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Plant scientists’ research attention is skewed towards colourful, conspicuous and broadly distributed flowers

Nature Plants volume 7, pages 574–578 (2021) Cite this article

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Abstract

Scientists’ research interests are often skewed toward charismatic organisms, but quantifying research biases is challenging. By combining bibliometric data with trait-based approaches and using a well-studied alpine flora as a case study, we demonstrate that morphological and colour traits, as well as range size, have significantly more impact on species choice for wild flowering plants than traits related to ecology and rarity. These biases should be taken into account to inform more objective plant conservation efforts.

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Fig. 1: Study workflow and most important factors in explaining research interest.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.
Fig. 2: Regression analysis of plant traits.
The alternative text for this image may have been generated using AI.

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Data availability

Data and R script to reproduce the analysis are available in figshare (https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.13655456).

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Acknowledgements

We developed this study as a time-burning activity during the COVID-19 Italian lockdown, when laboratory and field work was precluded. We thank D. Fontaneto for useful discussions, P. Bonfante for the critical reading of the manuscript and D. Adamo for their help in data mining. K.D. is funded under the Australian Government through the Australian Research Council Industrial Transformation Training Centre for Mine Site Restoration (project no. CI150100041). S.M. acknowledges support from the European Commission (program H2020-MSCA-IF-2019; grant no. 882221).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Department of Life Sciences and Systems Biology, University of Torino, Torino, Italy

    Martino Adamo & Matteo Chialva

  2. Department of Biology, University of Napoli Federico II, Napoli, Italy

    Jacopo Calevo

  3. School of Molecular and Life Sciences, Curtin University, Bentley, Western Australia, Australia

    Jacopo Calevo & Kingsley Dixon

  4. Humanities of Nature, Museum für Naturkunde, Berlin, Germany

    Filippo Bertoni

  5. Molecular Ecology Group, Water Research Institute (IRSA), National Research Council (CNR), Verbania Pallanza, Italy

    Stefano Mammola

  6. Laboratory for Integrative Biodiversity Research, Finnish Museum of Natural History (LUOMUS), University of Helsink, Helsinki, Finland

    Stefano Mammola

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  1. Martino Adamo
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Contributions

M.A. mined and curated data. M.A. and S.M. analysed data and led the paper writing. F.B. assisted with sociological interpretations. M.C. and S.M. prepared figures. M.A., M.C., J.C. and K.D. provided botanical arguments. All authors contributed to the writing.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Martino Adamo.

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The authors declare no competing interests.

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Peer review information Nature Plants thanks Paulo Borges, Elena Conti and Sonja Wipf for their contribution to the peer review of this work.

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Adamo, M., Chialva, M., Calevo, J. et al. Plant scientists’ research attention is skewed towards colourful, conspicuous and broadly distributed flowers. Nat. Plants 7, 574–578 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41477-021-00912-2

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