Species Distribution Models and Impact Factor Growth in Environmental Journals: Methodological Fashion or the Attraction of Global Change Science

In this work, I evaluate the impact of species distribution models (SDMs) on the current status of environmental and ecological journals by asking the question to which degree development of SDMs in the literature is related to recent changes in the impact factors of ecological journals. The hypothesis evaluated states that research fronts are likely to attract research attention and potentially drive citation patterns, with journals concentrating papers related to the research front receiving more attention and benefiting from faster increases in their impact on the ecological literature. My results indicate a positive relationship between the number of SDM related articles published in a journal and its impact factor (IF) growth during the period 2000–09. However, the percentage of SDM related papers in a journal was strongly and positively associated with the percentage of papers on climate change and statistical issues. The results support the hypothesis that global change science has been critical in the development of SDMs and that interest in climate change research in particular, rather than the usage of SDM per se, appears as an important factor behind journal IF increases in ecology and environmental sciences. Finally, our results on SDM application in global change science support the view that scientific interest rather than methodological fashion appears to be the major driver of research attraction in the scientific literature.

本研究旨在评估物种分布模型（Species Distribution Models，SDMs）对当前环境与生态学期刊发展现状的影响，通过探讨文献中物种分布模型的发展与生态学期刊影响因子的近期变化之间的关联程度展开研究。本研究所验证的假说指出：研究前沿往往能够吸引科研关注，并潜在地推动引用格局的演变；聚焦于该研究前沿相关论文的期刊，将获得更多关注，并得以在生态学期刊领域的影响力实现更快增长。本研究结果显示，2000年至2009年间，期刊刊载的物种分布模型相关文章数量与该期刊的影响因子（Impact Factor，IF）增幅之间存在正相关关系。然而，期刊中物种分布模型相关论文的占比，与气候变化及统计学主题论文的占比呈现显著正相关关系。研究结果验证了以下假说：全球变化科学对物种分布模型的发展至关重要；而推动生态与环境科学领域期刊影响因子增长的核心因素，似乎并非物种分布模型的自身应用，而是气候变化研究相关的科研兴趣。最后，本研究关于物种分布模型在全球变化科学中应用的结果，也支持这一观点：在科研文献中，科研兴趣而非方法论潮流，才是推动研究领域获得关注的核心动因。