DOI: 10.5061/dryad.4f4qrfjpr
title: Six-decade research bias toward fancy and familiar bird species

description: 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.
description: # Six-decade research bias toward fancy and familiar bird species
 [https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4f4qrfjpr](https://doi.org/10.5061/dryad.4f4qrfjpr) ## Description of the data and file structure In the analysis based on this dataset, we assess how human biases influence the amount of research conducted on 293 North American bird species over the past half-century. We integrated bibliometrics, theories derived from human preference research, and a standardized aesthetic salience scoring system to test whether the remarkable variation in visual traits of North American birds and their geographic distributions explains variation in research effort (number of publications on each species) from 1965-2020.  ***Caption for code:*** R code used to analyze data, run in R v 4.3.1 (R Core Team, 2023). ### Files and variables #### File: Fischer\_et\_al\_Bird-research-bias\_DATA\_2025.xlsx **Description:** Dataset used in analysis. The file (xlsx format) consists of two worksheets: 1) list of 293 bird species and taxonomic changes, Endangered status, search terms and Web of Science ([www.webofscience.com](http://www.webofscience.com)) search results, number of publications (filtered), variables used to derive aesthetic salience, breeding range size (km2), number of universities in breeding ranges, number of journal covers, and naming determinations (i.e., eponymously named species, etc.); and 2) metadata that describes and details the variables in the dataset. Variables and their descriptions are also listed below: ##### Variables (as listed in the .xlsx file) * Common_name: Species common name following American Ornithological Society * Sci_name: Species scientific name following American Ornithological Society * Common_synonyms: Species common name synonyms from 1965-2021 following American Ornithological Society, including taxonomic lumps, taxonomic splits, and alternate spellings * Sci_synonyms: Species scientific name synonyms from 1965-2021 following American Ornithological Society, including taxonomic lumps, taxonomic splits, and alternate spellings * Search_terms: Search string entered into Web of Science Core Collection Search 1965-01-01 to 2021. TS = X; AB = X * Link_search: Web link to the Web of Science search using the search terms from Search_terms column * Order: The taxonomic order of the species * Family: The taxonomic family of the species * Endangered_USA (Y/N): Is/was the species listed as ESA Endangered in USA? * Endangered_CAN (Y/N): Is the species listed as SARA Endangered in Canada? * Range_size: Area of polygon of range/distribution from Birdlife International using GIS (square kilometers; breeding or resident range only; clipped by USA and Canada). See [https://datazone.birdlife.org/]() and [https://datazone.birdlife.org/contact-us/request-our-data]() * Num_universities: Number of 4-year colleges and universities within the species range (excluding technical schools, mortuary schools, law schools, seminaries, etc.) * Num_publications: Number of publications focused on the species; Num_downloads followed by filtering to retain only those papers that focused on the species * Num_downloads: Raw number of downloaded publications per species from the Web of Science search prior to filtering/review (see Link_search variable) * Total_ASS: Aesthetic salience total summing Color_score, Patter_scaled, Lightness_scaled, Mass_scaled, Irridescence, Crest, and Extra_feature * Mass: Body mass in grams from Dunning (2007) CRC Handbook of Avian Body Masses, Second Edition * Mass_ln: Natural log (ln) of mass * Mass_scaled: Natural log (ln) of mass divided by 2 to scale mean to 1.6 and max to 3.4 so mass contributed approximately half to the Total_ASS as color contributed * Main_color: Color that covers plurality of the bird * Colors: List of distinct colors on the bird * Color_score: Sum of values assigned based on colors present on the bird; Blue, yellow, green = 1.5 pts; Red, orange, purple = 1 pt; Black, white, gray, brown = 0.5 pts * Pattern_raw: Coefficient of variation of tonal values from Contrast CoVAnalysis macro in the PAT-GEOM v1.0.1 plugin in ImageJ * Pattern_scaled: Pattern-raw multiplied by 2000 to scale mean to 3.2 and max to 7.5 so Pattern_scaled contributes approximately the same amount as Color_score to Total_ASS * Lightness_mean: Mean tonal value score from Adobe Photoshop Elements &gt; Window &gt; Histogram after using autoselect tool to select the bird image (minus feet): bird profile from Sibley Birds v2 mobile phone application ([https://www.sibleyguides.com/product/sibley-birds-v2-app/](https://www.sibleyguides.com/product/sibley-birds-v2-app/)) * Lightness_median: Median tonal value score from Adobe Photoshop Elements &gt; Window &gt; Histogram after using autoselect tool to select the bird image (minus feet): bird profile from Sibley bird profile from Sibley (Sibley Birds v2 mobile phone application ([https://www.sibleyguides.com/product/sibley-birds-v2-app/](https://www.sibleyguides.com/product/sibley-birds-v2-app/)) * Lightness_Scaled: Lightness_median divided by 70 to scale mean to 1.7 and max to 3.3 so Lightness_scaled contributes approximately half as much as Color_score to Total_ASS * Iridescence (0/1): 0 = No iridescence; 1 = Has iridescence * Crest: Possible values are 0, 0.5, 1; 0 = no crest; 0.5 = small crest; 1 = large crest * Extra_feature (0/1): 0 = No extraordinary feature; 1 = Has extraordinary feature. Extraordinary features include: exceptionally long tail, striking/contrasting eye, tail streamers, striking/contrasting bill, waxy feather tips, "horns" etc. * EF_Notes: Idendity of Extra_feature * Journal Covers: Reviewed available cover images from online (journal and/or publisher) sources. Many journals in which bird papers are published do not have cover images. Journals reviewed with cover images included Ardea, Auk (Ornithology), Behavioral Ecology, Bird Conservation International, Condor (Ornithological Applications), Conservation Biology, Current Biology, Diversity and Distributions, Ecography, Ecological Application, Ecology, Ecology Letters, Functional Ecology, Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment, Global Change Biology, Journal of Animal Ecology, Journal of Applied Ecology, Journal of Avian Biology, Journal of Wildlife Management, Landscape Ecology, Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Nature, OIKOS, Ornithological Monographs, PNAS, Proceedings B, Science, Studies in Avian Biology, Wildlife Society Bulletin. Did not include birds in collages of more than 3 species. * Eponymous_name (y/n): y= current common name is a "primary eponym" per American Ornithological Society's Ad Hoc English Bird Names Committee (see [https://americanornithology.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/1-AOS-EBNC_recommendations_23_10_19.pdf](https://americanornithology.org/wp-content/uploads/2023/10/1-AOS-EBNC_recommendations_23_10_19.pdf)) * Drab_name (y/n): y= current common name includes one or more words/colors that suggest the bird might be drab and no color words suggesting it might be aesthetically salient. Drab sounding words included brown, black, dusky, gray, chestnut, ash, plain, olive, and clay * Flashy_name (y/n): y= current common name includes one or more words/colors that suggest the bird might be aesthetically salient, including names that have both a drab sounding and an aesthetically salient sounding word. Salience-suggestive words includred gold, yellow, green, blue, red, rufous, white, vermilion, cerulean, scarlet, lazuli, rose, ruby, violet, purple, indigo, orange NA- Not applicable ## Code/software ***Caption for code:*** R code used to analyze data, run in R v 4.3.1 (R Core Team, 2023). **R Packages used include:** * AICcmodavg * ape * car * coda * emmeans * effectsize * formattable * geiger * ggdensity * ggeffects * ggplot * ggsci * ggtext * ggthemes * here * MCMCglmm * MCMCvis * nlme * phytools * phylopath * psych * RColorBrewer * rgdal * rr2 * standardize * tidytree * tidyverse * treeplyr * viridis * vroom ## Access information Other publicly accessible locations of the data: * N/A Data was derived from the following sources: * N/A