# The flounder effect: disparities in taxonomic and ecological study intensity across extant and fossil marine organisms hamper conservation

## TL;DR

The paper discusses how biased knowledge of marine organisms affects ecological and evolutionary studies, both in modern and fossil species, and suggests solutions to address these biases.

## Contribution

The paper introduces the concept of the 'flounder effect' to highlight disparities in study intensity across marine organisms and proposes structural solutions.

## Key findings

- Biased understanding of natural history and taxonomy affects ecological and evolutionary perspectives.
- Disparities in study intensity exist between extant and fossil marine organisms.
- Structural changes are needed to improve the accuracy of ecological and evolutionary analyses.

## Abstract

Large datasets have allowed biologists and palaeontologists to investigate a multitude of ecological processes. They have also obfuscated the ways in which our limited knowledge of ecology can affect our results. We focus on how our biased understanding of organismal natural history and taxonomy can have significant impacts on our perspective of ecological and evolutionary processes across multiple temporal and hierarchical scales, and suggest broad structural solutions to this problem.