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Taxonomic chauvinism revisited: insight from parental care research.

ABSTRACT: Parental care (any non-genetic contribution by a parent that appears likely to increase the fitness of its offspring) is a widespread trait exhibited by a broad range of animal taxa. In addition to influencing the fitness of parent(s) and offspring, parental care may be inextricably involved in other evolutionary processes, such as sexual selection and the evolution of endothermy. Yet, recent work has demonstrated that bias related to taxonomy is prevalent across many biological disciplines, and research in parental care may be similarly burdened. Thus, I used parental care articles published in six leading journals of fundamental behavioral sciences (Animal Behaviour, Behavioral Ecology, Behavioral Ecology and Sociobiology, Ethology, Hormones and Behavior, and Physiology & Behavior) from 2001-2010 (n?=?712) to examine the year-to-year dynamics of two types of bias related to taxonomy across animals: (1) taxonomic bias, which exists when research output is not proportional to the frequency of organisms in nature, and (2) taxonomic citation bias, which is a proxy for the breadth of a given article-specifically, the proportion of articles cited that refer solely to the studied taxon. I demonstrate that research on birds likely represents a disproportionate amount of parental care research and, thus, exhibits taxonomic bias. Parental care research on birds and mammals also refers to a relatively narrow range of taxonomic groups when discussing its context and, thus, exhibits taxonomic citation bias. Further, the levels of taxonomic bias and taxonomic citation bias have not declined over the past decade despite cautionary messages about similar bias in related disciplines--in fact, taxonomic bias may have increased. As in Bonnet et al. (2002), my results should not be interpreted as evidence of an 'ornithological Mafia' conspiring to suppress other taxonomic groups. Rather, I generate several rational hypotheses to determine why bias persists and to guide future work.

SUBMITTER: Stahlschmidt ZR

PROVIDER: S-EPMC3164163 | biostudies-literature | 2011

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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Taxonomic chauvinism revisited: insight from parental care research.

Stahlschmidt Zachary R ZR

PloS one 20110831 8

Parental care (any non-genetic contribution by a parent that appears likely to increase the fitness of its offspring) is a widespread trait exhibited by a broad range of animal taxa. In addition to influencing the fitness of parent(s) and offspring, parental care may be inextricably involved in other evolutionary processes, such as sexual selection and the evolution of endothermy. Yet, recent work has demonstrated that bias related to taxonomy is prevalent across many biological disciplines, and ...[more]

PMID: 21904614

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Project description:BackgroundCloud computing is an innovative paradigm that provides users with on-demand access to a shared pool of configurable computing resources such as servers, storage, and applications. Researchers claim that information technology (IT) services delivered via the cloud computing paradigm (ie, cloud computing services) provide major benefits for health care. However, due to a mismatch between our conceptual understanding of cloud computing for health care and the actual phenomenon in practice, the meaningful use of it for the health care industry cannot always be ensured. Although some studies have tried to conceptualize cloud computing or interpret this phenomenon for health care settings, they have mainly relied on its interpretation in a common context or have been heavily based on a general understanding of traditional health IT artifacts, leading to an insufficient or unspecific conceptual understanding of cloud computing for health care.ObjectiveWe aim to generate insights into the concept of cloud computing for health IT research. We propose a taxonomy that can serve as a fundamental mechanism for organizing knowledge about cloud computing services in health care organizations to gain a deepened, specific understanding of cloud computing in health care. With the taxonomy, we focus on conceptualizing the relevant properties of cloud computing for service delivery to health care organizations and highlighting their specific meanings for health care.MethodsWe employed a 2-stage approach in developing a taxonomy of cloud computing services for health care organizations. We conducted a structured literature review and 24 semistructured expert interviews in stage 1, drawing on data from theory and practice. In stage 2, we applied a systematic approach and relied on data from stage 1 to develop and evaluate the taxonomy using 14 iterations.ResultsOur taxonomy is composed of 8 dimensions and 28 characteristics that are relevant for cloud computing services in health care organizations. By applying the taxonomy to classify existing cloud computing services identified from the literature and expert interviews, which also serves as a part of the taxonomy, we identified 7 specificities of cloud computing in health care. These specificities challenge what we have learned about cloud computing in general contexts or in traditional health IT from the previous literature. The summarized specificities suggest research opportunities and exemplary research questions for future health IT research on cloud computing.ConclusionsBy relying on perspectives from a taxonomy for cloud computing services for health care organizations, this study provides a solid conceptual cornerstone for cloud computing in health care. Moreover, the identified specificities of cloud computing and the related future research opportunities will serve as a valuable roadmap to facilitate more research into cloud computing in health care.

Project description:Snakehead fishes of the family Channidae are predatory freshwater teleosts from Africa and Asia comprising 38 valid species. Snakeheads are important food fishes (aquaculture, live food trade) and have been introduced widely with several species becoming highly invasive. A channid barcode library was recently assembled by Serrao and co-workers to better detect and identify potential and established invasive snakehead species outside their native range. Comparing our own recent phylogenetic results of this taxonomically confusing group with those previously reported revealed several inconsistencies that prompted us to expand and improve on previous studies. By generating 343 novel snakehead coxI sequences and combining them with an additional 434 coxI sequences from GenBank we highlight several problems with previous efforts towards the assembly of a snakehead reference barcode library. We found that 16.3% of the channid coxI sequences deposited in GenBank are based on misidentifications. With the inclusion of our own data we were, however, able to solve these cases of perpetuated taxonomic confusion. Different species delimitation approaches we employed (BIN, GMYC, and PTP) were congruent in suggesting a potentially much higher species diversity within snakeheads than currently recognized. In total, 90 BINs were recovered and within a total of 15 currently recognized species multiple BINs were identified. This higher species diversity is mostly due to either the incorporation of undescribed, narrow range, endemics from the Eastern Himalaya biodiversity hotspot or the incorporation of several widespread species characterized by deep genetic splits between geographically well-defined lineages. In the latter case, over-lumping in the past has deflated the actual species numbers. Further integrative approaches are clearly needed for providing a better taxonomic understanding of snakehead diversity, new species descriptions and taxonomic revisions of the group.

Dataset Information

Taxonomic chauvinism revisited: insight from parental care research.

Publications

Taxonomic chauvinism revisited: insight from parental care research.

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