More than two million species have been described so far, but our knowledge on most taxa remains scarce or inexistent, and the available biodiversity data is often taxonomically, phylogenetically and spatially biased. Unevenness in research effort across species or regions can interact with data biases and compromise our ability to properly study and conserve biodiversity. Herein, we assess the influence of biological, conservation, geographic and socioeconomic correlates of reptile research effort globally and across six biogeographic realms. We combine bibliometric data from the Scopus database with trait-based approaches and provide research effort information for 10 531 reptile species, modelling it as a function of 10 putative correlates of species-level variation in research effort through negative binomial generalised mixed effect models. We show that reptile research effort is highly skewed toward certain taxa and regions, such as turtles, crocodiles, tuatara, viperids, pythons and some anguimorph lizards, as well as for temperate compared to tropical regions. Our findings indicate that greater research attention is directed towards large-sized and early described reptile species, particularly those whose geographic range overlap with biodiversity institutions. Although we demonstrate that biological and socioeconomic factors more strongly affect reptile research effort variation, geography and conservation-related factors also matter. Global patterns are mostly consistent, but variation across realms were observed and likely reflects differences in socioeconomic attributes as well as in the amount of species to be studied in each realm. Directing researchers and citizen scientists' attention toward understudied taxa will contribute to alleviate this biased biodiversity knowledge, although the sheer amount of species in tropical regions inevitably makes it a long-term solution. Performing comparative studies across species with similar levels of research attention could represent a more immediate and feasible alternative.

中文翻译：

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看不见的物种：阐明全球爬行动物研究工作的决定因素

迄今为止，已经描述了超过 200 万个物种，但我们对大多数分类单元的了解仍然很少或不存在，并且可用的生物多样性数据通常在分类学、系统发育学和空间学上存在偏差。跨物种或跨地区的研究工作不均衡会与数据偏差相互作用，并损害我们正确研究和保护生物多样性的能力。在此，我们评估了全球和六个生物地理领域的爬行动物研究工作的生物学、保护、地理和社会经济相关因素的影响。我们结合了Scopus的文献计量数据具有基于特征的方法的数据库，并提供 10 531 种爬行动物的研究工作信息，通过负二项式广义混合效应模型将其建模为研究工作中物种水平变化的 10 个假定相关函数。我们表明，爬行动物的研究工作高度偏向于某些类群和地区，例如海龟、鳄鱼、喙头蜥、毒蛇科动物、蟒蛇和一些角形蜥蜴，以及与热带地区相比的温带地区。我们的研究结果表明，更多的研究注意力集中在大型和早期描述的爬行动物物种上，特别是那些地理范围与生物多样性机构重叠的物种。尽管我们证明生物和社会经济因素更强烈地影响爬行动物研究工作的变化，地理和与保护有关的因素也很重要。全球模式大多是一致的，但观察到跨领域的差异，可能反映了社会经济属性的差异以及每个领域要研究的物种数量。将研究人员和公民科学家的注意力引向未充分研究的分类群将有助于减轻这种有偏见的生物多样性知识，尽管热带地区物种的绝对数量不可避免地使其成为一个长期的解决方案。对具有相似研究关注度的物种进行比较研究可能是一种更直接、更可行的选择。但观察到跨领域的差异，可能反映了社会经济属性的差异以及每个领域要研究的物种数量。将研究人员和公民科学家的注意力引向未充分研究的分类群将有助于减轻这种有偏见的生物多样性知识，尽管热带地区物种的绝对数量不可避免地使其成为一个长期的解决方案。对具有相似研究关注度的物种进行比较研究可能是一种更直接、更可行的选择。但观察到跨领域的差异，可能反映了社会经济属性的差异以及每个领域要研究的物种数量。将研究人员和公民科学家的注意力引向未充分研究的分类群将有助于减轻这种有偏见的生物多样性知识，尽管热带地区物种的绝对数量不可避免地使其成为一个长期的解决方案。对具有相似研究关注度的物种进行比较研究可能是一种更直接、更可行的选择。