Six-decade research bias toward fancy and familiar bird species

Human implicit biases toward visually appealing and familiar stimuli are
well-documented and rooted in our brains’ reward systems. For example,
humans are drawn to charismatic, familiar organisms, but less is known
whether such biases permeate research choices among biologists, who strive
for objectivity. The factors driving research effort, such as aesthetics,
logistics, and species’ names, are poorly understood. We report that, from
1965–2020, nearly half of the variation in publication trends among 293
North American male passerine and near-passerine birds was explained by
three factors subject to human bias: aesthetic salience (visual appeal),
range size (familiarity), and the number of universities within ranges
(accessibility). We also demonstrate that Endangered birds and birds
featured on journal covers had higher aesthetic salience, and birds with
eponymous names were studied about half as much as those not named after
humans. Thus, ornithological knowledge, and decisions based thereon, is
heavily skewed toward fancy, familiar species. This knowledge disparity
feeds a cycle of public interest, environmental policy, conservation,
funding opportunities, and scientific narratives, shrouding potentially
important information in the proverbial plumage of drab, distant,
disregarded species. The unintended consequences of biologists’ choices
may exacerbate organismal inequalities amid biodiversity declines and
limit opportunities for scientific inquiry.