Biases in parasite biodiversity research: why some helminth species attract more research than others.

ABSTRACT: As the number of known and described parasite species grows every year, one might ask: how much do we actually know about these species beyond the fact they exist? For free-living taxa, research effort is biased toward a small subset of species based on their properties or human-centric factors. Here, using a large data set on over 2500 helminth parasite species described in the past two decades, we test the importance of several predictors on two measures of research effort: the number of times a species description is cited following its publication, and the number of times a species' name is mentioned in the scientific literature. Our analysis highlights some taxonomic biases: for instance, descriptions of acanthocephalans and nematodes tend to receive more citations than those of other

SUBMITTER: Poulin R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC10172627 | biostudies-literature | 2023 Aug

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature