Şerban Procheş- Discipline of Geography, University of KwaZulu-Natal, Westville, South Africa
While media usage has helped biodiversity gain a central spot in the contemporary conservation landscape, it is acknowledged that high biodiversity in itself is not always the best indication of conservation value. There are multiple reasons why low-biodiversity systems have to be valued. Such systems are easier to appreciate by the general public in their entirety, and also easier to study, with most model systems referring to low numbers of species. In remote and environmentally harsh settings, biodiversity can increase via biological invasion, which is usually perceived as a negative anthropogenic impact. Island systems, typically lower in biodiversity compared to continental settings, are, specifically thanks to the available niche space, laboratories of speciation and potentially macroevolutionary innovation. Although biodiversity hotspots are at the centre of global conservation efforts, coldspots have their own dynamics and conservation needs, generally poorly understood at this stage due to the high-biodiversity focus. Here, I discuss the media relevance and, where applicable, distortion, of these aspects. I conclude by recommending a local rather than global focus in the marketing of conservation, which could encourage an appreciation of naturally low biodiversity.
Introduction
Biodiversity is not a particularly old word. It was coined as recently as 1986, for the specific purpose of making the older phrase “biological diversity” more marketable – primarily in the mass media (Collins and Kephart, 1995). Since, it has seen rapid growth in usage, both in scientific publications and in the media itself (Wilson et al., 2007; Legagneux et al., 2018), and has become the primary bridging term between conservation research and public perception (Norton, 2008). There is little doubt that the ways in which the term has been used in these two spheres are interdependent. This interdependence has not been limited to science promotion, also involving related but distinct aspects such as dialogue and science legitimation (Hellsten, 2002).
The undeniable appeal of the idea of biodiversity to the general public has to do with the hope for preserving nature in all its complexity, whether we perceive ourselves as intrinsic or extrinsic to it. This appeal is likely to have obscured some of the technical details, as is often the case in science communication (Weber and Word, 2001). The extrinsic view of humans’ place may have the upper hand in numerous contexts, with human-related actions being generally perceived as negative, often in the form of reducing biodiversity (Hellsten, 2002). In this respect, confusing situations whereby humans artificially inflate biodiversity are generally omitted.
The cold and the alien
Recently, two distinct yet interconnected aspects involving pristine systems with low or no biodiversity have emerged that are filtering into the media. The first of these has to do with biological invasions, and before reaching the point where we can explore how these affect low-biodiversity systems, it is worth mentioning the narratives attached to this phenomenon in general. The naturalisation of plant and animal species from other world regions has been a hot topic in ecology since Elton (1958), and increasingly so as the process itself is becoming more pervasive across diverse ecosystems (Bradley et al., 2012). The growth of the scientific literature on biological invasions has been accompanied by a whole range of popular treatments, reflecting both the overwhelming research angle that highlights primarily the negative impacts of alien species on an ecological and economic level (Anthrony, 2017; Wilcox, 2021), and alternate views (Thompson, 2014; Pearce, 2015), largely dismissed in scientific circles (Ricciardi et al., 2017). While the scientific community, primarily quantitative in its approach, claims the methodological upper hand, the scarcity of qualitative approaches in invasion biology creates a gap between itself and public perception (Kapitza et al., 2019), which opens the latter to alternative views.
The impact of biological invasions on biodiversity is mainly portrayed in both the media and scientific literature in the form of the resulting species extinctions; however, the most immediate and obvious aspect of an alien species becoming naturalised is that one species has been added to the recipient region/ecosystem. That regions which are naturally more diverse are likely to receive more alien newcomers has been long known (Stohlgren et al., 2003). However, an increase that is proportionally more substantial is seen in regions that are naturally species-poor. Highly relevant to popular perceptions, and well reflected in both popular and scientific writings, this lies at the intersection of two anthropogenic processes: global warming and the increased transport of species, and is best illustrated by invasions in polar ecosystems (Miller and Ruiz, 2014; McGeoch et al., 2015; Ricciardi et al., 2017). Such ecosystems were naturally unable to sustain a great diversity of life in their characteristic conditions, but are starting to do so as the ice melts, creating conditions for a variety of biotas.
A second, even more radical angle on species introduction by humans is the potential terraformation of other heavenly bodies. Unlike biological invasions on Earth, this aspect is still very thinly represented in the scientific literature (e.g. Beech et al., 2021), and far more so in the media. The long-term human survival angle, in the event of catastrophe on Earth, should certainly help with enlisting a large proportion of the readership in favour of terraformation (Harmsen, 2021), even though this represents a flagrant case of altering the natural state of affairs. In 2018, Zahaan Bharmal of The Guardian went as far as placing biotic contamination at the top of the list of reasons against colonizing Mars (Bharmal, 2018). Nevertheless, opinions to the contrary abound, to the point where the majority of American adults are now in favour, at the very least, of a human mission to the Red Planet (McCarthy, 2019). Practically all countries that could attempt the terraformation of Mars of any other planet have in fact signed and ratified the Outer Space Treaty, regulating (amongst others) aspects relevant to planetary protection. These include forward protection, that is, preventing biological contamination of other planets with Earth life forms (US National Research Council 2006), and back protection, in the idea that life may exist elsewhere and present risks of contaminating the Earth itself.
Polar and extra-terrestrial settings are in fact in some respects similar enough to refer to one when studying the other (Cassaro et al., 2021). Media reports for biodiversity impacts in both of these settings are likely to elicit mixed responses, by contradicting the prevailing biodiversity paradigm [many species = good; few species/no species = bad]. The oversimplification that such a paradigm involves has been highlighted before. For example, in his 2007 book “The Revenge of Gaia”, James Lovelock pointed out, as part of a medical allegory aimed at our planet’s health, that a “rich biodiversity is not necessarily highly desirable and to be preserved at all costs” (Lovelock, 2007). However, the multiple problems with over-marketing the term ‘biodiversity’ have not, to date, been unpacked in any great detail.
Here, I point out the fact that other metrics of conservation relevance are often conflated under the term ‘biodiversity’, I list a few reasons why low biodiversity should in fact be appreciated, and conclude by assessing what could be done to make these points more available and relevant to broad audiences.
There are other measures employed in conservation
To the general public, conserving nature is essentially conserving biodiversity (Norton, 2008). To the conservation community, biodiversity in itself is far from being the only way of prioritising action, albeit many of the other metrics used to achieve this do, in fact, take biodiversity into account. From the early days when ecosystem function and services (Slocombe, 1998), biological integrity (Angermeier and Karr, 1994) and naturalness (Angermeier, 2000) came onto the scene, the conservation landscape has evolved along multiple lines, and has incorporated numerous metrics. While some of these should conceptually be as marketable as biodiversity, they are perhaps not as easily quantified, or the quantification process is not as easy to explain to the broader public – at least when compared to biodiversity in its classical species richness form. Other measures of biodiversity, such as trait/functional and phylogenetic diversity, are increasingly being employed in conservation. Each of these measures has its own global and regional patterns (Jetz et al., 2014; Freitas et al., 2021; Hughes et al., 2022), and conserving high biodiversity according to one is conserving low biodiversity according to another, but such differences may be too subtle, or the metrics too hard to explain to make for a good media story.
But even species numbers are not portrayed fairly in the media. The prevailing approach in e.g. wildlife documentaries remains one of labelling any form of life as ‘amazing biodiversity’, even in environments where the number of species is remarkably close to zero. In contrast, global biodiversity maps (Barthlott et al., 1996) have shown for a long time that both cold and dry environments tend to have lower species diversity compared to warm humid ones. More recently, the advent of global biodiversity hotspots – regions where high biodiversity meets high levels of threat (Myers et al., 2000) – has been countered by the observation that coldspots too, may be of some value (Kareiva and Marvier, 2003), and that places that are coldspots in some regards are hotspots in other ways. Recent studies show that coldspots have their own extinction dynamics, and so their own conservation needs (Le Roux et al., 2019). However, marketing low biodiversity as high biodiversity is well rooted in psychology.
Numbers and perceptions
Even though biodiversity is commonly presented as being important to mental well-being, the human ability to intuitively estimate biodiversity is limited to small numbers, and one is actually more likely to perceive high tree cover, or other types of greenery, as biodiversity (Dallimer et al., 2012). While most studies illustrating this observation refer to city dwellers, it is in line with what has been termed the people-biodiversity paradox (Fuller and Irvine, 2010), and is probably a common human trait. Beyond a certain point, subjective estimates of biodiversity are influenced by attitudes towards specific regions or countries, often strongest towards one’s own country. For example, Fiebelkorn and Menzel (2019) found that both German and Costa Rican teachers overestimated their own countries’ biodiversity in global comparisons, while Chalmin-Pui and Perkins (2017) quote London Zoo visitors describing the UK as a ‘desert of biodiversity’. Both of these studies also point out that respondents across countries would often (correctly, at least at species level) identify Brazil, or the Amazon specifically, as having the highest biodiversity globally. This potentially accurate stereotype of biodiversity associated with exotic settings is often reinforced visually in the media, via means that are in fact inaccurate.
Illustrations meant to portray biodiversity, from textbook covers sporting Rousseau Douanier canvasses or ethnic traditional illustrations (e.g. Rosenzweig, 1995) to screensavers of Alaskan pastures dotted with wildflowers, are in fact illustrations of low biodiversity, as the total number of species visible seldom exceeds a dozen. Most such visuals speak in fact of humans’ limited ability to perceive and process biodiversity beyond a certain point, except, that is, in numbers, which is an abstraction. It’s far easier to make a story out of peculiar examples of organisms with features unparalleled elsewhere.
Absence makes the beak grow longer
Precisely because islands typically have lower biodiversity, island ecosystems are less niche-saturated than continental ones (Simberloff, 2000). They typically have fewer species, but these are often remarkable ones, with traits like no others. One example are the Hawaiian honeycreepers –essentially finches that took advantage of the absence of specialised nectar-sipping birds on those islands, and so became exactly that by growing their beaks to fit the purpose (Lerner et al., 2011). Similar things happened with overall body size (the so called ‘island rule’) – as animals reach islands, they evolve towards filling those niches that are both feasible and empty (Benítez-López et al., 2021). Flores Island in Indonesia was (and in some cases still is) the home of dragons, giant rats, pygmy elephants and hobbit-like humans (Meijer et al., 2010). Islands can in fact create new combinations of traits found nowhere else, with the potential of driving macroevolutionary change. Think flightless cormorants and marine iguanas, as in the Galapagos Islands. All this is possible because some entire groups of animals are in fact missing, which is one aspect of low biodiversity. At the regional scale, places such as Australia, New Zealand and Madagascar preserve unique sets of biotas, largely due to the absence of more competitive groups (Procheş and Ramdhani, 2013).
Islands have, both via the occurrence of such unusual innovations, and by their very low-biodiversity simplicity, been key to our contemporary understanding of ecological and evolutionary processes (Quiroga and Sevilla, 2017). In mainland settings, studies in these fields have initially had to limit themselves to studying a few species to gain critical insights (Gause, 1934), thus essentially replicating low-biodiversity systems.
The way forward
To summarise, unlike what many nature documentaries tend to suggest, biodiversity is not remarkably high in all-natural systems. On the other hand, even in diverse systems like rainforests and mediterranean shrublands, one can focus on manageable groups, as relevant to the questions and initiatives at hand, and use them as flagships. But to showcase the lower end of the biodiversity spectrum, it may be a good idea to use a concept that can help us accept that a few species may just be all we can understand and love, and in many places, all there should really be. How would such a concept look? Is there an antonym to biodiversity? The term ‘bio-paucity’, has already used in a handful of instances (e.g. Goulson, 2019), most often with a negative connotation. It may be hard to turn it into a positive, marketable concept. Perhaps the phrase ‘naturally low biodiversity’, abbreviated as NLB, could fare better. Some research into how this would be received on different social scenes would be more than welcome.
A second line of action would be to focus on marketing biodiversity locally more than globally. This would allow local communities to associate with the level of biodiversity naturally occurring in their setting, rather than having to either artificially inflate local values, or feel inferior in global comparisons. The transition from global to local may have to start with human geography research, but would ultimately have to end in the hand of educators and journalists, and increasingly so, of the social media. How influencers choose to address this matter will be critical, and providing them with a reliable set of facts is the place to start.
Author contributions
The author confirms being the sole contributor of this work and has approved it for publication.
Conflict of interest
The author declares that the research was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Publisher’s note
All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article, or claim that may be made by its manufacturer, is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.
Acknowledgments
Dave Richardson is thanked for discussion.
References
Angermeier P. L. (2000). The natural imperative for biological conservation. Cons. Biol. 14, 373–381. doi: 10.1046/j.1523-1739.2000.98362.x
Angermeier P. L., Karr J. R. (1994). Biological integrity versus biological diversity as policy directives. BioScience 44, 690–697. doi: 10.2307/1312512
Anthrony L. (2017). The aliens among us: how invasive species are transforming the planet―and ourselves (New Haven, CT: Yale University Press).
Barthlott W., Lauer W., Placke A. (1996). Global distribution of species diversity in vascular plants: towards a world map of phytodiversity. Erdkunde 50, 317–327. doi: 10.3112/erdkunde.1996.04.03
Benítez-López A., Santini L., Gallego-Zamorano J., Milá B., Walkden P., Huijbregts M. A. J., et al. (2021). The island rule explains consistent patterns of body size evolution in terrestrial vertebrates. Nat. Ecol. Evol. 5, 768–786. doi: 10.1038/s41559-021-01426-y
Bradley B. A., Blumenthal D. M., Early R., Grosholz E. D., Lawler J. J., Miller L. P., et al. (2012). Global change, global trade, and the next wave of plant invasions. Front. Ecol. Environ. 10, 20–28. doi: 10.1890/110145
Cassaro A., Pacelli C., Aureli L., Catanzaro I., Leo P., Onofri S. (2021). Antarctica As a reservoir of planetary analogue environments. Extremophiles 25, 437–458. doi: 10.1007/s00792-021-01245-w
Chalmin-Pui L. S., Perkins R. (2017). How do visitors relate tobiodiversity conservation? an analysis of London zoo’s ‘BUGS’ exhibit. Envir. Edu. Res. 23, 1462–1475. doi: 10.1080/13504622.2016.1259395
Collins C. A., Kephart S. R. (1995). Science as news: the emergence and framing of biodiversity. Mass Commun. Rev. 22, 21–45.
Dallimer M., Irvine K. N., Skinner A. M. J., Davies Z. G., Rouquette J. R., Maltby L. L., et al. (2012). Biodiversity and the feelgood factor: Understanding associations between self-reported human well-being and species richness. BioScience 62, 47–55. doi: 10.1525/bio.2012.62.1.9
Fiebelkorn F., Menzel S. (2019). Biology teachers’ worldviews on the global distribution and loss of biodiversity: a GIS-based mental-mapping approach. Front. Psychol. 10. doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2019.01021
Freitas C., Brum F. T., Cássia-Silva C., Maracahipes L., Carlucci M. B., Collevatti R. G., et al. (2021). Incongruent spatial distribution of taxonomic, phylogenetic, and functional diversity in neotropical cocosoid palms. Front. For. Glob. Change 4. doi: 10.3389/ffgc.2021.739468
Fuller R. A., Irvine K. N. (2010). “Interactions between people and nature in urban environments,” in Urban ecology. Ed. Gaston K. J. (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press), 137–171.
Gause G. F. (1934). Experimental analysis of vito volterra’s mathematical theory of the struggle for existence. Science 79, 16–17. doi: 10.1126/science.79.2036.16.b
Goulson D. (2019). The insect apocalypse, and why it matters. Curr. Biol. 29, R967–R971. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.06.069
Hellsten I. (2002). The politics of metaphor: biotechnology and biodiversity in the media (Tampere: Tampere University Press).
Hughes E. C., Edwards D. P., Bright J. A., Capp E. J. R., Cooney C. R., Varley Z. R., et al. (2022). Global biogeographic patterns of avian morphological diversity. Ecol. Lett. 25, 598–610. doi: 10.1111/ele.13905
Jetz W., Thomas G. H., Joy J. B., Redding D. W., Hartmann K., Mooers A. O. (2014). Global distribution and conservation of evolutionary distinctness in birds. Curr. Biol. 24, 919–930. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2014.03.011
Kapitza K., Zimmermann H., Martín-López B., von Wehrden H. (2019). Research on the social perception of invasive species: a systematic literature review. NeoBiota 43, 47–68. doi: 10.3897/neobiota.43.31619
Kareiva P., Marvier M. (2003). Conserving biodiversity coldspots: Recent calls to direct conservation funding to the world’s biodiversity hotspots may be bad investment advice. Am. Sci. 91, 344–351. doi: 10.1511/2003.4.344
Legagneux P., Casajus N., Cazelles K., Chevallier C., Chevrinais M., Guéry L., et al. (2018). Our house is burning: discrepancy in climate change vs. biodiversity coverage in the media as compared to scientific literature. Front. Ecol. Evol. 5. doi: 10.3389/fevo.2017.00175
Lerner H. R. L., Meyer M., James H. F., Hofreiter M., Fleischer R. C. (2011). Multilocus resolution of phylogeny and timescale in the extant adaptive radiation of Hawaiian honeycreepers. Curr. Biol. 21, 1838–1844. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2011.09.039
Le Roux J. J., Hui C., Castillo M. L., Iriondo J. M., Keet J.-H., Khapugin A. A., et al. (2019). Recent anthropogenic plant extinctions differ in biodiversity hotspots and coldspots. Curr. Biol. 29, 2912–2918. doi: 10.1016/j.cub.2019.07.063
Lovelock J. (2007). The revenge of gaia: Earth’s climate crisis and the fate of humanity (London, UK: Penguin Books).
McGeoch M. A., Shaw J. D., Terauds A., Lee J. E., Chown S. L. (2015). Monitoring biological invasion across the broader Antarctic: A baseline and indicator framework. Glob. Env. Change 31, 108–125. doi: 10.1016/j.gloenvcha.2014.12.012
Meijer H. J. M., van den Hoek Ostende L. W., van den Bergh G. D., de Vos J. (2010). The fellowship of the hobbit: the fauna surrounding homo floresiensis. J. Biog. 37, 995–1006. doi: 10.1111/j.1365-2699.2010.02308.x
Miller A. W., Ruiz G. M. (2014). Arctic Shipping and marine invaders. Nat. Climate Change 4, 413–416. doi: 10.1038/nclimate2244
Myers N., Mittermeier C. G., da Fonseca G. A. B., Kent J. (2000). Biodiversity hotspots for conservation priorities. Nature 403, 853–858. doi: 10.1038/35002501
Norton B. G. (2008). “Biodiversity: Its meaning and value,” in A companion to the philosophy of biology. Eds. Sarkar S., Plutynski A. (New York, NY: Blackwell), 368–389.
Pearce F. (2015). The new wild: why invasive species will be nature’s salvation (London, UK: Icon Books).
Procheş Ş., Ramdhani S. (2013). Eighty-three lineages that took over the world: a first review of terrestrial cosmopolitan tetrapods. J. Biog. 40, 1819–1831. doi: 10.1111/jbi.12125
Quiroga D., Sevilla A. (2017). Darwin, Darwinism And conservation in the Galapagos islands (Cham, CH: Springer). doi: 10.1007/978-3-319-34052-4
Ricciardi A., Blackburn T. M., Carlton J. T., Dick J. T. A., Hulme P. E., Iacarella J. C., et al. (2017). Invasion science: a horizon scan of emerging challenges and opportunities. Trends Ecol. Evol. 32, 464–474. doi: 10.1016/j.tree.2017.03.007
Rosenzweig M. L. (1995). Species diversity in space and time (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press).
Simberloff D. (2000). Extinction-proneness of island species - causes and management implications. Raffles Bull. Zool. 48, 1–9.
Slocombe D. S. (1998). Defining goals and criteria for ecosystem-based management. Environ. Manage. 22, 483–493. doi: 10.1007/s002679900121
Stohlgren T. J., Barnett D. T., Kartesz J. T. (2003). The rich get richer: Patterns of plant invasions in the united states. Front. Ecol. Environ. 1, 11–14. doi: 10.1890/1540-9295(2003)001[0011:TRGRPO]2.0.CO;2
Thompson K. (2014). Where do camels belong? why invasive species aren’t all bad (Vancouver, BC: Greystone).
Weber J. R., Word C. S. (2001). The communication process as evaluative context: what do nonscientists hear when scientists speak? BioScience 51, 487–495. doi: 10.1641/0006-3568(2001)051[0487:TCPAEC]2.0.CO;2
Wilcox M.-E. (2021). Nature out of balance: how invasive species are changing the planet (Victoria, BC: Orca Footprints).
Keywords: biodiversity coldspots, biodiversity hotspots, biological invasions, island biogeography, polar ecosystems, terraformation
Citation: Procheş Ş (2022) Naturally low biodiversity is getting a raw deal in the media. Front. Conserv. Sci. 3:960788. doi: 10.3389/fcosc.2022.960788
Received: 10 June 2022; Accepted: 04 July 2022;
Published: 22 July 2022.
Edited by:
Christoph F. J. Meyer, University of Salford, United KingdomReviewed by:
Emin Ugurlu, Bursa Technical University, TurkeyCopyright © 2022 Procheş. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Şerban Procheş, c2V0YXBpb25AZ21haWwuY29t