Data from: Spatial and topical imbalances in biodiversity research

The rapid erosion of biodiversity is among the biggest challenges human
society is facing. Concurrently, major efforts are in place to quantify
changes in biodiversity, to understand the consequences for ecosystem
functioning and human wellbeing, and to develop sustainable management
strategies. Based on comprehensive bibliometric analyses covering 134,321
publications, we report systematic spatial biases in biodiversity-related
research. Research is dominated by wealthy countries, while major research
deficits occur in regions with disproportionately high biodiversity as
well as a high share of threatened species. Similarly, core scientists,
who were assessed through their publication impact, work primarily in
North America and Europe. Though they mainly exchange and collaborate
across locations of these two continents, the connectivity among them has
increased with time. Finally, biodiversity-related research has primarily
focused on terrestrial systems, plants, and the species level, and is
frequently conducted in Europe and Asia by researchers affiliated with
European and North American institutions. The distinct spatial imbalances
in biodiversity research, as demonstrated here, must be filled, research
capacity built, particularly in the Global South, and spatially-explicit
biodiversity data bases improved, curated and shared.