Anthropogenic pressures are driving insect declines across the world. Although protected areas (PAs) play a prominent role in safeguarding many vertebrate species from human-induced threats, insects are not widely considered when designing PA systems or building strategies for PA management. We review the effectiveness of PAs for insect conservation and find substantial taxonomic and geographic gaps in knowledge. Most research focuses on the representation of species, and few studies assess threats to insects or the role that effective PA management can play in insect conservation. We propose a four-step research agenda to help ensure that insects are central in efforts to expand the global PA network under the Post-2020 Global Biodiversity Framework.
Participatory citizen science is expanding, with iNaturalist emerging as one of the most widely used platforms globally. However, its application in research is often anecdotal. To evaluate the impact of how iNaturalist is contributing to biodiversity and conservation research, we conducted a systematic review of iNaturalist data use and compared our findings with Global Biodiversity Information Facility literature citing iNaturalist. We found that the use of iNaturalist data in peer-reviewed research has grown tenfold in the last 5 years, matching the growing increase in iNaturalist observations. Geographic and taxonomic representation in the literature generally aligns with data availability, with iNaturalist data derived from 128 countries and 638 taxonomic families being used in peer-reviewed literature. Currently, data from iNaturalist are primarily used for species distribution models and range dynamics. We highlight emerging trends in the use of iNaturalist data in the literature lending to its future potential across biodiversity sciences.
English is widely recognized as the language of science, and English‐language publications (ELPs) are rapidly increasing. It is often assumed that the number of non‐ELPs is decreasing. This assumption contributes to the underuse of non‐ELPs in conservation science, practice, and policy, especially at the international level. However, the number of conservation articles published in different languages is poorly documented. Using local and international search systems, we searched for scientific articles on biodiversity conservation published from 1980 to 2018 in English and 15 non‐English languages. We compared the growth rate in publications across languages. In 12 of the 15 non‐English languages, published conservation articles significantly increased every year over the past 39 years, at a rate similar to English‐language articles. The other three languages showed contrasting results, depending on the search system. Since the 1990s, conservation science articles in most languages increased exponentially. The variation in the number of non‐English‐language articles identified among the search systems differed markedly (e.g., for simplified Chinese, 11,148 articles returned with local search system and 803 with Scopus). Google Scholar and local literature search systems returned the most articles for 11 and 4 non‐English languages, respectively. However, the proportion of peer‐reviewed conservation articles published in non‐English languages was highest in Scopus, followed by Web of Science and local search systems, and lowest in Google Scholar. About 20% of the sampled non‐English‐language articles provided no title or abstract in English; thus, in theory, they were undiscoverable with English keywords. Possible reasons for this include language barriers and the need to disseminate research in countries where English is not widely spoken. Given the known biases in statistical methods and study characteristics between English‐ and non‐English‐language studies, non‐English‐language articles will continue to play an important role in improving the understanding of biodiversity and its conservation.