TY - JOUR
T1 - Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity
AU - Amano, Tatsuya
AU - Berdejo-Espinola, Violeta
AU - Christie, Alec P.
AU - Willott, Kate
AU - Akasaka, Munemitsu
AU - Baldi, Andras
AU - Berthinussen, Anna
AU - Bertolino, Sandro
AU - Bladon, Andrew J.
AU - Chen, Min
AU - Choi, Chang Yong
AU - Kharrat, Magda Bou Dagher
AU - De Oliveira, Luis G.
AU - Farhat, Perla
AU - Golivets, Marina
AU - Aranzamendi, Nataly Hidalgo
AU - Jantke, Kerstin
AU - Kajzer-Bonk, Joanna
AU - Cisel Kemahli Aytekin, M.
AU - Khorozyan, Igor
AU - Kito, Kensuke
AU - Konno, Ko
AU - Lin, Da Li
AU - Littlewood, Nick
AU - Liu, Yang
AU - Liu, Yifan
AU - Loretto, Matthias Claudio
AU - Marconi, Valentina
AU - Martin, Philip A.
AU - Morgan, William H.
AU - Narvaez-Gomez, Juan P.
AU - Negret, Pablo Jose
AU - Nourani, Elham
AU - Ochoa Quintero, Jose M.
AU - Ockendon, Nancy
AU - Oh, Rachel Rui Ying
AU - Petrovan, Silviu O.
AU - Piovezan-Borges, Ana C.
AU - Pollet, Ingrid L.
AU - Ramos, Danielle L.
AU - Reboredo Segovia, Ana L.
AU - Nayelli Rivera-Villanueva, A.
AU - Rocha, Ricardo
AU - Rouyer, Marie Morgane
AU - Sainsbury, Katherine A.
AU - Schuster, Richard
AU - Schwab, Dominik
AU - Sekercioglu, Cagan H.
AU - Seo, Hae Min
AU - Shackelford, Gorm
AU - Shinoda, Yushin
AU - Smith, Rebecca K.
AU - Tao, Shan Dar
AU - Tsai, Ming Shan
AU - Tyler, Elizabeth H.M.
AU - Vajna, Flora
AU - Valdebenito, Jose Osvaldo
AU - Vozykova, Svetlana
AU - Waryszak, Pawel
AU - Zamora-Gutierrez, Veronica
AU - Zenni, Rafael D.
AU - Zhou, Wenjun
AU - Sutherland, William J.
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
© 2021 Amano et al. This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
PY - 2021/10
Y1 - 2021/10
N2 - The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non- English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global biodiversity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in biodiverse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges.
AB - The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non- English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global biodiversity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in biodiverse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges.
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85116731430&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001296
DO - 10.1371/journal.pbio.3001296
M3 - Artículo
C2 - 34618803
AN - SCOPUS:85116731430
SN - 1544-9173
VL - 19
JO - PLoS Biology
JF - PLoS Biology
IS - 10
M1 - e3001296
ER -