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. 2010 Jun 1;8(6):e1000385.
doi: 10.1371/journal.pbio.1000385.

Distorted views of biodiversity: spatial and temporal bias in species occurrence data

Elizabeth H Boakes  1 , Philip J K McGowan, Richard A Fuller, Ding Chang-qing, Natalie E Clark, Kim O'Connor, Georgina M Mace
Affiliations

Distorted views of biodiversity: spatial and temporal bias in species occurrence data

Elizabeth H Boakes et al. PLoS Biol. .

Abstract

Boakes et al. compile and analyze a historical dataset of 170,000 bird sightings over two centuries and show how changing trends in data gathering may confound a true picture of biodiversity change.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors have declared that no competing interests exist.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1. The contribution of data sources over time.
A) shows the number of records contributed by each data source within each time period, and B) shows the number of species recorded by each data source within each time period. The number of records for 2000–2006 has been extrapolated to 2000–2009 for ease of comparison with the other decades.
Figure 2
Figure 2. The spatial distribution of records from different sources.
A) museums, B) literature, C) ringing, D) atlas, and E) website trip reports.
Figure 3
Figure 3. The spatial distribution of records from the six highest contributing museum collections.
A) Natural History Museum, London (BMNH), B) Zoological Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences, St. Petersburg (ZISP), C) Zoological Museum of Moscow University (ZMMU), D) Field Museum of Natural History (FMNH), E) American Museum of Natural History (AMNH), and F) National Museum of Natural History, Leiden (NNM).
Figure 4
Figure 4. Percentage of records by source relating to species that are currently designated as threatened.
For reference, 30% of the species in the database are currently threatened.
Figure 5
Figure 5. Percentage of records by source from protected areas currently designated as IUCN I-IV.
Figure 6
Figure 6. Records of the red junglefowl (Gallus gallus) from A) the literature and B) museum collections.
Figure 7
Figure 7. Records for the Hainan hill-partridge (Arborophila ardens) (triangle) and Cabot's tragopan (Tragopan caboti) (circle) from A) pre-1930 and B) 1990–2006.
Figure 8
Figure 8. Records for all galliform species across the Indian Subcontinent from A) pre-1930 and B) 1990–2006.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

References

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