Tapping into non-English-language science for the conservation of global biodiversity.

The widely held assumption that any important scientific information would be available in English underlies the underuse of non-English-language science across disciplines. However, non-English-language science is expected to bring unique and valuable scientific information, especially in disciplines where the evidence is patchy, and for emergent issues where synthesising available evidence is an urgent challenge. Yet such contribution of non-English-language science to scientific communities and the application of science is rarely quantified. Here, we show that non-English-language studies provide crucial evidence for informing global biodiversity conservation. By screening 419,679 peer-reviewed papers in 16 languages, we identified 1,234 non-English-language studies providing evidence on the effectiveness of biodiversity conservation interventions, compared to 4,412 English-language studies identified with the same criteria. Relevant non-English-language studies are being published at an increasing rate in 6 out of the 12 languages where there were a sufficient number of relevant studies. Incorporating non-English-language studies can expand the geographical coverage (i.e., the number of 2° × 2° grid cells with relevant studies) of English-language evidence by 12% to 25%, especially in biodiverse regions, and taxonomic coverage (i.e., the number of species covered by the relevant studies) by 5% to 32%, although they do tend to be based on less robust study designs. Our results show that synthesising non-English-language studies is key to overcoming the widespread lack of local, context-dependent evidence and facilitating evidence-based conservation globally. We urge wider disciplines to rigorously reassess the untapped potential of non-English-language science in informing decisions to address other global challenges. Please see the Supporting information files for Alternative Language Abstracts.

Vulnerability of bat-plant pollination interactions due to environmental change.

Plant-pollinator interactions are highly relevant to society as many crops important for humans are animal pollinated. However, changes in climate and land use may put such interacting patterns at risk by disrupting the occurrences between pollinators and the plants they pollinate. Here, we analyse how the co-occurrence patterns between bat pollinators and 126 plant species they pollinate may be disrupted given changes in climate and land use, and we forecast relevant changes of the current bat-plant co-occurrence distribution patterns for the near future. We predict under RCP8.5 21% of the territory will experience a loss of bat species richness, plants with C3 metabolism are predicted to reduce their area of distribution by 6.5%, CAM species are predicted to increase their potential area of distribution up to 1% and phanerophytes are predicted to have a 14% reduction in their distribution. The potential bat-plant interactions are predicted to decrease from an average of 47.1 co-occurring bat-plant pairs in the present to 34.1 in the pessimistic scenario. The overall changes in suitable environmental conditions for bats and the plant species they pollinate may disrupt the current bat-plant co-occurrence network and will likely put at risk the pollination services bat species provide.

A comprehensive database of amphibian heat tolerance.

Rising temperatures represent a significant threat to the survival of ectothermic animals. As such, upper thermal limits represent an important trait to assess the vulnerability of ectotherms to changing temperatures. For instance, one may use upper thermal limits to estimate current and future thermal safety margins (i.e., the proximity of upper thermal limits to experienced temperatures), use this trait together with other physiological traits in species distribution models, or investigate the plasticity and evolvability of these limits for buffering the impacts of changing temperatures. While datasets on thermal tolerance limits have been previously compiled, they sometimes report single estimates for a given species, do not present measures of data dispersion, and are biased towards certain parts of the globe. To overcome these limitations, we systematically searched the literature in seven languages to produce the most comprehensive dataset to date on amphibian upper thermal limits, spanning 3,095 estimates across 616 species. This resource will represent a useful tool to evaluate the vulnerability of amphibians, and ectotherms more generally, to changing temperatures.