A numerical perspective on Nature authors.

There is no such thing as a typical day at work for David Olson, the field programme director at the Wildlife Conservation Society in Fiji. On any given day, he could be drinking kava in a village, surveying groupers on a reef, or discussing policy issues with government working groups. Field programmes demand a flexible approach, Olson says, where conservation and logistical decisions must be made on the fly to keep on top of changing conditions. But he believes that field conservationists need to have a solid understanding of longer-term conservation goals for an area to adapt effectively. This week, Olson and his colleagues present a new analysis to show that regions with a high number of endemic species also have unexpectedly high overall species numbers (see page 212).

19 staff work with Olson on the Wildlife Conservation Society's South Pacific programme in Fiji.

2 submissions of original research have been made to Nature from Fiji in the past 12 months.

4 is the number of institutions — spanning the United States and Fiji — from which Olson and his co-authors came together for their collaboration.

200 visitors to Nature online in the past month were from Fiji.