A Scientometric Analysis

Tropical Ecology 59(3): 431–443, 2018 ISSN 0564-3295 © International Society for Tropical Ecology www.tropecol.com

Global research trends in ‘Ecology’: A scientometric analysis

ANWESHA BORTHAKUR1* & PARDEEP SINGH2

1Centre for Studies in Science Policy, Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi-110067, India 2Department of Environmental Studies, PGDAV College, University of Delhi, New Delhi-110065, India

Abstract: Ecological research has observed a near constant growth during the past few decades. Considering the significance and diversity of ecological research with regard to both its vastness and specificity, this paper is an attempt to map out the research activities in ‘ecology’ through a ‘scientometric analysis’ of the world research outputs. The aim was to identify and document the historical and current research trajectories in the subject. We recognize the fact that in the absence of an in-depth analysis of the trends in research, it is utterly possible that some areas of research get more than adequate attention from the global research and policy community while some equally important areas of the subject remain completely unaddressed or neglected. The study was carried out using two major databases – Scopus and SCImago for the 21 years period from 1996 to 2016 by means of a defined scientific method. Among the several interesting observations, we have found that apart from China, no countries and research institutes from the global south are listed among the top 10 research producing countries/institutes on ecology. Considering the fact that majority of the ecologically sensitive areas and biodiversity hotspots of the world are located in the developing world and have significance influences on the ecological processes across the globe, this calls for immediate attention from the research community. During the keyword analysis, the frequent appearance of ‘restoration ecology’ and ‘landscape ecology’ among the keywords could be considered a positive development in the ecological research. Finally, we argue that it is essential for the global research community to appropriately identify both the gap and opportunities in research on ecology and holistically address concerns of ecological significance.

Key words: Bibliometrics, ecology, ecological research, scientometric analysis, trends.

Introduction ‘environmental science’ has emerged as an important focus area for the global research and The scientific study addressing the policy community (Table 1). Accordingly, ‘ecology’, interactions that decide the abundance and as a central subject category within the distribution of organisms is known as ‘ecology’ environmental science realm, has attained an (Krebs 1972). Prof. Eugene P. Odum (1953), increasing research attention from the scientific popularly known as the father of modern ecology, community across the globe. Broadly divided into defined ecology as ‘the study of structure and two basic categories – ‘fundamental’/ ‘basic’ and function of nature’. With growing concerns on the ‘applied’ ecology – the researches on the subject environment during the past few decades, is both essential and significant towards under-

*Corresponding Author; e-mail: [email protected] 432 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 1. Country-wise distribution of overall research in ‘Environmental Science’ during 1996-2016 (Source: SCImago 2018).

Rank Country Documents Citations Citations per document 1 United States 470621 9962559 21.17 2 China 219409 2327649 10.61 3 United Kingdom 134007 3132493 23.38 4 Germany 106899 1995033 18.66 5 Canada 90369 1904667 21.08 6 India 80012 844142 10.55 7 Australia 73849 1496355 20.26 8 Japan 73484 1074437 14.62 9 France 73369 1540612 21.00 10 Spain 63273 1301472 20.57 11 Italy 59101 1047193 17.72 12 Netherlands 43460 1135221 26.12 13 Brazil 39483 500692 12.68 14 Sweden 33675 854016 25.36 15 South Korea 33403 476006 14.25 16 Poland 29262 278096 9.50 17 Switzerland 28681 745728 26.00 18 Russian Federation 26170 208968 7.99 19 Turkey 25707 356273 13.86 20 Taiwan 23038 367716 15.96 21 Iran 23022 205007 8.90 22 Belgium 21356 490307 22.96 23 Norway 20990 469312 22.36 24 Denmark 20798 561757 27.01 25 Finland 20386 427699 20.98 standing the ‘nature’ and its processes. Further, a collective commitment to applying scientific researches on ecology are also imperative towards knowledge to specific decisions that aim to solve attending to the ever-degrading state of the complex environmental problems today and into the environment and associated concerns in the future”. present-day world such as the climate change. Translational ecology, for instance, takes both While ‘fundamental/basic ecology’ is primarily the scientists and stakeholders collectively in order to study of diversity and interactions between develop research addressing environmental organisms and their biotic/abiotic environments, confrontations (Hallett et al. 2017). It highlights the ‘applied ecology’ is typically inspired by a well- decision-making and social contexts wherein an defined specific objective in order to resolve ecological question is raised, with the aim of environmental tribulations, including the natural creating actionable science in order to attend to resource management, in terms of biodiversity, intricate environmental concerns (Lawson et al. energy, land, or food (Courchamp et al. 2015). 2017). Engaging accomplices with diverse pers- Today, ecology is not an isolated entity. As pectives have the potential to augment the quality argued by Enquist et al. (2017): “As humans and applicability of science, nonetheless dissimi- continue to drive 21st century global environmental larities in contributor incentive structures can change, ecologists are striving to meet the challenges cause major challenge to the partnership (Hallett et of social and environmental sustainability. For al. 2017). Historical ecology, on the other hand, ecology to inform environmental policy formulation encompasses human-environmental interactions and management, new partnerships between with millennial, centennial, and decadal research ecologists and users of ecological research must be focus with the repercussions of these associations in developed. To be effective, these partnerships require the formation of present-day landscapes (Armstrong BORTHAKUR & SINGH 433 et al. 2017). Further, chemical ecology encourages science and technology, 3) information systems on an evolutionary and ecological understanding of the science and technology, and 4) socio-organizational origin and the function of chemicals interfering and cognitive structures in science and technology exchanges between and within organisms (Herve et (van Raan 1997). It had gained increasing attention al. 2018). from the research community for the past several Considering the significance and diversity of decades because of its capacity to contribute ecological research with respect to both its towards a holistic understanding of the literature in vastness and specificity, this paper is an attempt a particular subject area. to evaluate the historical and recent trends in By presenting an overview of a research area research activities in ‘ecology’ through a from a meta-perspective, scientometrics aids in the ‘scientometric analysis’ of the research publication development and progress of an academic outputs. Accordingly, in the subsequent sections, discipline by serving as a fundamental basis for we provide an overview of ‘scientometric analysis’ debating and defining the future agendas of and its significance in ‘ecological research’. This is research (Hussain 2017). Thus, it is elemental to followed by a detailed description of the carry out a scientometric analysis in order to methodology involved in this research with the realize the current trends in researches on a primary research questions. Subsequently, particular topic of concern which may aid the country-, journal-, year-, institute-, author-wise experts to locate the possible gaps in the distribution of current ecological research has been literature. Subsequently, it has policy implications documented along with the occurrence of keywords as it helps in directing research on a particular towards identifying possible gaps and topic towards uncharted dimensions and assist in opportunities. Finally, we conclude our key the allocation of both funds and resources. In the findings with future scope for possible actions. present milieu of biodiversity loss and global change, there is an escalating demand for Scientometric analysis: a background advanced predictive power in the context of ecology, both in the science-policy interface and Before going to the depth of this paper, it is scientific literature, towards increasing knowledge indispensable to recognize the relevance and and, thus, a better decision-making (Maris et al. significance of a scientometric analysis. 2018). Scientometrics is ‘the science of measuring and analyzing science, technology and innovation’ Significance of a scientometric analysis for (Hussain 2017) in terms of their scientific outputs ecological research and the impact of diverse scientific findings. Modern scientometrics is essentially rooted on the It has been observed that, although there is a landmark work of Derek de Solla Price and Eugene considerable amount of publications in the form of Garfield, who is the creator of widely used Science journal articles, conference proceedings, books, Citation Index. During the 1960s and 1970s, the use book chapters, etc. published consistently of scientometric indicators in research evaluation addressing various issues of ecological concern, the had emerged primarily in the United States historical and current ‘trends of research’ within followed by a range of European countries as a the subject area of ‘ecology’ remain mostly reaction from the scientific community itself who, unaddressed. As Keville et al. (2017) argue, by then, had become gradually more aware of the “although the broad field of ecology and its role in apparently uncontrolled growth of scientific understanding the distribution and diversity of life literature and information throughout the post-war on earth is a central part of the natural sciences, period (Leydesdorff 2004). As a consequence, it had there is currently no comprehensive ranking of become important to identify and acknowledge the academic institutions for this discipline, which has research activities in a particular area in order to quadrupled in research volume and visibility over keep a track of the scientific actions. Scientometric the past three decades”. A few noteworthy is essentially designed for the study of every single examples of attempts to evaluate the trends of aspect of the literature on science and technology ecological research include the work by Kim et al. (Hood & Wilson 2001). It is a field of applied science (2018) which evaluated over 100 years of with its core activities of research falling under publications by the Ecological Society of America these four interconnected areas: 1) indicators of and Livingston et al. (2016) which review the science and technology, 2) the interaction between global disparity of ecological sciences. There are a 434 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH few other studies which focus on the topic and are arranged based on the number of documents effectively attempt to provide an overview of the that they produced during the 21 years of our study. trends in research on ecology. Yet, further scopes for addressing the topic still exist. Methodology We had carried out a preliminary search with the top ten journals of ‘ecology’ as listed in the The data for our study has primarily been Scopus database in order to look for publications on obtained from two major sources – Scopus1 and the ‘trends of development of researches in ecology’. SCImago2. The study was carried out for 21 years These ten journals were – 1) Forest Ecology and from 1996 to 2016 in order to provide a Management, 2) Ecology and Evolution, 3) comprehensive overview. Covering approximately Ecological Modelling, 4) Science of the Total 22,600 titles across various disciplines, Scopus Environment, 5) Ecological Indicators, 6) Journal of ranks as the most prevalent citation and abstract Applied Ecology, 7) Marine Ecology Progress Series, database of peer-reviewed literature in the form of 8) Restoration Ecology, 9) Chinese Journal of books, scientific journals and conference Applied Ecology, 10) Chinese Journal of Ecology. proceedings with feature to visualize, track and The results of the search revealed a handful of analyze research. It brings about an inclusive articles on the trends of ecology research published outline of the world’s research output in areas during the 21 years from 1996 to 2016. There are ranging from science, technology, social sciences, certainly scopes for further publications on the topic medicine, to arts and humanities3. The SCImago in order to provide a clear picture of ‘where Journal & Country Rank, on the other hand, is an ecological research is heading today and where is openly accessible portal that comprises of the the gap in existing studies’. With less than country and journals-specific scientific indicators adequate focus on the historical and present trends developed from the information contained in the of overall ecological research, it is possible that Scopus database. These indicators are used to some areas of research get more than enough evaluate and analyze various scientific domains. attention from the global research and policy Journals covered in the SCImago are categorized community and some equally important areas of the with respect to the subject area (27 major thematic subject remain unaddressed or ignored. Such a areas), subject category (313 specific subject situation is both concerning and worrisome where categories) or by country. There is citation data most of the research attentions are diverted to some obtained from over 5,000 international publishers specific areas while disregarding some other with their more than 21,500 journal titles and important issues on the topic. performance metrics from 239 countries globally4. This relative dearth of studies on the historical In SCImago, we used the subject area and present trends of researches in ecology, ‘environmental science’, followed by two subject particularly in some major journals of the subject, categories within the same – 1) ‘Ecology’ and 2) has been a motivation for us to take up this ‘Ecological Modeling’. In Scopus, we used ‘ecology’ research. This kind of study may aid the ecologists as the keyword in order to include all possible to observe the inclination of the research publications on the topic. Nevertheless, we are community and direct their researches accordingly. aware of the fact that there exist a number of In this paper, we have taken ‘ecology’ (as defined terms with the word ‘ecology’ associated with it within the broader realm of ‘environmental science’) such as industrial ecology, political ecology among as our subject area and attempted to have a several others. Our research aim, however, had comprehensive overview of the research activities been to involve only those articles which are associated to it in the present-day context. Table 1 associated with ‘environmental science’ research. outlines the researches on overall ‘environmental Accordingly, while carrying out the analysis in science’ with a country-wise distribution from 1996 Scopus, we had limited our search to the ‘subject to 2016. This provides an impression on the broader area’ of ‘environmental science’ towards narrowing area of environmental science research within down the results obtained and removing the which ecological research in an integral component. papers which are of no relevance in the context of The total number of documents produced by a single country during that period, the citations 1 https://www.scopus.com/home.uri achieved by the country and average citation per 2 https://www.scimagojr.com/ document offer an idea of the general research 3 https://www.elsevier.com/solutions/scopus activities on the subject. In the table, the countries 4 http://www.scimagojr.com/aboutus.php BORTHAKUR & SINGH 435 our study. We essentially seek to address topics Accordingly, it is very likely that although the such as plant and animal ecology, agro ecology, works of these ecologists are categorized under their forest ecology, tropical ecology, soil ecology, geo host or affiliating countries, they contribute ecology, aquatic ecology, conservation, landscape significantly to the ecological knowledge of their ecology and such other topics akin to other own country. In this process, the knowledge is co- associated areas. created together by the global North (where the As a part of this scientometrics study towards researcher is essentially based/hosted) and the understanding the current research performances global South (where the researcher is originally and trends in ecology, following queries were from). Such comprehensive approaches often primarily formulated and subsequently addressed provide valuable insights. in this paper: 1. What are the historical and present trends of Results and discussion researches as illustrated by the available academic literature on ecology? Countries 2. Which are the pioneering countries in this field of research? While analyzing the country-wise distribution 3. Which are the core journals allocating a of research on ecology, we had used two sub- considerable portion of literature on the topic? categories within the broader subject area of 4. How is the year-wise distribution of research environmental science i.e. 1) ‘Ecology’ (Table 2) activities in the field in terms of the research and 2) ‘Ecological Modeling’ (Table 3). The attention from the global research and policy rationale behind selection of ecological modeling as community? a sub category is to further narrow down the 5. What is the productivity distribution of various search results and to have an essence of research research institutes worldwide in the field? activities within the field of ecology. The United 6. Who are the prominent authors contributing States of America has been a pioneer in global significantly in the development of the topic ‘ecology’ research, producing an overwhelming and what are their affiliating institutes? 136,871 research documents during the 21 years In the country-wise distribution of research on period from 1996 to 2016. The country has an ecology, the country (or countries) of affiliation of incredible 27.16 citations per research document. the authors is taken as the central factor. If there During the same duration, the second ranked are authors affiliated to institutions from more than China produced 42780 research papers on the one country involved in a particular paper, all the topic. Although the USA produced over three times countries are taken into consideration in Scopus the number of papers than that of China, the while listing that particular paper. Accordingly, the constant emergence of the country as a future paper finds a place within all the countries it has an leader in the field of ecology and overall author from. It is an inclusive process of acknow- environmental sciences is worth mentioning. The ledging the contribution of a country irrespective of United Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Australia, the base of the corresponding or the senior-most ranked third, fourth, fifth and sixth respectively, author. In today’s increasing collaboration and had published between 20,000 and 30,000 research mobility of researchers among diverse countries, papers on ecology. Complementing the overall this could be considered as a constructive effort of researches on ecology, ecological modeling too ensuring impartial recognition. The mobility of the shows a similar pattern in country-wise researchers from one country to other further raises distribution. While the first ranked USA produced concerns about their exact fieldwork area. We 12035 research papers on the topic, the second especially acknowledge the fact that many students ranked China had generated 3405 research from the Global South seek universities overseas to documents within the same period. The ranking of undertake their higher degrees, especially at the top five countries are exactly the same and the postgraduate, doctoral and postdoctoral level. For difference in the number of publications with the instance, countries like the United States, Australia USA is considerably high. and the European Union member states host a It is noteworthy that apart from China, no large number of international students undertaking countries from the global south are listed among their studies at different level. Many of the projects the top 10 research producing countries on overall that these ecologists work on are carried out in their ecology. However, majority of the ecologically home countries or somewhere else in the world. sensitive areas and biodiversity hotspots of the 436 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 2. Research on ‘Ecology’ during 1996-2016 (Source: SCImago 2018).

Rank Country Documents Citations Citations per document 1 United States 136871 3717948 27.16 2 China 42780 324202 7.58 3 United Kingdom 29947 894414 29.87 4 Canada 25755 630276 24.47 5 Germany 25252 666110 26.38 6 Australia 22485 553272 24.61 7 France 19609 555058 28.31 8 Japan 15544 291406 18.75 9 Spain 14170 324679 22.91 10 Italy 11057 238858 21.60 11 India 10563 92759 8.78 12 Brazil 9829 145583 14.81 13 Netherlands 9785 333997 34.13 14 Sweden 8358 254766 30.48 15 New Zealand 7690 177966 23.14 16 Switzerland 6843 214319 31.32 17 Norway 6237 152067 24.38 18 Finland 6235 147421 23.64 19 South Africa 6205 120096 19.35 20 Denmark 5521 172678 31.28 21 Mexico 5498 84985 15.46 22 Poland 5011 47342 9.45 23 Russian Federation 4904 75379 15.37 24 Belgium 4702 134493 28.60 25 Argentina 4679 79565 17.00 world are located in the developing countries and more and more attention towards other such have significance influences on the ecological countries which have immense ecological processes around the globe. For instance, several significance but relatively have not been able to human actions lead to a loss of biodiversity and attract adequate research attention. This kind of have the potential to decrease multitrophic-level postulations shows the significance of sciento- interactions causing trophic cascade consequences metric research as a contributor to find the gap in (Laurila-Pant et al. 2015). Further, the global existing research especially in terms of research south is a major contributor of the ecosystem focus. services. Ecosystem services are commonly defined as goods and services offered entirely or partly by Journals the ecosystems (Olander et al. 2018). This calls for immediate attention from the research community Among the journals on ecology, Journal of of the developing and emerging world towards Geophysical Research has published a maximum of focusing their research interests on the subjects of 9644 research papers on the subject area as per the ecology. The position of India and Brazil, as two of data received from SCImago during the last three the major biodiversity-rich countries in the 11th years from 2016 (Table 4). The journal has a total and 12th position respectively in the list, could be citation of 30541 in the field of ecology and an H- considered constructive and as a sign of index of 283. However, the SCImago Journal Rank encouragement. Nonetheless, considering the fact (SJR) is the highest for the journal of Annual that only six countries from the developing world Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics and (China, India, Brazil, South Africa, Mexico and it has an impact factor of more than 10. Beatty Argentina) are placed among the top 25 ecological (2016) describes SJR as: “SJR weights citations research producing countries, there should be based on the source they come from. The subject BORTHAKUR & SINGH 437

Table 3. Research on ‘Ecological Modeling’ during 1996-2016 (Source: SCImago 2018).

Rank Country Documents Citations Citations per document 1 United States 12035 284161 23.61 2 China 3405 73660 21.63 3 United Kingdom 3185 85504 26.85 4 Canada 3130 79259 25.32 5 Germany 2685 73105 27.23 6 Australia 2629 73704 28.03 7 France 2324 65104 28.01 8 Spain 1993 58956 29.58 9 Italy 1857 43438 23.39 10 Finland 1727 33966 19.67 11 Netherlands 1554 51158 32.92 12 Japan 1435 37638 26.23 13 Sweden 1099 23918 21.76 14 Switzerland 963 38356 39.83 15 Brazil 959 15427 16.09 16 India 834 23065 27.66 17 Denmark 825 23870 28.93 18 South Korea 804 26326 32.74 19 Belgium 677 17658 26.08 20 Portugal 571 16184 28.34 21 Taiwan 529 20195 38.18 22 Norway 527 10917 20.72 23 Poland 489 8698 17.79 24 New Zealand 480 13021 27.13 25 Greece 476 14391 30.23 field, quality and reputation of the journal have a 21 years (Fig. 1). From only 982 publications in the direct effect on the value of a citation. SJR also year 1996, the number has gone up to 8590 in the normalizes for differences in citation behavior year 2016. Thus, the publication output in ecology between subject fields.” has observed an increase of more than eight times Accordingly, there are inherent differences during the past 21 years since 2016. Although the between SJR and impact factor. While impact growth of publications over the years has been factor is the average number of citations to recent more or less constant yet gradual, there has been a articles published in a particular journal, SJR is substantial increase in the number since 2015. the scientific prestige of the journals5. The journal While the year 2014 had produced around 5955 ‘Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment’ ranks papers on the subject, the year 2015 has published second in the SJR ranking followed by the ‘Global 8144 research papers. Considering the fact that Change Biology’ and ‘Global Ecology and both 2015 and 2016 had produced more than 8000 Biogeography’ – all of which have an SJR of above papers on ecological concerns, it could be 4. The journal ‘Applied and Environmental postulated as sign of the growing amount of Microbiology’ published second highest number of research concerns on the subject in the light of papers during the 21 years from 1996 to 2016 with increasing focus on degrading environment and 2722 papers and has an H-index of 270. pollution associated concerns.

Publication Year Research Institutes The publication of research articles on ecology Among the research institutes publishing their has observed a constant progress during the past works on matters of ecology, the Chinese Academy of Sciences has published maximum number of 5http://www.lib.nus.edu.sg/ilp/crt/2015/Common/Table papers on the topic (Fig. 2). With a total number of %20of%20Comparison%20IF%20SJR%20SNIP.pdf 3315 papers published during the 21 years period 438 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 4. Ranks of the Journals on ‘Ecology’ as of the year 2016 (Source: SCImago 2018).

Rank Title H-index SCImago Journal Rank (SJR) 1 Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics 178 7.807 2 Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 117 4.779 3 Global Change Biology 190 4.768 4 Global Ecology and Biogeography 113 4.061 5 Journal of Ecology 147 3.736 6 Global Environmental Change 120 3.507 7 Fungal Diversity 65 3.246 8 PLoS Computational Biology 125 3.144 9 Conservation Letters 46 2.936 10 Journal of Applied Ecology 145 2.869 11 Conservation Biology 184 2.681 12 Journal of Biogeography 128 2.467 13 Ecological Applications 179 2.265 14 Ecosystems 121 2.013 15 Journal of Geophysical Research 283 1.996 16 Ecosystem Services 31 1.935 17 Landscape and Urban Planning 114 1.88 18 Journal of Vegetation Science 98 1.872 19 Reviews in Aquaculture 23 1.818 20 Ecology and Society 101 1.805 21 Global Food Security 18 1.742 22 Landscape Ecology 101 1.722 23 Applied and Environmental Microbiology 270 1.691 24 Paleobiology 78 1.624 25 Agriculture, Ecosystems and Environment 132 1.612

Service and CNRS Centre National de la Recherche Scientifique have produced 1227 and 1056 research papers respectively. Nonetheless, unlike the first two research institutes, the differences in research outputs are more or less constant with the institutes ranked farther down the list. The presence of only a handful of institutes from China, barring anyone from the developing world, in the top research producing countries on ecology is a major concern and needs immediate addressing from the global research community. Fig. 1. Year-wise distribution of publications on Occurrence of the keywords ecological research (Source: Scopus 2018). The keywords are considered as very good from 1996 to 2016, it leads far ahead of the second indicators of the research activities carried out in a ranked United States Geological Survey with a particular domain. A keyword analysis primarily total number of 1330 published papers. The identifies the most popular subjects covered by growth of Chinese Academy of Sciences is bibliometric analysis (Ellegaard & Wallin 2015). remarkable in the field of ecological research while The occurrence of keywords illustrates the the institute establish itself as a leader in this direction of research activities and thus, helps to field. The third and fourth ranked USDA Forest find out the gap in existing literature. Apart from BORTHAKUR & SINGH 439

Table 5. Top keywords related to ecological research and their frequency of occurrence (Source: Scopus 2018).

Keywords Number of Occurrences Keywords Number of Occurrences Ecology 29,240 Species Richness 2,858 Restoration Ecology 8,432 Restoration 2,847 Ecosystems 7,396 Sustainable Development 2,774 Biodiversity 7,381 Soils 2,487 Animals 6,769 Growth Rate 2,459 Nonhuman 6,628 Population Dynamics 2,448 Forestry 6,338 Conservation of Natural Resources 2,418 Environmental Monitoring 4,770 Fish 2,413 Climate Change 4,208 Agriculture 2,381 Biomass 4,009 Plants (botany) 2,323 Animalia 3,982 Environmental Management 2,208 Environmental Protection 3,968 Community Structure 2,205 Controlled Study 3,704 Metabolism 2,205 Landscape Ecology 3,558 Human 2,178 Species Diversity 3,412 Bacteria (microorganisms) 2,167 Vegetation 3,167 Water Pollution 2,096 Conservation 3,133 Competition (ecology) 2,064 Risk Assessment 3,058 Forest Management 1,982 Rivers 3,018 Water Pollutants, Chemical 1,982 Aves 2,994 Carbon 1,924 Water Quality 2,982 Survival 1,920 Environmental Impact 2,936 Plant Community 1,916 Abundance 2,929 Invasive Species 1,905 Physiology 2,924 Bacterium 1,891 Land Use 2,859 Ecological Modeling 1,888

Fig. 2. Top 15 research institutes working on ecological research (Source: Scopus 2018). 440 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Table 6. Top 15 authors on ecological research (Source: Scopus 2018)

Author Affiliation Number of papers published Yang, Z. Beijing Normal University, School of Environment, Beijing, China 91 Lindenmayer, D. B. Terrestrial Ecosystem Research Network, Long Term Ecological 89 Research Network, Canberra, Australia Hobbs, R.J. University of Western Australia, School of Biological Sciences, Perth, 72 Australia Wu, J. Arizona State University, School of Life Sciences, Tempe, United States 55 Marques, J. C. University of Coimbra, Marine and Environmental Sciences Center, 54 Department of Life Science, Coimbra, Portugal Richardson, D. M. Universiteit Stellenbosch, Department of Botany and Zoology, 52 Stellenbosch, South Africa Shine, R. The University of Sydney, Sydney, Australia 52 Bergeron, Y. Universite du Quebec en Abitibi-Temiscamingue, Chaire industrielle 49 CRSNG-UQAT-UQAM en aménagement forestier durable, Rouyn- Noranda, Canada Gaston, K. J. University of Exeter, Environment and Sustainability Institute, Exeter, 49 United Kingdom Turner, M. G. University of Wisconsin Madison, Department of Zoology, Madison, 49 United States Bowman, D. M. J. S. University of Tasmania, School of Biological Sciences, Hobart, Australia 47 Cherel, Y. Universite de La Rochelle, Centre d'Etudes Biologiques de Chizé, La 47 Rochelle, France Hermy, M. KU Leuven, 3000 Leuven, Belgium 47 Stenseth, N. C. Universitetet i Oslo, Department of Biosciences, Oslo, Norway 47 Mladenoff, D. J. University of Wisconsin Madison, Department of Forest and Wildlife 45 Ecology, Madison, United States the keyword ‘ecology’ which, expectedly, had replicate a pre-disturbance ecosystem or to create a occurred in maximum instances (29,240 times) new ecosystem where it had not previously during the entire analysis, restoration ecology, occurred.” ecosystems and biodiversity are some other major Similar is the case with ‘Landscape Ecology’ keywords constantly occurring in our search result and its rank within the top 15 keywords which is an (Table 5). Considering the already caused damage optimistic development. Landscape Ecology holds to the environment by the mankind, the frequent its importance because of its fundamental concept occurring of the word ‘restoration ecology’ is to express the landscape as a system. The land unit, optimistic. Human activities are responsible for for instance, is considered as an ecologically alteration of almost every landscape on this homogeneous span of land providing the basis planet, and ecological restoration is significant towards studying topologic and chorologic landscape towards repairing such degraded ecosystems as a ecology relationships (Zonneveld 1989). Similarly, conservation prerequisite (Kurashima et al. 2017). constant emergence of ‘Environmental Monitoring’ Describing the essence of restoration ecology, as a primary keyword signifies the increasing Vaughn et al. (2010) states that “Ecological attention in the area within the ecological research. restoration aims to recreate, initiate, or accelerate Recurrence of the word ‘ecosystem’ and ‘biodiversity’ the recovery of an ecosystem that has been repeatedly throughout the analysis indicates the disturbed. Disturbances are environmental changes broader focus of research on the subject as integral that alter ecosystem structure and function. part of ecology. It has been observed through the Common disturbances include logging, damming keywords analysis that various ecological aspects of rivers, intense grazing, hurricanes, floods, and climate change, soil and water have emerged as fires. Restoration activities may be designed to highly discussed areas within the field of research. BORTHAKUR & SINGH 441

Authors On a hindsight, apart from China, no countries from the global south are listed among the top 10 Among the authors working on various research producing countries on ecology. ecological concerns, Prof. Z. Yang from the Beijing Considering the fact that majority of the eco- Normal University, School of Environment, logically sensitive areas and biodiversity hotspots of Beijing, China has contributed maximum number the world are located in the developing world and of papers on the subject with 91 published papers. have significance influences on the ecological He is followed by two Australian scientists, Prof. processes around the globe, this calls for immediate D.B. Lindenmayer (with 89 papers) and R.J. Hobbs attention from the research community. We should (with 72 papers). Interestingly, although the USA acknowledge the fact that majority of the 17 has proven to be the most productive country on megadiverse countries in the world are located in ecological research, none of their authors are listed the global South. These countries are Venezuela, among the top three contributors in the area. The the United States, South Africa, the Philippines, list of top publishing authors shows a great Peru, Papua New Guinea, Mexico, Malaysia, diversity in terms of the country of origin of their Madagascar, Indonesia, India, Ecuador, the affiliating research institutes. There are scientists Democratic Republic of the Congo, Colombia, China, from 10 different countries listed among the top 15 Brazil, and Australia. These are the countries most publishing authors. On a positive note, this consisting of 70% of the global species diversity with shows the emerging concerns, diversity and the presence of a large endemic species population. distribution of research activities in the field of For instance, comprising of only 2.4% of land area of ecology across the globe. the earth, India hosts 7-8% of the world’s recorded species with 96,000 and 47,000 species of animals Conclusions and future research and plants respectively6. The country comprises of recommendations four hotspots of biodiversity – Himalaya, Indo- Burma, Sundalands and Western Ghats. Bio- Ecological research is instrumental in diversity hotspots are also the areas of greater ensuring sustainable ecosystems in the era of threats for extinction of their species population. global climate change and intense pollution Accordingly, it becomes increasingly essential to creation. Historically, there have been studies ensure adequate focus on these countries and carry carried out on the trends of the research activities out ecological research in order to maintain their on the topic, yet scopes for further research largely valuable ecosystems. exist. Accordingly, our study was an attempt to The publication of research articles on ecology document the historical and current research shows a near-constant development with only minor trajectories on ‘ecology’ which may aid the experts deviation over the past 21 years. From only 982 in locating possible gaps in the existing research research publications in the year 1996 to 8590 in approach and literature. The primary aim was to the year 2016, this eight-time increase in the provide a comprehensive overview of the world number of publications is quite notable. New research outputs on ecology. Among the many journals are also emerging over the time along with interesting findings emerged from the study, we their older peers with a primary focus on ecological observe that there are countries who have research. Nevertheless, an interaction with an contributed immensely to the ecological research ecologist suggests that many of the journals that despite their small population size as compared to are listed among the top research publishing some others. For instance, Australia, a country journals on ecology have largely concentrated on with a population significantly lower in size than theoretical papers. This necessitates adequate that of the USA or China, has been actively research papers on applied ecology which help make participating in ecological research and a difference on-the-ground. An appropriate balance contributing persistently in the process of between theoretical and applied ecology papers knowledge creation on the topic. Australia is a would bring about knowledge for the larger benefits megadiverse country which makes such an effort of the global environment. Among the research both worthy and encouraging. The United States institutes, the growth of Chinese Academy of of America has emerged as the leading country in the production of articles on ecological research in 6See:http://www.in.undp.org/content/india/en/home the 21 years period followed by the United /climate-and-disaster-reslience/successstories/ Kingdom, Canada, Germany and Australia. IBA2018.html 442 GLOBAL TRENDS IN ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH

Sciences is noteworthy in the field of ecological blog.scopus.com/posts/journal-metrics-in-scopus- research Again, the absence of research institutes scimago-journal-rank-sjr (barring some from the China) from the developing Courchamp, F., J. A. Dunne, Y. Le Maho, R. M. May, C. world in the top research producing institutes on Thebaud & M. E. Hochberg. 2015. Fundamental ecology is a major concern and needs immediate ecology is fundamental. Trends in Ecology & addressing from the global research community. On Evolution 30: 9–16. a positive note, apart from the native ecologists of Ellegaard, O. & J. A. Wallin. 2015. The bibliometric developing countries, there are ecologists who are analysis of scholarly production: How great is the affiliated to institutes in the global North, but their impact? Scientometrics 105: 1809–1831. fieldworks are often carried out in ecologically Enquist, C. A. F., S. T. Jackson, G. M. Garfin, F. W. significant areas in the global South. Such approach Davis, L. R. Gerber, J. A. Littell, J. L. Tank, A. J. helps co-creating knowledge within the realm of Terando, T. U. Wall, et al. 2017. Foundations of ecological research. translational ecology. Frontiers in Ecology and the The keywords are considered as excellent Environment 15: 541–550. indicators of the research activities carried out in a Hallett, L. M., T. L. Morelli, L. R. Gerber, M. A. Moritz, particular domain. The frequent appearance of M. W. Schwartz, N. L. Stephenson, J. L. Tank, M. A. ‘restoration ecology’ and ‘landscape ecology’ among Williamson & C. A. Woodhouse. 2017. Navigating the keywords could be considered a positive translational ecology: creating opportunities for development in the ecological research. The scientist participation. Frontiers in Ecology and the diversity among the top publishing authors Environment 15: 578–586. (scientists from 10 different countries listed among Herve, M. R., F. Nicole & K. A. Le Cao. 2018. the top 15 most publishing authors on ecological Multivariate Analysis of Multiple Datasets: a research) is fascinating and optimistic. Interestingly, most of the top authors are not Practical Guide for Chemical Ecology. Journal of affiliated to the top (in terms of number of Chemical Ecology 44: 215–234. publications) research publishing institutes. This is Hood, W. W. & C. S. Wilson. 2001. The literature of thought-provoking and provides a scope for bibliometrics, scientometrics, and informetrics. reflection which experts in ecological research may Scientometrics 52: 291–314. ponder over. Finally, we argue that it is essential Hussain, A. 2017. A Scientometric analysis of the for the global research community to analyse the ‘Journal of King Saud University-Computer and trends in ecological research from time to time, Information Sciences’. Library Philosophy and identify the possible gaps in existing research and Practice (e-journal). 1528. holistically address concerns of ecological Keville, M. P., C. R. Nelson & F. R. Hauer. 2017. significance. It is up to them to ensure that no Academic productivity in the field of ecology. significant and sensitive aspect or areas of Ecosphere 8: e01620. ecological research is remain unaddressed due to Kim, J. Y., G. J. Joo & Y. Do. 2018. Through 100 years of inadequate research and policy attention. Ecological Society of America publications: development of ecological research topics and scientific Acknowledgements collaborations. Ecosphere 9: e02109. Krebs, C. J. 1972. Ecology; the Experimental Analysis of The authors acknowledge the constructive Distribution and Abundance. Harper & Row. comments of the anonymous reviewer and the Kurashima, N., J. Jeremiah & T. Ticktin. 2017. I ka wa editorial members which helped modify the paper. ma mua: The Value of a Historical Ecology Approach to Ecological Restoration in Hawai'i. References Pacific Science 71: 437–456. Laurila-Pant, M., A. Lehikoinen, L. Uusitalo & R. Armstrong, C. G., A. C. Shoemaker, I. McKechnie, A. Venesjärvi. 2015. How to value biodiversity in Ekblom, P. Szabo, P. J. Lane, A. C. McAlvay, O. J. environmental management? Ecological Indicators Boles, S. Walshaw, et al. 2017. Anthropological 55: 1–11. contributions to historical ecology: 50 questions, Lawson, D. M., K. R. Hall, L. Yung & C. A. F. Enquist. infinite prospects. Plos One 12: e0171883. 2017. Building translational ecology communities of Beatty, S. 2016. Journal Metrics in Scopus: SCImago practice: insights from the field. Frontiers in Ecology Journal Rank (SJR). Available at: https:// and the Environment 15: 569–577. BORTHAKUR & SINGH 443

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(Received on 05.05.2018 and accepted after revisions, on 19.10.2018)