A world dominated by vertebrates, which forgets the less iconic branches of life like mushrooms or annelids: this is how biodiversity is represented through the catalog of emojis present in our phones. However, these biases could have impacts on the preservation of biodiversity.
Grab your phones, scour the emoji catalog of your favorite instant messaging system for a starfish, a virus, a chanterelle or a sea turtle. Unless updated since the editorial office from this article, your harvest should be zero. More broadly, you can easily notice that animals and especially vertebrates are the living organisms most present in the catalog. But this is precisely the problem raised recently by Gentile Francesco Ficetola, researcher at the department of environmental science and policy at the University of Milan, and his colleagues.
“We realized that there were a lot of emojis, but also that there were a lot of absent people. This led to a curiosity: What are the biases? Which living organisms are over-represented? Those who aren’t? », recalls the researcher. In their study published in December 2023 in the journal iScience, they found that emojis are not evenly distributed across the phylogenetic tree of life. No, on the contrary, they are subject to a bias: vertebrate animals take up more space than others.
A catalog full of vertebrates
To find out, the researchers explored Emojipedia, a sort of online encyclopedia of available emojis. Once the 112 organisms were listed and categorized, they were able to classify these living beings in the catalog according to their taxonomy (are they animals, are they vertebrates, are they mammals, etc.) then compare the results with the actual distribution of living organisms.
They noticed that the biodiversity tree in these pictograms differs greatly from that of real biodiversity. Among living organisms, animals dominate in the catalog with 92 appearances, followed by 16 plants. As for fungi and microorganisms, they are largely under-represented, with 1 pictogram each.
Another bias noted by researchers is that vertebrates are the majority animals. They represent 76% of available emojis, compared to 16% for arthropods (ants, spiders, butterflies, etc.), 4% for mollusks, 2% for cnidarians (coral, jellyfish) then 1% for annelids (with the only representative a worm).
However, this is far from representing the real biodiversity of animals. For example, the number of species described among arthropods is greater than 1,300,000, as for mammals it is approximately 85,000 species. The researchers then note that the bias presented in the emoji catalog is similar to that of biodiversity assessments, such as the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) red list.
Precise rules for creating an emoji
This unequal representation is linked to the very way in which emojis are chosen by the Unicode consortium, a private non-profit organization. “ Anyone can propose a new emoji but the consortium adds a very limited number each year, according to its own rules. », Warns Célia Schneebeli, linguistics researcher at the University of Burgundy. Among these rules – which can be consulted here – the image must be likely to be frequently used (for example, it must be a term often searched for on the internet), it must be new and different, it must be able to be combined to others…
Many iconic species of the tree of life fall into these conditions. Especially since“We must also remember that certain emojis are not only used to represent animals. The turtle can also refer to a slow person, the bald eagle is the symbol of the United States, etc. », underlines Gentile Francesco Ficetola. And for other taxa, “these are all obstacles to their appearance in the catalog”notes Célia Schneebeli.
However, Unicode intends to fill gaps. And we have seen this in recent years on issues of sociodiversity (skin color, gender diversity, representation of the couple, professions, etc.). “One might believe that there is a gap to be filled here, which is clearly shown by the survey. But Unicode wants to symbolically fill missing spaces and without exhaustiveness. They indicate that there is no intention of establishing a complete taxonomy”, notes Julien Pierre, communications researcher at the University of Sherbrooke (Canada). Particularly for technical questions and complexity of use.
Emojis to protect biodiversity
However, an enriched catalog of underrepresented living organisms could have real consequences. “We believe that better communication will help the preservation of certain animals”, explains Gentile Francesco Ficetola. They write in their study: “Emojis can be used to encourage public support for conservation efforts, to highlight the urgency of protecting endangered species, and to inspire people to participate in biodiversity events. » And this, regardless of the popularity of the species in question. But, for the moment, no study has tested the consequences of adding living emojis on biodiversity. The team plans to work on this in the future.
“ We believe that better communication will help the preservation of certain animals”
Kind Francesco Ficetola
In any case, “this cannot have negative consequences – other than technical ones. But this can have a positive effect on the symbolic dimension. A previously underrepresented entity could have social recognition because it is now endowed with semiotic representativeness., supports Julien Pierre. For her part, Célia Schneebeli warns: “It would be entirely commendable to make emojis available that would allow us to take into account and display all the biodiversity on Earth, but there is no way to increase their use by users. »
Recent improvements
And researchers are aware of this. Also, they are not hoping for a catalog of emojis that would respect the proportions of life to the nearest comma. “Distinguishing the 25,000 species of ants among the emojis would make no sense, communication must remain immediate. But we want to point out that there are many mushrooms, plants and animals that are not represented and that we can do better for certain groups.tempers Gentile Francesco Ficetola.
A positive note in any case, the researchers noted an evolution of the catalog in terms of living organisms between 2015 and 2022. Appeared, for example, the first annelid (the earthworm) in 2020 and the first cnidarian (the coral) in 2021. “I think we realized that these pictograms can be used to communicate effectively about biodiversity”notes the researcher.
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