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. 2021 Apr 19;11(1):8447.
doi: 10.1038/s41598-021-87871-y.

A paradoxical knowledge gap in science for critically endangered fishes and game fishes during the sixth mass extinction

Christopher S Guy  1 , Tanner L Cox  2 , Jacob R Williams  2   3 , Colter D Brown  2 , Robert W Eckelbecker  2 , Hayley C Glassic  2 , Madeline C Lewis  2 , Paige A C Maskill  2   4 , Lauren M McGarvey  2   5 , Michael J Siemiantkowski  2
Affiliations

A paradoxical knowledge gap in science for critically endangered fishes and game fishes during the sixth mass extinction

Christopher S Guy et al. Sci Rep. .

Abstract

Despite unprecedented scientific productivity, Earth is undergoing a sixth mass extinction. The disconnect between scientific output and species conservation may be related to scientists studying the wrong species. Given fishes have a high extinction rate, we assessed the paradox between scientific productivity and science needed for conservation by comparing scientific output created for critically endangered fishes and game fishes. We searched 197,866 articles (1964-2018) in 112 journals for articles on 460 critically endangered fishes, 297 game fishes, and 35 fishes classified as critically endangered and game fish-our analysis included freshwater and marine species. Only 3% of the articles in the final database were on critically endangered fishes; 82% of critically endangered fishes had zero articles. The difference between the number of articles on game fishes and critically endangered fishes increased temporally with more articles on game fishes during the extinction crisis. Countries with 10 or more critically endangered fishes averaged only 17 articles from 1964 to 2018. Countries with the most critically endangered fishes are most in need of science. More scientific knowledge is needed on critically endangered fishes to meet the challenges of conserving fishes during the sixth mass extinction.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare no competing interests.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Number of articles published by year for fish species identified as game fish, both, and critically endangered fish. Game fish was defined by International Game Fish Association and listed by Donaldson et al. (2011) and critically endangered was defined by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The category both includes species that were classified as game fish and critically endangered. Time series includes the 5-year moving average (dashed black lines) and 10-year forecasted number of articles (grey line) with 95% prediction intervals (grey ribbons). Figure was created using freely available R software (version 4.0.2 & URL: https://www.r-project.org/).
Figure 2
Figure 2
Number of articles from 1964 to 2018 by species for the top 25 game fish, both, and critically endangered fish. Game fish was defined by International Game Fish Association and listed by Donaldson et al. (2011) and critically endangered was defined by The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List of Threatened Species. The category both includes species that were classified as game fish and critically endangered. See species list in supplemental material (table S1) for full scientific name. Figure was created using freely available R software (version 4.0.2 & URL: https://www.r-project.org/).
Figure 3
Figure 3
Number of critically endangered fish by country. Data were summarized from the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) Red List in 2018 for 460 critically endangered fishes. Figure was created using ArcMap (version 10.7.1 & URL: https://www.esri.com/en-us/home) and the outline of countries was acquired from the ArcGIS Hub (URL: https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/a21fdb46d23e4ef896f31475217cbb08_1).
Figure 4
Figure 4
Number of articles on critically endangered fishes by country. Data are from 721 articles where any author on the article had a location that matched the geographical range of the critically endangered fish in the article title. Figure was created using ArcMap (version 10.7.1 & URL: https://www.esri.com/en-us/home) and the outline of countries was acquired from the ArcGIS Hub (URL: https://hub.arcgis.com/datasets/a21fdb46d23e4ef896f31475217cbb08_1).
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