An investigation, published in Current Biology, which includes the participation of researchers Eduardo Marabuto and Tatiana Carina Moreira-Pinhal, from the Centre for Ecology, Evolution and Environmental Changes (CE3C) of the Faculty of Sciences of the University of Lisbon (Ciências ULisboa), identified a consistent association between the perceived beauty of butterflies and public attention, the effort of scientific research, and certain conservation priorities.
The work integrates data from an international survey on the beauty of European butterflies, with more than 21,000 responses from more than 100 countries, and cross-references them with information about scientific research, public attention, and different instruments of nature conservation.
The prettier, the more attention?
The results show that butterflies considered more beautiful tend to attract greater attention from the public and from researchers. This relationship is particularly relevant because public and scientific attention can influence which species are more known, studied, and monitored over time.
The team identified what it designates as a “beauty bias,” a bias associated with beauty: a tendency for human aesthetic preferences to reflect, directly or indirectly, in the priorities assigned to different species.
This phenomenon does not mean that the most beautiful species are necessarily receiving undue protection or that their conservation is unimportant. The problem arises when aesthetic characteristics, which do not necessarily relate to extinction risk, end up influencing research and conservation priorities.
A bias that can reach conservation policies
One of the study’s most relevant conclusions is the existence of an association between butterfly beauty and its presence in important European conservation instruments.
The visually most appealing species are overrepresented, in particular, in the Bern Convention and the European Union Habitats Directive. These instruments play a central role in defining priorities, funding, and conservation actions, so historical patterns may continue to influence current decisions (what they called the “beauty loop”).
“Beauty is a human characteristic, not a measure of extinction risk,” emphasize the Portuguese authors Eduardo Marabuto and Tatiana Carina Moreira-Pinhal, cited in a press release. The idea is simple, yet important: a species that is not very flashy may be facing a conservation situation much more severe than another considered visually attractive.
Curiously, the results show a different scenario when analyzing the IUCN European Red Lists. These do not exhibit an overrepresentation of the most beautiful species and also identify visually less appealing species as threatened.
More attention does not necessarily mean greater risk
The more appealing butterflies tend to be photographed and recorded more often on platforms such as iNaturalist, which may generate biases in the data used to assess the distribution and extinction risk of species. While biological rarity explains much of the association between the number of records and threat risk, human observation patterns can influence conservation assessments.
“Biodiversity data repository platforms reflect and accumulate, in part, the attention and perception patterns of their users. Therefore, it is important to take this behavioral bias into account when the data are used in scientific studies, in assessing population status, and in conservation decisions,” notes Tatiana Carina Moreira-Pinhal, a researcher at CE3C, ULisboa Sciences, and co-author of the study.
The absence or scarcity of records does not necessarily mean the absence of a species or a lower need for protection. The international team, led by Leonardo Dapporto and Mariagrazia Portera, from the University of Florence, argues that these biases must be considered when using opportunistic observation data and biodiversity platforms to support conservation decisions.
Rethinking priorities to protect the biodiversity that needs it most
For the authors, recognizing the existence of a beauty-associated bias constitutes a first step toward making conservation decisions more balanced and aligned with the true ecological urgency.
The aim is not to devalue charismatic or visually appealing species, which play an important role in raising society’s awareness of biodiversity. On the contrary, it is to ensure that less well-known or less “beautiful” species do not go forgotten simply because they attract less human attention. In fact, “if the most colorful and charismatic species occur in the same areas as rarer butterflies, these can be used as ‘flagship species,’ genuine symbols for the conservation of an entire community that is actually the most relevant in conservation,” emphasizes Eduardo Marabuto.
“Butterflies are an excellent example of how our preferences can influence the way we view and study biodiversity,” explain the researchers. Recognizing these biases could contribute to conservation decisions that are more transparent and based on the real ecological needs of the species.
The article “Beauty bias in butterfly research and conservation” was recently published in the journal Current Biology.
