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75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature

Growth in the publication of scientific articles is occurring at an exponential rate, prompting a growing need to synthesise information in a timely manner to combat urgent environmental problems and guide future research. Here, we undertake a topic analysis of dryland literature over the last 75 ye...

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Detalles Bibliográficos
Autores principales: Greenville, Aaron C., Dickman, Chris R., Wardle, Glenda M.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: Public Library of Science 2017
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28384186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175014
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author Greenville, Aaron C.
Dickman, Chris R.
Wardle, Glenda M.
author_facet Greenville, Aaron C.
Dickman, Chris R.
Wardle, Glenda M.
author_sort Greenville, Aaron C.
collection PubMed
description Growth in the publication of scientific articles is occurring at an exponential rate, prompting a growing need to synthesise information in a timely manner to combat urgent environmental problems and guide future research. Here, we undertake a topic analysis of dryland literature over the last 75 years (8218 articles) to identify areas in arid ecology that are well studied and topics that are emerging. Four topics—wetlands, mammal ecology, litter decomposition and spatial modelling, were identified as ‘hot topics’ that showed higher than average growth in publications from 1940 to 2015. Five topics—remote sensing, climate, habitat and spatial, agriculture and soils-microbes, were identified as ‘cold topics’, with lower than average growth over the survey period, but higher than average numbers of publications. Topics in arid ecology clustered into seven broad groups on word-based similarity. These groups ranged from mammal ecology and population genetics, broad-scale management and ecosystem modelling, plant ecology, agriculture and ecophysiology, to populations and paleoclimate. These patterns may reflect trends in the field of ecology more broadly. We also identified two broad research gaps in arid ecology: population genetics, and habitat and spatial research. Collaborations between population genetics and ecologists and investigations of ecological processes across spatial scales would contribute profitably to the advancement of arid ecology and to ecology more broadly.
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spelling pubmed-53831572017-05-03 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature Greenville, Aaron C. Dickman, Chris R. Wardle, Glenda M. PLoS One Research Article Growth in the publication of scientific articles is occurring at an exponential rate, prompting a growing need to synthesise information in a timely manner to combat urgent environmental problems and guide future research. Here, we undertake a topic analysis of dryland literature over the last 75 years (8218 articles) to identify areas in arid ecology that are well studied and topics that are emerging. Four topics—wetlands, mammal ecology, litter decomposition and spatial modelling, were identified as ‘hot topics’ that showed higher than average growth in publications from 1940 to 2015. Five topics—remote sensing, climate, habitat and spatial, agriculture and soils-microbes, were identified as ‘cold topics’, with lower than average growth over the survey period, but higher than average numbers of publications. Topics in arid ecology clustered into seven broad groups on word-based similarity. These groups ranged from mammal ecology and population genetics, broad-scale management and ecosystem modelling, plant ecology, agriculture and ecophysiology, to populations and paleoclimate. These patterns may reflect trends in the field of ecology more broadly. We also identified two broad research gaps in arid ecology: population genetics, and habitat and spatial research. Collaborations between population genetics and ecologists and investigations of ecological processes across spatial scales would contribute profitably to the advancement of arid ecology and to ecology more broadly. Public Library of Science 2017-04-06 /pmc/articles/PMC5383157/ /pubmed/28384186 http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175014 Text en © 2017 Greenville et al http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ This is an open access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) , which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.
spellingShingle Research Article
Greenville, Aaron C.
Dickman, Chris R.
Wardle, Glenda M.
75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title_full 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title_fullStr 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title_full_unstemmed 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title_short 75 years of dryland science: Trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
title_sort 75 years of dryland science: trends and gaps in arid ecology literature
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC5383157/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/28384186
http://dx.doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0175014
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