Biodiversity assessment is constitutive in establishing conservation priorities and outcomes, and geodiversity complements species richness as a surrogate in the absence of species data, improves statistical modelling and can facilitate prediction of species distribution and abundance. Yet, geodiversity is frequently excluded, and biodiversity prioritised in conservation endeavours such as ecosystem-based management. Therefore, combined geodiversity and biodiversity assessment approaches present practical benefits to conservation such as improved collaboration between biologists and geoscientists, efficacious indicators of conservation value, and abatement of biodiversity partialities and wider inclusion of geodiversity in conservation literature. This study scientometrically analysed 240 biodiversity assessment publications to investigate geodiversity inclusiveness, methodological trends, geographic trends, environment-type trends and future directions in biodiversity assessment methods. Results showed these species richness articles frequently included geodiversity-relevant terms such as hydrological, soil, geological and geomorphological components, but the all-encompassing 'geodiversity' term was absent entirely. Geographic trends showed many potential economic, social, cultural and political factors influencing geodiversity inclusiveness in biodiversity assessment. For example, Australia's relatively resource exploitative approach to geology and early involvement in the inception of the geodiversity concept could explain the high frequency of geological-related terms in Australian biodiversity assessments. Methodological trends showed dominance by field-based biodiversity assessments such as trapping methods, followed transects, quadrats, net methods and observations. Given the specific sample size of literature analysed, inferences from this study relate only to biodiversity assessment methods and not biodiversity discourse in its entirety. Subsequent research could investigate specific factors, such as social, economic or political, and their influence on geodiversity inclusiveness in biodiversity assessment methods.

Item Type:	Refereed Article
Keywords:	scientometric, geodiversity, biodiversity, assessment, species, richness, evolution
Research Division:	Environmental Sciences
Research Group:	Environmental management
Research Field:	Conservation and biodiversity
Objective Division:	Environmental Management
Objective Group:	Coastal and estuarine systems and management
Objective Field:	Assessment and management of coastal and estuarine ecosystems
UTAS Author:	Crisp, JRA (Mr Jake Crisp)
UTAS Author:	Ellison, JC (Associate Professor Joanna Ellison)
UTAS Author:	Fischer, A (Dr Andy Fischer)
UTAS Author:	Tan, JSD (Mr Jia Tan)
ID Code:	153082
Year Published:	2022
Deposited By:	Geography and Spatial Science
Deposited On:	2022-09-05
Last Modified:	2022-10-27
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