Bias Blitz: A Literature Review of Current Trends within the Study of Biology

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Bias Blitz A Literature Review of Current Trends
within the Study of Biology Authors Stephen
Dunning, Department of Music Jared Florentine,
Department of Engineering Danial Garner,
Department of Engineering Chad Graybill,
Department of Business Amber Kline, Department
of Music Sarah Minton, Department of Journalism
Caty Pollock, Department of International
Studies Tony Whitehead, Alexandria Poole and
Ricardo Rozzi, Department of Philosophy
Background
Maps
Results
Discussion

• Today, students are often able only to acquire a
  theoretical understanding of nature, and are
  often never exposed to field studies or other
  experiential and direct learning methods. To
  assess possible biases in our perception of
  biodiversity derived from this lack of field
  experience, we looked at three levels of
  approaching ecological knowledge a literature
  review of the frequency of Bioblitzes, a survey
  of which taxonomic classes are present as the
  national animals of countries in the Americas,
  and a survey the flagship species in the
  biological hotspots in the Americas.
• These three levels are connected in regards to
  how we conceptualize nature. Bioblitzes are
  used to quickly asses biodiversity within a given
  region however, because it is a list, it only
  provides quantitative data.
• The national animals we found in the Americas
  reflect cultural symbols and the country's
  representations of what they believe their values
  to be.
• Our third survey was conducted on the flagship
  species within the hotspots in the Americas.
  These three levels represent ways in which
  communities in the Americas identify with species
  diversity.
• We chose to focus our studies on the Americas
  because we are familiar with these areas, South
  America has the greatest biodiversity of the
  hotspots, and the Americas cover the greatest
  latitudinal range.

Figure 1 Map of Biodiversity Hotspots in
the Americas
In our analysis, we attempted to compare national
animals to flagship species. We concluded that
national animals are cultural icons defined by
the politicians, artists and musicians of the
18th and 19th centuries, while flagships species,
determined by scientists in the 80s, 90s, and
today, are iconic to their specific conservation
efforts. As such, we can see that this bias does
not exist only in conservation efforts but also
in the emblems within the 35 countries in the
Americas. Therefore, we conclude that this bias
originates not only in the minds of
conservationists but also in the minds of the
citizens in the countries. This leads us to
question whether or not these biases have always
existed?
Figure 2 Diagram shows the percentage of each
major group within the worlds species as
described by the IUCN Numbers of threatened
species by major groups of organisms.
Objectives
Future Activities

• Our first objective was to examine the
  biodiversity representation and identify any
  biases that might exist.
• These biases were determined by comparing the
  ratio of vertebrates to invertebrates within the
  national animals to the total number of
  vertebrates and invertebrates in the world.
• The second objective is to identify any possible
  biases within the flagship species in the
  hotspots in the Americas.
• The hotspots we studied were Atlantic Forest,
  Brazilian Cerrado, California Floristic
  Providence, Caribbean, Central Chile, Chocó
  Darien, Mesoamerica, and Tropical Andes.
• Our third objective was to research the authors
  of the articles on the hotspots to identify
  gender, country of occupational residence and
  respective area of research specialization.
• These numbers are useful as they can show any
  trends of researchers writing about the hotspots,
  and will allows us to investigate if this leads
  to any biases within gender, country of
  occupational residency, and species studied
  within the hotspots of the Americas.

Figure 3 Diagram shows the percentage of each
class within the worlds vertebrates as described
by the IUCN Numbers of threatened species by
major groups of organisms.
We plan to look at the trends of those who came
before us to see whether or not this bias
occurred in Pre-Columbian times and if so, why?
We also plan to correlate the area of
specialization to the area of biases of classes
within the hotspots. The UNT Chile Project is
working on the incorporation of nonvascular
plants and lesser known animals into recognition.
To read more about these causes visit
www.chile.unt.edu
Figure 4 Diagram identifies classes of the
national animals as found in web search.

Literature Cited
Methodology
Fonseca, G.A.B., Kent, J., Mittermeier, C.,
Mittermeier, R.A., and Myers,N. Biodiversity
hotspots for conservation priorities.
Conservation International 403853-858.
(2000). Leader-Williams, N. and Walpole, M.J.
Tourism and flagship species in conservation.
Biodiversity and Conservation 11543-547.
(2001). Mittermeier, C.G., Mittermeier, R.A., and
Myers, N. HOTSPOTS EARTHS BIOLOGICALLY RICHEST
AND MOST ENDANGERED TERRESTRIAL ECOREGIONS.
Conservation International. 1st English Edition.
(March 1, 2000). 2007 IUCN Red List of
Threatened Species. Feb. 9, 2008. April 14,
2008. http//www.iucnredlist.org

• In order to compile the number of national
  animals, we completed an internet web search
  recording the national animal(s) of each country
  in the Americas.
• We then identified the class of each national
  animal, totaled the numbçver of vertebrates and
  invertebrates, and compared this number to the
  worldwide number of identified species from the
  2007 ICUN Red List.
• Next, we read the chapter of the eight hotspots
  in the Americas from Conservation Internationals
  book Hotspots and cataloged the species that were
  highlighted within each hotspot. We identified
  these highlighted species as the flagship
  species for each hotspot region.
• We determined the proportion of vascular plants
  and vertebrate species using Table 1 in Meyer et
  al. 2000 and contrasted this with the proportion
  of flagship species of vascular and vertebrate
  species within each of the hotspots.
• From this, we created a taxonomic bias index of
  plants and animals by taking the relative
  percentage of flagship species and subtracting
  the percentage of the species actually present.
• Once we recognized that there was a bias toward
  vertebrates within the recognized flagship
  species of the hotspots, we catalogued the
  different classes within the flagship species and
  looked for trends towards any particular class by
  calculating the percentage out of the total
  number of flagship species listed.
• In regards to the authors of the articles on
  these hotspots, we catalogued the sex,
  discipline, and country of occupational residence
  to reveal any trends present.

Results

Figure 5 Diagram identifies classes of the
flagship species as represented in the Hotspots
in the Americas.

Acknowledgements
We would like to thank Dr. Rozzi, Alexandria
Poole, Benjamin Lundeen, Tamara Contador, and
Kelli Moses for their extensive help in our
research, the other members of our Honors
Environmental Issues for their critique of our
class presentations, the biology department for
printing out the poster for us.
Table 2 Calculations were determined by taking
the relative percentage of vascular plants and
vertebrates that exist in a hotspot subtracted by
the relative percentage of vascular plants and
vertebrates that serve as flagship species for
the hotspots in the Americas.
Table 1 Count of gender, country of occupational
residency, and discipline of the authors of
HOTSPOTS.