Global Scientific and Public Interest in Birds and their Conservation

Abstract

Greater public support to conservation is needed to help address the global biodiversity crisis. However, human attention towards biodiversity is taxonomically biased, leaving many species neglected and their conservation needs unmet. Here we investigated the drivers of public and scientific interest for 10,509 bird species, measured by Wikipedia pageviews and articles in Web of Knowledge. We then used a quasi-experimental design to test the effect on public interest of published updates to the International Union for the Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of threatened species (N = 479). Public and scientific interest were strongly predicted by species charisma, familiarity, utilization, and Red List category. While threatened species received significantly more attention, IUCN Red List category revisions produced asymmetric public response: uplistings (to categories of higher extinction risk) generated a significant but modest immediate increase in pageviews, while downlistings (to categories of lower risk) showed no detectable effect. The traits that predicted responsiveness, genuineness of change (real biological shifts rather than improved knowledge or revised taxonomy) and increasing population trend, differed from those driving underlying interest. These findings underscore the need to raise the profile of species lacking the charismatic or familiar traits that typically attract public and scientific interest.