{"id":10981,"date":"2019-05-21T19:50:26","date_gmt":"2019-05-21T19:50:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.dimensions.ai\/?p=10981"},"modified":"2022-06-10T15:47:41","modified_gmt":"2022-06-10T15:47:41","slug":"everyday-science-with-dimensions-what-will-it-take-to-save-our-planet","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.dimensions.ai\/blog\/everyday-science-with-dimensions-what-will-it-take-to-save-our-planet\/","title":{"rendered":"Everyday science with Dimensions: what will it take to save our planet?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

With World Environment Day just around the corner (June 5th), what better time to explore the conclusions of a recent and sobering United Nations report on biodiversity and ecosystem services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Released in May this year, the summary version<\/a> of the report contains some startling statistics. For example, nature is declining globally at rates unprecedented in human history; unless we take urgent action, around 1 million animal and plant species may become extinct \u2013 many within decades.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The report also ranks, in descending order, the top five factors negatively impacting nature. Changes in land and sea use hold first place. Others, unsurprisingly, are climate change and pollution.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So what can a look at the interconnected data in Dimensions tell us? In this post, we consider the hot research topics in biodiversity and ecology, who\u2019s writing about them, and how their findings are being funded and used.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Why are biodiversity and ecosystems so important?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Biodiversity refers to the variety and variability of life on Earth. A high level of biodiversity is considered crucial, not only to preserve a healthy balance of the ecosystem, i.e., how organisms interact with each other and their physical environment, but the delivery of ecosystem services.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The Encyclopedia of Environmental Health <\/em>defines these ecosystem services as \u201cdirect benefits that humans obtain from the ecosystem, such as food and clean water, or indirect benefits, such as climate regulation and pollination.\u201d(1)  It goes on to note that we are already seeing the impact of change globally, including \u201cnatural disasters, health problems, and poverty.\u201d(1) And while the wellbeing of everyone on the planet is under threat, the poor will be disproportionately impacted.(2)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The domino effect<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

A quick look through the publications in Dimensions reveals the complex interdependencies of each link in the biodiversity chain. For example, insects are an essential food source for many small mammals, fish, reptiles and birds. In some cultures, they are already a staple part of the human diet and their wider acceptance as a protein replacement could prove key in reducing agricultural land use and greenhouse gases.(3) Insects are one of the valuable pollinators of plants, which, in turn, are eaten by us or our livestock. Those plants also absorb carbon dioxide \u2013 possibly more than we initially thought (although not enough to combat the amount we are pumping out).(4) And plants not only serve as traditional medicines, they have also inspired the development of therapeutic drugs; in fact, many believe we yet to exhaust their potential as novel drug leads.(5)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Yet, a 2019 article published in Biological Conservation found that the current dramatic rates of decline may lead to the extinction of 40% of the world\u2019s insect species over the next few decades.(6) There are various reasons behind their decline; for example, non-native plants in our back gardens(7) and the widespread use of pesticides. In addition, billions probably die in road accidents each year.(8)
Even when we try to do the right thing and buy pollinator-friendly plants, we may only be making the situation worse \u2013 one study found they are a significant source of pesticide residues.(9).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Here are a few facts we gleaned from the free version of Dimensions by running a topical search on \u201cbiodiversity and ecosystem services\u201d (NOTE: all data for this article were extracted from Dimensions on 05.14.19).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Researchers<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The auto-generated analytical views tab reveals that the most published researcher on the topic is Professor Teja Tscharntke of University of G\u00f6ttingen in Germany \u2013 49 of his 389 publications listed in Dimensions touch on both themes. A 2005 paper he co-authored, \u201cLandscape perspectives on agricultural intensification and biodiversity \u2013 ecosystem service management<\/a>\u201d, has been cited 1,900 times to date.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 1: Papers on the topic of biodiversity and ecosystem services published by Professor Teja Tscharntke<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In Dimensions, publications are linked to other content types to provide a full view of the research landscape and easy exploration of the connections between relevant grants, clinical trials, patents and policy documents. A look at Professor Tscharntke\u2019s profile page shows he has been awarded five grants by the German Research Foundation for this topic: the most recent \u2013 \u201cBiodiversity and associated ecosystem services in small vs. large scale agriculture<\/a>\u201d \u2013 looks at land sparing (no agricultural developments in natural habitats) vs. land sharing (seeking a balance between high biodiversity and high yield).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publications<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Given the scale of the problem the planet faces, it\u2019s no surprise that a topical search for \u201cbiodiversity\u201d in Dimensions returns a large number of publications \u2013 92,307 to be exact. If we search on \u201cbiodiversity and ecosystem services\u201d, the number falls to 7,140 with the earliest published in 1970.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Sort these by citations, and we can see that the 2005 Science<\/em> article \u201cGlobal Consequences of Land Use<\/a>\u201d by Foley et al has received the highest number of citations to date (4,900). Compared to other publications in its field, it has received 374 times more citations than average \u2013 35% of them were received in the past two years, which suggests it is still attracting a lot of interest.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 2: A screenshot of the article \u201cGlobal Consequences of Land Use\u201d in Dimensions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

In contrast, the article that received the most online attention (with an Altmetric score of 4739), was a 2019 Biological Conservation<\/em>publication by S\u00e1nchez-Bayo et al exploring the threat to the insect population \u2013 \u201cWorldwide decline of the entomofauna: A review of its drivers<\/a>\u201d.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Publications by year<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

As expected, publications related to biodiversity and ecosystem services have risen sharply in number over the past eight years (by more than 300%), from 281 in 2010 to 1,156 in 2018.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

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Figure 3: The number of biodiversity and ecosystem services-related publications by year (2010-2019) in Dimensions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n
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Figure 4: The number of biodiversity and ecosystem services-related grants by year (2010-2019) in Dimensions.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

While publications may have peaked in 2018, as we can see in figure 4, active grant funding hit its highest point in 2016 (935) and is steadily descending. A result of tightening budgets?<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The grant amounts awarded are high; for example, the Directorate for Geosciences in the US awarded the largest sum \u2013 242 million euros \u2013 to the Texas A&M University System for a report on the management and operations of marine geoscience programs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The top five funders to date are located around the globe:<\/p>\n\n\n\n