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Better integration of chemical pollution research will further our understanding of biodiversity loss

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 7, pages 1552–1555 (2023)Cite this article

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Chemical pollution research should be better integrated with other drivers of biodiversity loss and the assessment of human impacts on ecosystems, to more effectively guide management strategies for biodiversity loss mitigation.

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Fig. 1: Chemical pollution research is isolated from the ecological literature.

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All data are publicly available from the sources cited in the Supplementary Information. Source data are provided with this paper.

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Acknowledgements

The authors have been supported by the RobustNature Excellence Initiative (internal prefunding of the Goethe University Frankfurt).

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Faculty of Biological Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Francisco Sylvester, Fabian G. Weichert, Claus Bässler, Werner Brack, Paul Dierkes, Ingo Ebersberger, Sotirios Fragkostefanakis, Eric J. N. Helfrich, Sarah Johann, Jonas Jourdan, Sven Klimpel, Thomas Mueller, Jörg Oehlmann, Meike Piepenbring, Jakob Pfefferle, J. F. Scheepens, Sabrina Schiwy, Flurina Schneider, Lisa M. Schulte, Ernst Stelzer, Frederic Strobl, Andrea Sundermann, Klement Tockner, Carolin Völker & Henner Hollert

  2. Facultad de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Salta, Salta, Argentina

    Francisco Sylvester, Verónica L. Lozano, Florencia Liquin & Maria Schulze-Sylvester

  3. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas, CCT CONICET Salta-Jujuy, Salta, Argentina

    Francisco Sylvester & Verónica L. Lozano

  4. Eawag, Swiss Federal Institute of Aquatic Science and Technology, Dübendorf, Switzerland

    Ksenia J. Groh

  5. Senckenberg Biodiversity and Climate Research Centre (SBiK-F), Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Miklós Bálint, Petra Döll, Ingo Ebersberger, Thomas Hickler, Sven Klimpel, Thomas Mueller & Flurina Schneider

  6. LOEWE Centre for Translational Biodiversity Genomics (LOEWE‐TBG), Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Miklós Bálint, Ingo Ebersberger, Eric J. N. Helfrich, Sven Klimpel, Steffen U. Pauls, Andreas Vilcinskas & Henner Hollert

  7. Institute of Insect Biotechnology, Justus Liebig University Gießen, Gießen, Germany

    Miklós Bálint, Steffen U. Pauls & Andreas Vilcinskas

  8. Amsterdam Institute for Life and Environment (A-LIFE), Section Environmental Health & Toxicology, Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, Amsterdam, The Netherlands

    Lisa Baumann

  9. Bavarian Forest National Park, Grafenau, Germany

    Claus Bässler

  10. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research, Leipzig, Germany

    Werner Brack

  11. Faculty of Social Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Barbara Brandl & Darrel Möllendorf

  12. Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Joachim Curtius

  13. Institute of Physical Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Petra Döll & Thomas Hickler

  14. Branch Bioresources, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Gießen, Germany

    Sven Klimpel & Andreas Vilcinskas

  15. Faculty of Educational Sciences, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Helge Kminek

  16. Institute for Environmental Research (IER), RWTH Aachen University, Aachen, Germany

    Richard Ottermanns

  17. Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Steffen U. Pauls, Andrea Sundermann & Klement Tockner

  18. Institute of History, History of the Middle Ages, Technical University of Darmstadt, Darmstadt, Germany

    Gerrit Jasper Schenk

  19. Institute of Biogeochemistry and Pollutant Dynamics, ETH Zürich, Zürich, Switzerland

    Martin Scheringer

  20. RECETOX, Masaryk University, Brno, Czech Republic

    Martin Scheringer

  21. Department of Human Geography, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Antje Schlottmann

  22. Institute for Social-Ecological Research (ISOE), Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Flurina Schneider & Carolin Völker

  23. Geisenheim University, Department of Crop Protection, Geisenheim, Germany

    Maria Schulze-Sylvester

  24. Instituto de Bio y Geociencias del Noroeste Argentino (IBIGEO-CONICET), Salta, Argentina

    Maria Schulze-Sylvester

  25. Buchmann Institute for Molecular Life Sciences (BMLS), Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Ernst Stelzer & Frederic Strobl

  26. Department of Law, Goethe University Frankfurt, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Tobias Tröger

  27. Leibniz Institute for Financial Research Sustainable Architecture for Finance in Europe, Frankfurt am Main, Germany

    Tobias Tröger

  28. Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research, Member of the Leibniz Association, Potsdam, Germany

    Ricarda Winkelmann

  29. Institute of Physics and Astronomy, University of Potsdam, Potsdam, Germany

    Ricarda Winkelmann

  30. Department of Environmental Media-related Ecotoxicology, Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology, Schmallenberg, Germany

    Henner Hollert

Authors
  1. Francisco Sylvester
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  2. Fabian G. Weichert
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  3. Verónica L. Lozano
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  43. Carolin Völker
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  44. Ricarda Winkelmann
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  45. Henner Hollert
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Contributions

F. Sylvester, F.G.W. and H.H. conceived this work. F. Sylvester, V.L.L. and F.G.W. conducted the literature searches and data analyses with the help of S.F., K.J.G., J.J., S.J., F.L., R.O., J.P., M.P., S.S., M.S.-S. and F. Strobl. Writing was led by F. Sylvester with extensive input from H.H. Substantial contributions to writing and the direction of the manuscript were made by K.J.G., K.T., M.S., W.B. and J.J. Figures had substantial input from L.M.S., F.G.W, V.L.L., M.S.-S. and F. Sylvester. All other authors (M.B., L.B., C.B., B.B., J.C., P. Dierkes, P. Döll, I.E., E.J.N.H., T.H., S.K., H.K., D.M., T.M., J.O., S.U.P., G.J.S., J.F.S., A. Schlottmann, F. Schneider., E.S., F. Strobl, A. Sundermann, T.T., A.V., C.V. and R.W.) contributed to specific aspects and to further elaborate the manuscript. All authors read and approved the final manuscript.

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Henner Hollert.

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Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Methods.

Supplementary Data 1

Random papers reviewed to assess to what extent the Scopus searches conducted yielded papers on the topics targeted by the present study. We examined 100 papers for each of the five topics assessed (500 papers examined in total): chem, chemical pollution; cc, climate change; land, habitat degradation and loss caused by changes in land and water use; nis, invasion by non-native species; and bio, biodiversity loss.

Supplementary Data 2

Number of published papers per year retrieved by Scopus searches (1990-2021) on five assessed topics: chemical pollution (chem), climate change (cc), habitat degradation and loss caused by changes in land and water use (land), invasion by non-native species (nis), and biodiversity loss (bio).

Supplementary Data 3

Number of published papers per journal retrieved by Scopus searches (1990-2021) on five assessed topics: chemical pollution (chem), climate change (cc), habitat degradation and loss caused by changes in land and water use (land), invasion by non-native species (nis), and biodiversity loss (bio). The journals are ranked in decreasing order of paper contribution, and the tables show the first 158 journals with the largest contribution in each topic.

Source data

Source Data Fig. 1

The most productive journals, accounting for 50% of the papers published on five topics: chemical pollution (chem), climate change (cc), habitat degradation and loss caused by changes in land and water use (land), invasion by non-native species (nis), and biodiversity loss (bio) searched in Scopus between 1990 and 2021. These journals are a subset of 119 journals out of a total of 367 identified journals. The Scopus sub-subject area information is provided for each of the 119 journals.

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Sylvester, F., Weichert, F.G., Lozano, V.L. et al. Better integration of chemical pollution research will further our understanding of biodiversity loss. Nat Ecol Evol 7, 1552–1555 (2023). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-023-02117-6

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