Systematic review of geographic biases in the collection of at-sea distribution data for seabirds

The distribution of wildlife informs conservation planning. In marine systems, spatial information for seabirds is acquired primarily using vessel-based at-sea survey, aerial survey or animal-borne tracking devices. Many factors contribute to geographic biases in marine spatial research and we use a structured database search to review global patterns resulting from these biases. Although survey effort has been substantial, many large marine sectors were poorly represented. Poor representation often coincided spatially with hotspots of seabird species richness or areas experiencing high cumulative human impact, particularly in southern hemisphere and equatorial regions. Therefore, future seabird research priorities should reflect high species-richness areas including the south-west Pacific, particularly waters surrounding New Zealand. Furthermore, under-represented areas of Asia, and the Atlantic coasts of South America and Africa require greater research effort because of high cumulative human impacts in these areas. National gross domestic product (GDP) was positively related to the number of papers a country produced (determined by the first author’s address). This is indicative of constraints imposed by inherent costs of marine research. We recommend international collaboration between scientists from high-GDP nations with those in developing countries to address this. Further uptake of platforms of opportunity may also reduce this imbalance.

野生动物的分布特征可为保护规划提供科学依据。在海洋生态系统中，海鸟的空间分布信息主要通过基于船只的海上调查、航空调查，或是搭载于动物个体的追踪设备获取。海洋空间研究中的地理偏倚受多种因素影响，本研究通过结构化数据库检索，梳理了此类偏倚所导致的全球研究格局。尽管当前相关调查投入已颇具规模，但仍有大量大型海洋区域的采样覆盖度严重不足。这类采样不足的区域往往与海鸟物种丰富度热点区域，或累积人类影响较高的区域在空间上高度重合，尤其集中于南半球与赤道地区。因此，未来海鸟研究的优先方向应侧重物种丰富度较高的区域，例如西南太平洋海域，尤其是新西兰周边水域。此外，鉴于亚洲、南美洲大西洋沿岸及非洲大西洋沿岸区域的累积人类影响较高，这些调研覆盖不足的区域也需要投入更多研究资源。国家国内生产总值（Gross Domestic Product，GDP）与该国发表的相关论文数量（以第一作者所属地址统计）呈显著正相关，这一结果反映了海洋研究固有成本所带来的研究限制。为此，我们建议高GDP国家与发展中国家的科研人员开展国际合作，以破解这一研究瓶颈。进一步推广机会调查平台（Platforms of Opportunity）的应用，也有助于缓解此类研究失衡问题。