A review of 78 studies found that scientists, funders, and the public consistently pay more attention to vertebrates than to plants and invertebrates. The bias is mild in size, but research attention doesn't line up with which species most need conservation.
1
Meta-analysis combined 905 effect sizes from 78 studies spanning three decades of research on taxonomic bias.
2
Positive bias toward certain groups was widespread across study designs, regions, and taxonomic scopes, with plants and invertebrates receiving disproportionately less attention than vertebrates.
3
Bias magnitude was generally small (Pearson's r < 0.5), but conservation priority was the only dimension not consistently linked to positive bias, indicating a mismatch between attention and conservation need.
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