Observation biases, ubiquitous organisms, introduced species, et cetera

The observations and descriptions on this website are biased towards beautiful and exotic species. I claim no moral superiority here, as I am guilty of the same, but lately it has occurred to me that I, and perhaps all of us are inherently biased. In the realm of biology, ecology, etc., we focus on large or pretty organisms. This is a bias to bear in mind. For example, a more or less ubiquitous observation may not even merit a photograph, but the organism may be an important part of an ecosystem and so on. My jokes used to fall flat that museums are extremely biased in favor of multicellular eukaryotes, but I digress.

In short, this remark refers to a normal observation bias that we perhaps should be more aware of. Ubiquitous organisms, invasive species, introduced species, and so on, are a part of out environment. They may change the ecology for better or worse, ameliorating the effects of industrialization, or contributing to localized extinctions, but I think we should observe them.

Posted on April 6, 2019 10:40 PM by gunnellb