Conservation scientists take up to three times longer to publish their work than other biologists, according to a new study that warns this could affect time-critical environmental decisions. Ryan O'Donnell and two other PhD students at Utah State University in Logan examined more than 2,000 articles published in 14 life-science journals in 2007 to calculate the delay between last data collection and submission. The median delay for papers on conservation was 696 days, compared with 189 days for evolution and 605 for taxonomy. The authors suggest the hold-up arises because many conservation biologists do governmental work and have other obligations besides publishing.