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 indication of research quality). Widespread, populous species which are native, resident and in receipt of biodiversity action plans produced significantly higher publication metrics. Guild was also significant, birds of prey the most studied group, with pigeons and doves the least studied. The model outputs for both metrics were very similar, suggesting that, at least in this example, research quantity and quality were highly correlated. The results highlight three key gaps in the evidence base, with fewer citations and publications relating to migrant breeders, introduced species and species which have experienced contractions in distribution. We suggest that the use of publication metrics in this way provides a novel approach to understanding the scale and drivers of both research quantity and impact at a species level and could be widely applied, both taxonomically and geographically.
Highlights
The knowledge base for wildlife ecology is extensive, with research motivations many and varied, the representation of species within this knowledge base is unequal, in terms of species and subject area, and with respect to paper “quality” or “impact” [1,2,3,4,5,6]
Paper we describe a novel method for the quantification of research effort and impact at the individual species level, and present an investigation of the factors that best explain between-species differences in outputs
Two pre-existing publication metrics were selected for use–total number of papers per species and species h-index
Summary
The knowledge base for wildlife ecology is extensive, with research motivations many and varied, the representation of species within this knowledge base is unequal, in terms of species and subject area, and with respect to paper “quality” or “impact” (e.g. citation record) [1,2,3,4,5,6]. While a body of literature on research effort between and within species does exist [1,2,3,4,5,6] this is one of the first papers to include an estimate of scientific “impact”. We illustrate this method using British breeding birds as a case study. British breeding birds provide an excellent test case as they are a very well-studied group, with a varied range of research motivations including ease of study (many species are common and easy to study both in the wild and captivity), a largely positive public perception (the Royal Society for the Protection of Birds is the largest membership environment organisation in Europe [7]), interests of individual researchers (many researchers, or research groups have studied individual species over many decades e.g. Great Tits Parus major [8]), and changes in conservation status
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