Which Species Are We Researching and Why? A Case Study of the Ecology of British Breeding Birds.

ABSTRACT: Our ecological knowledge base is extensive, but the motivations for research are many and varied, leading to unequal species representation and coverage. As this evidence is used to support a wide range of conservation, management and policy actions, it is important that gaps and biases are identified and understood. In this paper we detail a method for quantifying research effort and impact at the individual species level, and go on to investigate the factors that best explain between-species differences in outputs. We do this using British breeding birds as a case study, producing a ranked list of species based on two scientific publication metrics: total number of papers (a measure of research quantity) and h-index (a measure of the number of highly cited papers on a topic--an indicatio

SUBMITTER: McKenzie AJ 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC4496060 | biostudies-literature | 2015

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature