A Ten-year Bibliometric Analysis of Research Trends in Three Leading Ecology Journals during 2003-2012

Abstract

This paper attempts to highlight quantitatively the growth and development of literature in the field of ecology in terms of publication output using the resource Web of Science. The focus of this analysis was to study the literature on ecology published in three journals, viz., Ecology Letters, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, and Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics. 2946 records were retrieved for 10 years (2003-2012). The study revealed that multiple authorship in the field with collaborations of two (30.31%) and three authors (19.89%) was dominant. The Degree of collaboration, Collaborative coefficient, and Collaborative index were calculated and the applicability of Lotka's law was tested. The study identified five-year patterns in research trends, using the three studied journals, to see if the subjects of focus changed within a decade. The most productive institution was University Calif. Davis, USA, followed by University Calif. Santa Barbara, USA, and University Queensland, Australia, and the most productive countries were the USA followed by UK and Canada.