism. While phylogenetic endemism hotspots cover 22% of Earth, these regions currently have a high human footprint, low natural land cover, minimal protection, and will be greatly affected by climate change. Evolutionarily unique, narrow-range species are crucial for sustaining biodiversity in the face of environmental change. Our global study advances the current understanding of this imperilled yet previously overlooked facet of biodiversity.
Interactions with nature promote key human health benefits and help inform sound conservation act... more Interactions with nature promote key human health benefits and help inform sound conservation actions. During the COVID-19 lockdowns such interactions were reduced and, in many cases, limited to urban nature. Nevertheless, home-confinement regulations may have provided the impetus for people to reconnect with urban wildlife –through their windows, in their backyards, or in nearby urban parks. COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions also changed the behavior of many wild animals. Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore different aspects of the multi-faceted relationships between people and nature.Here, we explored public interest using a culturomics approach in common garden birds before, during, and after various COVID- 19 lockdowns were enacted.. We found a consistent and marked increases in public interest for all species, in the five countries explored during the first Covid-19 lockdowns. Our findings suggest that many people used their time during the COVID-19 pandemic to rekindle an interest in and appreciation of nature.
The recent growth of online big data offers opportunities for rapid and inexpensive measurement o... more The recent growth of online big data offers opportunities for rapid and inexpensive measurement of public interest. Conservation culturomics is an emerging research area that uses online data to study human-nature relationships for conservation. Methods for conservation culturomics, though promising, are still being developed and refined. We considered the potential of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, as a resource for conservation culturomics and outlined methods for using Wikipedia data in conservation. Wikipedia's large size, widespread use, underlying data structure, and open access to both its content and usage analytics make it well suited to conservation culturomics research. Limitations of Wikipedia data include the lack of location information associated with some metadata and limited information on the motivations of many users. Seven methodological steps to consider when using Wikipedia data in conservation include metadata selection, temporality, taxonomy, language representation, Wikipedia geography, physical and biological geography, and comparative metrics. Each of these methodological decisions can affect measures of online interest. As a case study, we explored these themes by analyzing 757 million Wikipedia page views associated with the Wikipedia pages for 10,099 species of birds across 251 Wikipedia language editions. We found that Wikipedia data have the potential to generate insight for conservation and are particularly useful for quantifying patterns of public interest at large scales.
Our knowledge of the conservation status of reptiles, the most diverse class of terrestrial verte... more Our knowledge of the conservation status of reptiles, the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates, has improved dramatically over the past decade, but still lags behind that of the other tetrapod groups. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive evaluation (~92% of the world's ~1714 described species) of the conservation status of skinks (Scincidae), a speciose reptile family with a worldwide distribution. Using International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, we report that ~20% of species are threatened with extinction, and nine species are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild. The highest levels of threat are evident in Madagascar and the Neotropics, and in the subfamilies Mabuyinae, Eugongylinae and Scincinae. The vast majority of threatened skink species were listed based primarily on their small geographic ranges (Criterion B, 83%; Criterion D2, 13%). Although the population trend of 42% of species was stable, 14% have declining populations. The key threats to skinks are habitat loss due to agriculture, invasive species, and biological resource use (e.g., hunting, timber harvesting). The distributions of 61% of species do not overlap with protected areas. Despite our improved knowledge of the conservation status of the world's skinks, 8% of species remain to be assessed, and 14% are listed as Data Deficient. The conservation status of almost a quarter of the world's skink species thus remains unknown. We use our updated knowledge of the conservation status of the group to develop and outline the priorities for the conservation assessment and management of the world's skink species.
Biological invasions are a major threat to global biodiversity and can have substantial socioecon... more Biological invasions are a major threat to global biodiversity and can have substantial socioeconomic costs. Although invasive non–native species have been studied extensively, their monitoring and management are often inadequate (Pergl et al. 2020). Moreover, the great harm invasive non–native species cause tends to be underestimated by the public and their management often opposed (Courchamp et al. 2017). There is a need to better understand societal awareness, perceptions, values, and attitudes toward invasive non–native species and the level of societal support for management plans. However, research to gauge these factors is rare and difficult to implement (Verbrugge et al. 2013; Lindemann–Matthies 2016).
The World Wide Web became broadly available in August 1991, ushering in the Information Age and c... more The World Wide Web became broadly available in August 1991, ushering in the Information Age and catalyzing profound changes in almost every aspect of human endeavor. This new age is characterized by online connectivity, real-time interactions, and the convergence of information and communication technology, institutions, people, and processes (Castells 2003). Statistics from 2020 show that approximately 58.8% of the global population (a little over 4.5 billion people) use the internet (https://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Most of these people leave digital traces of their interests and attitudes in the form of, for example, the websites they visit, the photos and comments they post on social media platforms, and the videos of their activities they record and share online. Much of these data are publicly available and, with application of some technical expertise, can yield fascinating insights into human culture, including interactions and attitudes toward nature and conservation.
Culturomic tools enable exploration of trends in human-nature interactions, although they entail ... more Culturomic tools enable exploration of trends in human-nature interactions, although they entail inherent biases and necessitate careful validation. Furthermore, people may engage with nature across different culturomic data sets differently. We evaluated people's digital interest and engagement with plant species based on Wikipedia and Google data and explored the conservation implications of these temporal interest patterns. As a case study, we explored the digital footprints of the most popular plant species in Israel. We analyzed 4 years of daily page views from Hebrew Wikipedia and ten years of daily Google search volume in Israel. We modeled popularity of plant species in these two data sets based on a suite of plant attributes. We further explored the seasonal trends of people's interest in each species. We found differences in how people interacted digitally with plants in Wikipedia and Google data sets. Overall, in Google searchers for species that have utility to humans were more common, whereas in Wikipedia plants that serve as cultural emblems received more attention. Furthermore, in Google, popular species attracted more attention over time, opposite to the trend in Wikipedia. In Google interest in species with short bloom duration exhibited more pronounced seasonal patterns, whereas in Wikipedia seasonality of interest increased as bloom duration increased. Together, our results suggest that people's digital interactions with nature may be inherently different depending on the sources explored, which may affect use of this information for conservation. Although culturomics holds much promise, better understanding of its underpinnings is important when translating insights into conservation actions.
Ongoing loss of biological diversity is primarily the result of unsustainable human behavior. Thu... more Ongoing loss of biological diversity is primarily the result of unsustainable human behavior. Thus, the long-term success of biodiversity conservation depends on a thorough understanding of human-nature interactions. Such interactions are ubiquitous but vary greatly in time and space and are difficult to monitor efficiently at large spatial scales. However, the Information Age also provides new opportunities to better understand human-nature interactions because many aspects of daily life are recorded in a variety of digital formats. The emerging field of conservation culturomics aims to take advantage of digital data sources and methods to study human-nature interactions and thus to provide new tools for studying conservation at relevant temporal and spatial scales. Nevertheless, technical challenges associated with the identification, access, and analysis of relevant data hamper the wider adoption of culturomics methods. To help overcome these barriers, we propose a conservation culturomics research framework that addresses data acquisition, analysis, and inherent biases. The main sources of culturomic data include web pages, social media, and other digital platforms from which metrics of content and engagement can be obtained. Obtaining raw data from these platforms is usually desirable but requires careful consideration of how to access, store, and prepare the data for analysis. Methods for data analysis include network * email rahc85@gmail.com Article impact statement: Guidelines for overcoming challenges associated with digital data collection and analysis can advance conservation culturomics applications.
Large body size, the defining characteristic of "charismatic megafauna," is often viewed as the m... more Large body size, the defining characteristic of "charismatic megafauna," is often viewed as the most significant correlate of higher public interest in species. However , common, local species (many of which are not large) can also generate public interest. We explored the relative importance of body size versus local occurrence in patterns of online interest in birds using a large sample of digital human-wildlife interactions (367 million Wikipedia pageviews) that included more than 10,000 bird species and a range of cultural and geographic contexts (represented by 25 Wikipedia language editions). We compared interest in Wikipedia, as measured by pageviews, with a bird's body size and its regional observation frequency (using data from eBird.org). We found that local species (i.e., those that occur in the wild in the country responsible for the majority of a Wikipedia language edition's pageviews) attract more pageviews than global species. Both body size and observation frequency had a positive correlation with Wikipedia pageviews across languages, but eBird observation frequency explained more of the variance in pageviews on average. In a model that included both observation frequency and body size, observation frequency was a significantly better predictor of pageviews than body size in 24 of 25 languages. Our results demonstrate that the opportunity to encounter birds in the wild is a significant correlate of increased online interest in birds across multiple linguistic and geographic contexts. This relationship provides insight into why some species attract greater interest than others and emphasizes the overlooked potential of common species in conservation marketing.
Amniote vertebrates share a suite of extra-embryonic membranes that distinguish them from anamnio... more Amniote vertebrates share a suite of extra-embryonic membranes that distinguish them from anamniotes. Other than that, however, their reproductive characteristics could not be more different. They differ in basic ectothermic vs endothermic physiology, in that two clades evolved powered flight, and one clade evolved a protective shell. In terms of reproductive strategies, some produce eggs and others give birth to live young, at various degrees of development. Crucially, endotherms provide lengthy parental care, including thermal and food provisioning-whereas ecto-therms seldom do. These differences could be expected to manifest themselves in major differences between clades in quantitative reproductive traits. We review the reproductive characteristics, and the distributions of brood sizes, breeding frequencies, offspring sizes and their derivatives (yearly fecundity and biomass production rates) of the four major amniote clades (mammals, birds, turtles and squamates), and several major subclades (birds: Palaeognathae, Galloanserae, Neoaves; mammals: Metatheria and Eutheria). While there are differences between these clades in some of these traits, they generally show similar ranges, distribution shapes and central tendencies across birds, placental mammals and squamates. Marsupials and turtles, however, differ in having smaller offspring, a strategy which subsequently influences other traits.
Restricted human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic raised global attention to the presence of... more Restricted human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic raised global attention to the presence of wildlife in cities. Here, we analyzed iNaturalist observations of prominent wildlife species around North-American urban centers, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. We suggest that the popular notion of 'wildlife reclaiming cities' may have been exaggerated. We found that while pumas ventured deeper into urban habitats during the COVID-19 pandemic, bears, bobcats, coyotes, and moose did not. Species differential behavioral responses may highlight their evolutionary history cohabiting human habitats. Nevertheless, our results highlight the importance of urban nature for people during the pandemic. Our insights could help manage urban wildlife, better plan greenspaces, and promote positive nature engagements.
The ongoing digital revolution in the age of big data is opening new research opportunities. Cult... more The ongoing digital revolution in the age of big data is opening new research opportunities. Culturomics and iEcology, two emerging research areas based on the analysis of online data resources, can provide novel scientific insights and inform conservation and management efforts. To date, culturomics and iEcology have been applied primarily in the terrestrial realm. Here, we advocate for expanding such applications to the aquatic realm by providing a brief overview of these new approaches and outlining key areas in which culturomics and iEcology are likely to have the highest impact, including the management of protected areas; fisheries; flagship species identification; detection and distribution of threatened, rare, and alien species; assessment of ecosystem status and anthropogenic impacts; and social impact assessment. When deployed in the right context with awareness of potential biases, culturomics and iEcology are ripe for rapid development as low-cost research approaches based on data available from digital sources, with increasingly diverse applications for aquatic ecosystems.
In their recent article in Frontiers of Biogeography, Eichhorn et al. (2020) raise some of the in... more In their recent article in Frontiers of Biogeography, Eichhorn et al. (2020) raise some of the inherent and pervasive imbalances in biogeographical research and present several approaches to remedy this. We would like to commend them for highlighting these issues. Making our science more collaborative, increasing access, and uncovering inherent biases in it are indeed challenges we should all address. Nevertheless, some of the biases they seek to expose permeate to their contribution and thus fail to put into practice what they advocate.
Aim: Clutch size is a key life-history trait. In lizards, it ranges over two orders of magnitude.... more Aim: Clutch size is a key life-history trait. In lizards, it ranges over two orders of magnitude. The global drivers of spatial and phylogenetic variation in clutch have been extensively studied in birds, but such tests in other organisms are lacking. To test the generality of latitudinal gradients in clutch size, and their putative drivers, we present the first global-scale analysis of clutch sizes across lizard taxa. Location: Global. Time period: Recent. Major taxa studied: Lizards (Reptilia, Squamata, Sauria). Methods: We analysed clutch-size data for over 3,900 lizard species, using phyloge-netic generalized least-square regression to study the relationships between clutch sizes and environmental (temperature, precipitation, seasonality, primary productivity , insularity) and ecological factors (body mass, insularity, activity times, and micro-habitat use). Results: Larger clutches are laid at higher latitudes and in more productive and seasonal environments. Insular taxa lay smaller clutches on average. Temperature
Phylogenetic diversity measures are increasingly used in conservation planning to represent aspec... more Phylogenetic diversity measures are increasingly used in conservation planning to represent aspects of biodiversity beyond that captured by species richness. Here we develop two new metrics that combine phylogenetic diversity and the extent of human pressure across the spatial distribution of species-one metric valuing regions and another prioritising species. We evaluate these metrics for reptiles, which have been largely neglected in previous studies, and contrast these results with equivalent calculations for all terrestrial vertebrate groups. We find that regions under high human pressure coincide with the most irreplaceable areas of reptilian diversity, and more than expected by chance. The highest priority reptile species score far above the top mammal and bird species, and reptiles include a disproportionate number of species with insufficient extinction risk data. Data Deficient species are, in terms of our species-level metric, comparable to Critically Endangered species and therefore may require urgent conservation attention.
Digital data are accumulating at unprecedented rates. These contain a lot of information about th... more Digital data are accumulating at unprecedented rates. These contain a lot of information about the natural world, some of which can be used to answer key ecological questions. Here, we introduce iEcology (i.e., internet ecology), an emerging research approach that uses diverse online data sources and methods to generate insights about species distribution over space and time, interactions and dynamics of organisms and their environment, and anthropogenic impacts. We review iEcology data sources and methods, and provide examples of potential research applications. We also outline approaches to reduce potential biases and improve reliability and applicability. As technologies and expertise improve, and costs diminish, iEcology will become an increasingly important means to gain novel insights into the natural world.
Animals have diversified into a bewildering variety of morphological forms exploiting a complex c... more Animals have diversified into a bewildering variety of morphological forms exploiting a complex configuration of trophic niches. Their morphological diversity is widely used as an index of ecosystem function, but the extent to which animal traits predict trophic niches and associated ecological processes is unclear. Here we use the measurements of nine key morphological traits for >99% bird species to show that avian trophic diversity is described by a trait space with four dimensions. The position of species within this space maps with 70–85% accuracy onto major niche axes, including trophic level, dietary resource type and finer-scale variation in foraging behaviour. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that these form–function associations reflect convergence towards predictable trait combinations, indicating that morphological variation is organized into a limited set of dimensions by evolutionary adaptation. Our results establish the minimum dimensionality required for avian functional traits to predict subtle variation in trophic niches and provide a global framework for exploring the origin, function and conservation of bird diversity.
The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation... more The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation priorities, and have been fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles, representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the world’s arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently.
he environmental DNA (eDNA) approach has already been established as a valuable tool for the dete... more he environmental DNA (eDNA) approach has already been established as a valuable tool for the detection and monitoring of rare and elusive species. However, its application is not limited to assessing whether or not a species is present in a given area. In this study, we collected environmental data from 48 aquatic locations that had previously been investigated in an eDNA-based study. We sought to determine the abiotic and biotic factors that could explain the presence or non-detection of Hula painted frog DNA at those locations, in order to characterize this rare species’ little studied habitat requirements. We found that the detection probability of this species decreased substantially with increasing phosphorus loads as well as in the presence of the wetland plant Lythrum salicaria. By contrast, the detection probability increased markedly when Phragmites australis or Ludwigia stolonifera constituted part of the dominant aquatic vegetation. Our results expand the knowledge on this elusive frog species and contribute valuable information for future habitat restoration plans. They further show that eDNA data can also be used to characterize the putative habitats of species where such data are scarce or even totally lacking.
Deciphering global trends in phylogenetic endemism is crucial for understanding broad-scale evolu... more Deciphering global trends in phylogenetic endemism is crucial for understanding broad-scale evolutionary patterns and the conservation of key elements of biodiversity. However, knowledge to date on global phylogenetic endemism and its determinants has been lacking. Here, we conduct the first global analysis of phylogenetic endemism patterns of land vertebrates (>30,000 species), their environmental correlates, and threats. We found that low temperature seasonality and high topographic heterogeneity were the main global determinants of phylogenetic endemism. While phylogenetic endemism hotspots cover 22% of Earth, these regions currently have a high human footprint, low natural land cover, minimal protection, and will be greatly affected by climate change. Evolutionarily unique, narrow-range species are crucial for sustaining biodiversity in the face of environmental change. Our global study advances the current understanding of this imperilled yet previously overlooked facet of biodiversity.
Interactions with nature promote key human health benefits and help inform sound conservation act... more Interactions with nature promote key human health benefits and help inform sound conservation actions. During the COVID-19 lockdowns such interactions were reduced and, in many cases, limited to urban nature. Nevertheless, home-confinement regulations may have provided the impetus for people to reconnect with urban wildlife –through their windows, in their backyards, or in nearby urban parks. COVID-19 lockdowns and travel restrictions also changed the behavior of many wild animals. Ultimately, the COVID-19 pandemic has provided a unique opportunity to explore different aspects of the multi-faceted relationships between people and nature.Here, we explored public interest using a culturomics approach in common garden birds before, during, and after various COVID- 19 lockdowns were enacted.. We found a consistent and marked increases in public interest for all species, in the five countries explored during the first Covid-19 lockdowns. Our findings suggest that many people used their time during the COVID-19 pandemic to rekindle an interest in and appreciation of nature.
The recent growth of online big data offers opportunities for rapid and inexpensive measurement o... more The recent growth of online big data offers opportunities for rapid and inexpensive measurement of public interest. Conservation culturomics is an emerging research area that uses online data to study human-nature relationships for conservation. Methods for conservation culturomics, though promising, are still being developed and refined. We considered the potential of Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia, as a resource for conservation culturomics and outlined methods for using Wikipedia data in conservation. Wikipedia's large size, widespread use, underlying data structure, and open access to both its content and usage analytics make it well suited to conservation culturomics research. Limitations of Wikipedia data include the lack of location information associated with some metadata and limited information on the motivations of many users. Seven methodological steps to consider when using Wikipedia data in conservation include metadata selection, temporality, taxonomy, language representation, Wikipedia geography, physical and biological geography, and comparative metrics. Each of these methodological decisions can affect measures of online interest. As a case study, we explored these themes by analyzing 757 million Wikipedia page views associated with the Wikipedia pages for 10,099 species of birds across 251 Wikipedia language editions. We found that Wikipedia data have the potential to generate insight for conservation and are particularly useful for quantifying patterns of public interest at large scales.
Our knowledge of the conservation status of reptiles, the most diverse class of terrestrial verte... more Our knowledge of the conservation status of reptiles, the most diverse class of terrestrial vertebrates, has improved dramatically over the past decade, but still lags behind that of the other tetrapod groups. Here, we conduct the first comprehensive evaluation (~92% of the world's ~1714 described species) of the conservation status of skinks (Scincidae), a speciose reptile family with a worldwide distribution. Using International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) criteria, we report that ~20% of species are threatened with extinction, and nine species are Extinct or Extinct in the Wild. The highest levels of threat are evident in Madagascar and the Neotropics, and in the subfamilies Mabuyinae, Eugongylinae and Scincinae. The vast majority of threatened skink species were listed based primarily on their small geographic ranges (Criterion B, 83%; Criterion D2, 13%). Although the population trend of 42% of species was stable, 14% have declining populations. The key threats to skinks are habitat loss due to agriculture, invasive species, and biological resource use (e.g., hunting, timber harvesting). The distributions of 61% of species do not overlap with protected areas. Despite our improved knowledge of the conservation status of the world's skinks, 8% of species remain to be assessed, and 14% are listed as Data Deficient. The conservation status of almost a quarter of the world's skink species thus remains unknown. We use our updated knowledge of the conservation status of the group to develop and outline the priorities for the conservation assessment and management of the world's skink species.
Biological invasions are a major threat to global biodiversity and can have substantial socioecon... more Biological invasions are a major threat to global biodiversity and can have substantial socioeconomic costs. Although invasive non–native species have been studied extensively, their monitoring and management are often inadequate (Pergl et al. 2020). Moreover, the great harm invasive non–native species cause tends to be underestimated by the public and their management often opposed (Courchamp et al. 2017). There is a need to better understand societal awareness, perceptions, values, and attitudes toward invasive non–native species and the level of societal support for management plans. However, research to gauge these factors is rare and difficult to implement (Verbrugge et al. 2013; Lindemann–Matthies 2016).
The World Wide Web became broadly available in August 1991, ushering in the Information Age and c... more The World Wide Web became broadly available in August 1991, ushering in the Information Age and catalyzing profound changes in almost every aspect of human endeavor. This new age is characterized by online connectivity, real-time interactions, and the convergence of information and communication technology, institutions, people, and processes (Castells 2003). Statistics from 2020 show that approximately 58.8% of the global population (a little over 4.5 billion people) use the internet (https://internetworldstats.com/stats.htm). Most of these people leave digital traces of their interests and attitudes in the form of, for example, the websites they visit, the photos and comments they post on social media platforms, and the videos of their activities they record and share online. Much of these data are publicly available and, with application of some technical expertise, can yield fascinating insights into human culture, including interactions and attitudes toward nature and conservation.
Culturomic tools enable exploration of trends in human-nature interactions, although they entail ... more Culturomic tools enable exploration of trends in human-nature interactions, although they entail inherent biases and necessitate careful validation. Furthermore, people may engage with nature across different culturomic data sets differently. We evaluated people's digital interest and engagement with plant species based on Wikipedia and Google data and explored the conservation implications of these temporal interest patterns. As a case study, we explored the digital footprints of the most popular plant species in Israel. We analyzed 4 years of daily page views from Hebrew Wikipedia and ten years of daily Google search volume in Israel. We modeled popularity of plant species in these two data sets based on a suite of plant attributes. We further explored the seasonal trends of people's interest in each species. We found differences in how people interacted digitally with plants in Wikipedia and Google data sets. Overall, in Google searchers for species that have utility to humans were more common, whereas in Wikipedia plants that serve as cultural emblems received more attention. Furthermore, in Google, popular species attracted more attention over time, opposite to the trend in Wikipedia. In Google interest in species with short bloom duration exhibited more pronounced seasonal patterns, whereas in Wikipedia seasonality of interest increased as bloom duration increased. Together, our results suggest that people's digital interactions with nature may be inherently different depending on the sources explored, which may affect use of this information for conservation. Although culturomics holds much promise, better understanding of its underpinnings is important when translating insights into conservation actions.
Ongoing loss of biological diversity is primarily the result of unsustainable human behavior. Thu... more Ongoing loss of biological diversity is primarily the result of unsustainable human behavior. Thus, the long-term success of biodiversity conservation depends on a thorough understanding of human-nature interactions. Such interactions are ubiquitous but vary greatly in time and space and are difficult to monitor efficiently at large spatial scales. However, the Information Age also provides new opportunities to better understand human-nature interactions because many aspects of daily life are recorded in a variety of digital formats. The emerging field of conservation culturomics aims to take advantage of digital data sources and methods to study human-nature interactions and thus to provide new tools for studying conservation at relevant temporal and spatial scales. Nevertheless, technical challenges associated with the identification, access, and analysis of relevant data hamper the wider adoption of culturomics methods. To help overcome these barriers, we propose a conservation culturomics research framework that addresses data acquisition, analysis, and inherent biases. The main sources of culturomic data include web pages, social media, and other digital platforms from which metrics of content and engagement can be obtained. Obtaining raw data from these platforms is usually desirable but requires careful consideration of how to access, store, and prepare the data for analysis. Methods for data analysis include network * email rahc85@gmail.com Article impact statement: Guidelines for overcoming challenges associated with digital data collection and analysis can advance conservation culturomics applications.
Large body size, the defining characteristic of "charismatic megafauna," is often viewed as the m... more Large body size, the defining characteristic of "charismatic megafauna," is often viewed as the most significant correlate of higher public interest in species. However , common, local species (many of which are not large) can also generate public interest. We explored the relative importance of body size versus local occurrence in patterns of online interest in birds using a large sample of digital human-wildlife interactions (367 million Wikipedia pageviews) that included more than 10,000 bird species and a range of cultural and geographic contexts (represented by 25 Wikipedia language editions). We compared interest in Wikipedia, as measured by pageviews, with a bird's body size and its regional observation frequency (using data from eBird.org). We found that local species (i.e., those that occur in the wild in the country responsible for the majority of a Wikipedia language edition's pageviews) attract more pageviews than global species. Both body size and observation frequency had a positive correlation with Wikipedia pageviews across languages, but eBird observation frequency explained more of the variance in pageviews on average. In a model that included both observation frequency and body size, observation frequency was a significantly better predictor of pageviews than body size in 24 of 25 languages. Our results demonstrate that the opportunity to encounter birds in the wild is a significant correlate of increased online interest in birds across multiple linguistic and geographic contexts. This relationship provides insight into why some species attract greater interest than others and emphasizes the overlooked potential of common species in conservation marketing.
Amniote vertebrates share a suite of extra-embryonic membranes that distinguish them from anamnio... more Amniote vertebrates share a suite of extra-embryonic membranes that distinguish them from anamniotes. Other than that, however, their reproductive characteristics could not be more different. They differ in basic ectothermic vs endothermic physiology, in that two clades evolved powered flight, and one clade evolved a protective shell. In terms of reproductive strategies, some produce eggs and others give birth to live young, at various degrees of development. Crucially, endotherms provide lengthy parental care, including thermal and food provisioning-whereas ecto-therms seldom do. These differences could be expected to manifest themselves in major differences between clades in quantitative reproductive traits. We review the reproductive characteristics, and the distributions of brood sizes, breeding frequencies, offspring sizes and their derivatives (yearly fecundity and biomass production rates) of the four major amniote clades (mammals, birds, turtles and squamates), and several major subclades (birds: Palaeognathae, Galloanserae, Neoaves; mammals: Metatheria and Eutheria). While there are differences between these clades in some of these traits, they generally show similar ranges, distribution shapes and central tendencies across birds, placental mammals and squamates. Marsupials and turtles, however, differ in having smaller offspring, a strategy which subsequently influences other traits.
Restricted human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic raised global attention to the presence of... more Restricted human activity during the COVID-19 pandemic raised global attention to the presence of wildlife in cities. Here, we analyzed iNaturalist observations of prominent wildlife species around North-American urban centers, before and during the COVID-19 pandemic outbreak. We suggest that the popular notion of 'wildlife reclaiming cities' may have been exaggerated. We found that while pumas ventured deeper into urban habitats during the COVID-19 pandemic, bears, bobcats, coyotes, and moose did not. Species differential behavioral responses may highlight their evolutionary history cohabiting human habitats. Nevertheless, our results highlight the importance of urban nature for people during the pandemic. Our insights could help manage urban wildlife, better plan greenspaces, and promote positive nature engagements.
The ongoing digital revolution in the age of big data is opening new research opportunities. Cult... more The ongoing digital revolution in the age of big data is opening new research opportunities. Culturomics and iEcology, two emerging research areas based on the analysis of online data resources, can provide novel scientific insights and inform conservation and management efforts. To date, culturomics and iEcology have been applied primarily in the terrestrial realm. Here, we advocate for expanding such applications to the aquatic realm by providing a brief overview of these new approaches and outlining key areas in which culturomics and iEcology are likely to have the highest impact, including the management of protected areas; fisheries; flagship species identification; detection and distribution of threatened, rare, and alien species; assessment of ecosystem status and anthropogenic impacts; and social impact assessment. When deployed in the right context with awareness of potential biases, culturomics and iEcology are ripe for rapid development as low-cost research approaches based on data available from digital sources, with increasingly diverse applications for aquatic ecosystems.
In their recent article in Frontiers of Biogeography, Eichhorn et al. (2020) raise some of the in... more In their recent article in Frontiers of Biogeography, Eichhorn et al. (2020) raise some of the inherent and pervasive imbalances in biogeographical research and present several approaches to remedy this. We would like to commend them for highlighting these issues. Making our science more collaborative, increasing access, and uncovering inherent biases in it are indeed challenges we should all address. Nevertheless, some of the biases they seek to expose permeate to their contribution and thus fail to put into practice what they advocate.
Aim: Clutch size is a key life-history trait. In lizards, it ranges over two orders of magnitude.... more Aim: Clutch size is a key life-history trait. In lizards, it ranges over two orders of magnitude. The global drivers of spatial and phylogenetic variation in clutch have been extensively studied in birds, but such tests in other organisms are lacking. To test the generality of latitudinal gradients in clutch size, and their putative drivers, we present the first global-scale analysis of clutch sizes across lizard taxa. Location: Global. Time period: Recent. Major taxa studied: Lizards (Reptilia, Squamata, Sauria). Methods: We analysed clutch-size data for over 3,900 lizard species, using phyloge-netic generalized least-square regression to study the relationships between clutch sizes and environmental (temperature, precipitation, seasonality, primary productivity , insularity) and ecological factors (body mass, insularity, activity times, and micro-habitat use). Results: Larger clutches are laid at higher latitudes and in more productive and seasonal environments. Insular taxa lay smaller clutches on average. Temperature
Phylogenetic diversity measures are increasingly used in conservation planning to represent aspec... more Phylogenetic diversity measures are increasingly used in conservation planning to represent aspects of biodiversity beyond that captured by species richness. Here we develop two new metrics that combine phylogenetic diversity and the extent of human pressure across the spatial distribution of species-one metric valuing regions and another prioritising species. We evaluate these metrics for reptiles, which have been largely neglected in previous studies, and contrast these results with equivalent calculations for all terrestrial vertebrate groups. We find that regions under high human pressure coincide with the most irreplaceable areas of reptilian diversity, and more than expected by chance. The highest priority reptile species score far above the top mammal and bird species, and reptiles include a disproportionate number of species with insufficient extinction risk data. Data Deficient species are, in terms of our species-level metric, comparable to Critically Endangered species and therefore may require urgent conservation attention.
Digital data are accumulating at unprecedented rates. These contain a lot of information about th... more Digital data are accumulating at unprecedented rates. These contain a lot of information about the natural world, some of which can be used to answer key ecological questions. Here, we introduce iEcology (i.e., internet ecology), an emerging research approach that uses diverse online data sources and methods to generate insights about species distribution over space and time, interactions and dynamics of organisms and their environment, and anthropogenic impacts. We review iEcology data sources and methods, and provide examples of potential research applications. We also outline approaches to reduce potential biases and improve reliability and applicability. As technologies and expertise improve, and costs diminish, iEcology will become an increasingly important means to gain novel insights into the natural world.
Animals have diversified into a bewildering variety of morphological forms exploiting a complex c... more Animals have diversified into a bewildering variety of morphological forms exploiting a complex configuration of trophic niches. Their morphological diversity is widely used as an index of ecosystem function, but the extent to which animal traits predict trophic niches and associated ecological processes is unclear. Here we use the measurements of nine key morphological traits for >99% bird species to show that avian trophic diversity is described by a trait space with four dimensions. The position of species within this space maps with 70–85% accuracy onto major niche axes, including trophic level, dietary resource type and finer-scale variation in foraging behaviour. Phylogenetic analyses reveal that these form–function associations reflect convergence towards predictable trait combinations, indicating that morphological variation is organized into a limited set of dimensions by evolutionary adaptation. Our results establish the minimum dimensionality required for avian functional traits to predict subtle variation in trophic niches and provide a global framework for exploring the origin, function and conservation of bird diversity.
The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation... more The distributions of amphibians, birds and mammals have underpinned global and local conservation priorities, and have been fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles, representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here, we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the world’s arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently.
The report “Measuring global awareness of nature” represents the first step by On the EDGE Conser... more The report “Measuring global awareness of nature” represents the first step by On the EDGE Conservation towards the use of the internet to understand our perceptions of nature in more detail and larger scale than ever before. We use globally relevant metrics like Google searches and Wikipedia views to understand how salient different parts of nature are globally and how much attention is given to different components of biodiversity across different countries, in order to understand how much progress was made towards the first Aichi target of the Convention for Biological Convention, which focuses on awareness of nature and solutions to conserve biodiversity.
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for aquatic ecosystems.
like to commend them for highlighting these issues. Making our science more collaborative, increasing access, and uncovering inherent biases in it are indeed challenges we should all address. Nevertheless, some
of the biases they seek to expose permeate to their contribution and thus fail to put into practice what they advocate.
We review iEcology data sources and methods, and provide examples of potential research applications. We also outline approaches to reduce potential biases and improve reliability and applicability. As technologies and expertise improve, and costs diminish, iEcology will become an increasingly important means to gain novel insights into the natural world.
fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles,
representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into
conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here,
we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness
patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of
snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap
very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation
schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to
effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation
priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the
world’s arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently.
for aquatic ecosystems.
like to commend them for highlighting these issues. Making our science more collaborative, increasing access, and uncovering inherent biases in it are indeed challenges we should all address. Nevertheless, some
of the biases they seek to expose permeate to their contribution and thus fail to put into practice what they advocate.
We review iEcology data sources and methods, and provide examples of potential research applications. We also outline approaches to reduce potential biases and improve reliability and applicability. As technologies and expertise improve, and costs diminish, iEcology will become an increasingly important means to gain novel insights into the natural world.
fundamental to our understanding of the determinants of global biodiversity. In contrast, the global distributions of reptiles,
representing a third of terrestrial vertebrate diversity, have been unavailable. This prevented the incorporation of reptiles into
conservation planning and biased our understanding of the underlying processes governing global vertebrate biodiversity. Here,
we present and analyse the global distribution of 10,064 reptile species (99% of extant terrestrial species). We show that richness
patterns of the other three tetrapod classes are good spatial surrogates for species richness of all reptiles combined and of
snakes, but characterize diversity patterns of lizards and turtles poorly. Hotspots of total and endemic lizard richness overlap
very little with those of other taxa. Moreover, existing protected areas, sites of biodiversity significance and global conservation
schemes represent birds and mammals better than reptiles. We show that additional conservation actions are needed to
effectively protect reptiles, particularly lizards and turtles. Adding reptile knowledge to a global complementarity conservation
priority scheme identifies many locations that consequently become important. Notably, investing resources in some of the
world’s arid, grassland and savannah habitats might be necessary to represent all terrestrial vertebrates efficiently.