Conservation organizations face a difficult communication challenge. Scientists worry about damaged ecosystems and declining wildlife populations, yet the terminology used to explain those changes may be unfamiliar to the people they hope to reach. Should a campaign describe biodiversity loss, nature loss, extinction or an environmental crisis?
A large randomized experiment suggests that more dramatic language is not necessarily more persuasive. Among 7,338 adults in the United States, straightforward wording about the extinction of plants and animals generally produced stronger ratings of familiarity, concern and urgency than the technical expression biodiversity loss. Adding the word crisis offered little benefit and sometimes reduced respondents’ ratings.
Published in npj Biodiversity on 21 October 2026, the study tested six ways of describing biodiversity decline and whether a short explanation with photographs made the messages more understandable.
The findings are relevant to environmental groups, educators and science journalists. They do not show that new wording causes people to donate or saves species. Instead, they reveal how different phrases influence reported concern and willingness to support conservation policies, and why context may matter more than a dramatic headline.
Why biodiversity is a difficult idea to communicate
Biodiversity includes variation within species, between species and across ecosystems. It encompasses genetic variation, ecological relationships, population abundance and the range of living organisms in a habitat.
That breadth makes biodiversity scientifically useful. But the term can be difficult to convey in a short public message. People may recognize that familiar birds are disappearing while remaining unsure what a warning about biodiversity loss means in practice.
Campaigns sometimes replace the term with nature loss or extinction of plants and animals. Others use urgent descriptions such as nature crisis or biodiversity crisis.
These phrases do not mean exactly the same thing. Extinction is an extreme outcome, whereas biodiversity can decline long before any species disappears. Simpler wording may help people recognize the problem but can also omit important scientific details.
Wändi Bruine de Bruin and colleagues sought evidence about which expressions resonate with the public, rather than relying on experts’ assumptions about what sounds most compelling.
How the experiment involved 7,338 U.S. adults
The researchers recruited respondents through the Understanding America Study, a probability-based panel designed to represent U.S. adults. They invited 10,000 English-speaking adults and received usable responses from 7,338, approximately 73% of invitees.
Data were collected in July and August 2025. The team applied demographic weighting for factors including age, education, gender, race or ethnicity and geographic location, while acknowledging differences between respondents and those who did not participate.
Each person was randomly assigned one of six phrases: biodiversity loss, nature loss, extinction of plants and animals, biodiversity crisis, nature crisis or extinction crisis.
Participants were also randomly assigned to see the phrase alone or together with a short explanation and photographs of plants and animals. The explanation described what the issue involved, why it mattered, its causes and possible responses.
After viewing the assigned material, participants rated familiarity, concern, perceived urgency and willingness to support policies protecting land and water. Each measure used a four-point response scale.
This six-by-two experimental design allowed the researchers to assess the influence of wording and context separately. They also compared reactions across political-affinity groups.
Importantly, participants were not asked to make an actual donation, volunteer or make a binding policy choice. The results concern measured perceptions and stated intentions rather than proven changes in conservation behavior.
Plain descriptions performed better than technical terms
When participants encountered a phrase without supporting explanation or images, biodiversity loss and biodiversity crisis generally attracted the lowest ratings across familiarity, concern, urgency and conservation support.
The phrase extinction of plants and animals generally attracted the highest ratings. Respondents viewed it as more familiar and more concerning and reported greater urgency than those shown the least familiar technical wording.
Nature loss tended to fall between the two. It was not superior on every measure, but it often performed better than biodiversity loss when shown on its own.
One explanation is that the public can picture a species disappearing more readily than the broader scientific process of biodiversity decline. The researchers suggested that extinction may also feel familiar through documentaries, education and popular culture, although they did not test those mechanisms directly.
The central message is that a scientifically accurate phrase is not automatically an effective public message. Audiences may need a clear illustration of what a technical concept means before they can judge its implications.
Adding the word crisis rarely improved the response
Organizations sometimes use crisis framing to communicate urgency. It might seem reasonable to expect biodiversity crisis to generate more concern than biodiversity loss.
Yet the experiment found little to no overall positive effect from adding crisis language. Some comparisons produced less favorable results, especially when extinction crisis was used instead of the more familiar phrase extinction of plants and animals.
Without explanatory context, extinction crisis received significantly lower ratings of familiarity, concern and urgency than extinction of plants and animals. When context was included, biodiversity crisis sometimes received lower concern and urgency ratings than biodiversity loss.
This does not prove that biodiversity loss is not serious or that scientists cannot reasonably describe it as a crisis. The experiment concerned audience responses to specific expressions, not the severity of environmental decline.
It also does not show that all warnings or urgent messages are ineffective. A well-evidenced explanation of serious consequences may be more persuasive than a label that feels unfamiliar or exaggerated.
The narrower conclusion is important enough: stronger-sounding words should not be assumed to create stronger public engagement.
Explanation and imagery helped people respond
The second part of the design tested whether an explanation accompanied by relevant imagery changed reactions. The context included accessible information about biodiversity decline and photographs showing different plants and animals.
Across the sample, this material increased ratings of familiarity, concern, perceived urgency and conservation support. The largest effect was generally on familiarity; the effect on stated policy support was smaller.
Context also narrowed differences between the six phrases. With an explanation and photographs, nature loss performed similarly to extinction of plants and animals on most response measures, although it remained less familiar.
Biodiversity loss still received relatively low ratings, but the supporting material helped make the meaning more concrete. Readers were given something to understand, not only a label to react to.
Because the researchers presented the explanation and photographs together, they could not determine how much of the improvement came from the words and how much came from the pictures. The study does not establish that particular wildlife images were responsible.
It supports the more practical idea that a clear explanation with relevant context can help an audience engage with an unfamiliar scientific topic.
What political differences revealed
The sample included 1,982 respondents identifying most closely with Republicans, 2,707 with Democrats and 2,649 with Independents or other political affiliations.
The overall pattern was broadly consistent across these groups. Plain descriptions of threatened plants and animals generally produced more positive responses than technical biodiversity terminology, while crisis labels rarely improved engagement.
Wording effects were often strongest among those categorized as Independents or others. The researchers discussed whether partisan identity might make some groups less sensitive to terminology, but their experiment did not establish the mechanism.
Average levels of concern also differed between political groups. Such differences reflect the U.S. setting; they should not be assumed to hold in South Africa, where language, party affiliations and environmental priorities are different.
Across groups, however, a recurring association emerged: terms that felt more familiar tended to elicit greater reported concern and urgency.
Familiarity was associated with concern
The authors investigated whether people who said they recognized a term were also more likely to rate the issue as concerning and urgent. Greater familiarity was associated with stronger ratings of concern, urgency and conservation support.
The relationship was strongest for concern and urgency and weaker for stated willingness to support conservation. It appeared broadly across wording, context and political categories.
This is consistent with the idea that unfamiliar vocabulary can make an issue feel distant or difficult to judge. A phrase already understood by an audience may give the message a head start.
However, these familiarity analyses were associational. People who already care about nature may be more familiar with its terminology. The study did not establish that teaching someone a new word would automatically increase their environmental concern.
The randomized wording comparisons provide stronger evidence about how the assigned phrases influenced immediate ratings. They do not by themselves show how long those responses lasted.
Why the findings matter for science communication
The research offers a useful challenge to conservation groups and journalists: are they choosing language that an audience understands, or language that merely sounds urgent to specialists?
A story about species facing extinction can reasonably describe that threat directly. An article about declining genetic diversity or changing ecological interactions may need broader language, followed by a concrete explanation.
For example, Research Today coverage of a global synthesis of 423 studies examined how biodiversity helps sustain ecosystem services and functions. Those processes extend beyond the outright loss of species, which is why accurate explanation remains essential.
Similarly, research on the share of Earth’s land already conserved demonstrates how complex conservation terminology can affect interpretation. People need to understand the distinction between formal protection and what actually happens to ecosystems.
Wording can influence everyday environmental choices too. A South African study of plastic-bag purchasing explored how the cashier’s offer related to consumer behavior. It involved a different question, but emphasizes why messages should be tested against actual responses rather than assumptions about what will work.
For practical campaigns, an evidence-led approach would combine scientifically appropriate wording with examples, explanations and locally relevant images, then test the message among the people it is intended to reach.
Clear language must not distort the underlying science
There is a genuine trade-off between accessibility and completeness. The phrase extinction of plants and animals performed well in the experiment, but extinction is only one extreme manifestation of biodiversity loss.
Habitats can lose ecological resilience when populations decline, food webs change or genetic variation disappears. Those losses can matter for pollination, soil health and other ecosystem services even when all species remain present.
Using extinction as a blanket substitute for every form of biodiversity decline would therefore oversimplify the problem. Communicators can instead introduce the subject through a familiar example and then explain the broader science.
The study’s findings argue for clearer language and meaningful context, not for sacrificing accuracy or presenting the most frightening outcome as inevitable.
Important limitations of the experiment
First, the outcomes were reported ratings, not donations, volunteering, actual policy decisions or ecological results. A shift in concern does not necessarily translate into action.
Second, the respondents were English-speaking U.S. adults. The probability-based panel and demographic weighting improved the sample’s coverage, but participants still differed from nonrespondents in some characteristics. Findings may not generalize to other countries or languages.
Third, the tested expressions were not exact synonyms. Extinction of plants and animals emphasizes a narrower consequence than biodiversity loss, potentially changing what people imagined rather than only how simply an idea was expressed.
Fourth, the researchers did not ask people to explain the meaning they assigned to each phrase. Someone might report knowing the word biodiversity while understanding it differently from a scientist.
Fifth, photographs and explanation were supplied together, so their separate contributions could not be identified. The study was also a snapshot, and terminology familiarity may change with repeated public exposure.
Finally, the researchers did not directly measure whether dramatic wording damaged credibility or made participants feel helpless. Those mechanisms remain possible explanations rather than demonstrated causes.
What should researchers test next?
Follow-up experiments could compare messages using outcomes involving a real choice: seeking more information, joining a conservation project, donating or supporting a specific policy with clear trade-offs.
Research across countries and languages would help establish whether the advantages of the tested phrases are distinctive to English-speaking U.S. audiences. Studies could also separate the effects of photographs from explanatory text.
Campaigners could test materials with communities affected by local environmental change rather than assume that one international phrase will resonate everywhere.
Clearer messages may work better than louder ones
The central conclusion is not that biodiversity decline lacks urgency. It is that adding the word crisis generally did not make people more concerned in this large randomized experiment.
Plain descriptions of threatened plants and animals often generated stronger responses than unfamiliar technical terminology, while explanations and images improved understanding across descriptions.
For anyone communicating environmental research, the evidence points toward a measured strategy: explain the issue accurately, make it concrete, use familiar terms where they fit, and verify whether the message changes meaningful behavior before claiming success.
Looking for studies on this topic? Use the Research Today Research Paper Finder to search scholarly research by topic, question, author or keyword.
Source Information
Study title: Public responses to biodiversity loss terminology and crisis framing
Authors: Wändi Bruine de Bruin, Monica Dean, Carling Monder, Allison Agsten, Moa Cortobius, Georgia Silvera Seamans, Robert Spaull and Kimberly Tenggardjaja
Journal: npj Biodiversity, Volume 5, Article 36
Publication date: 21 October 2026
Study design: Randomized, demographically weighted online survey experiment comparing six biodiversity-related terms presented alone or with an explanatory paragraph and photographs; political-affinity subgroup analysis
Sample or scope: 7,338 English-speaking U.S. adults in the Understanding America Study panel, surveyed in July–August 2025; 1,982 Republicans, 2,707 Democrats and 2,649 Independents or others
Key finding: Plain wording about extinction of plants and animals generally elicited stronger ratings of familiarity, concern and urgency than biodiversity loss, while adding crisis framing offered little or no improvement; explanatory context improved ratings overall
