Data from: The geographical and institutional distribution of ecological research in the tropics

We reviewed 1333 papers published in Biotropica and the Journal of Tropical Ecology from 1995 to 2004. Only 62 percent of tropical countries were represented in our survey, with 62 percent of the publications based on research conducted in only ten countries. Sixty-two percent of papers had lead authors that were based at institutions outside the country where the research was conducted. Cross-national collaboration was limited, accounting for only 28 percent of papers with multiple authors. To evaluate if our choice of focal journals could have biased our results, we also reviewed 652 papers published in Ecology, Oecologia, Conservation Biology, and Biological Conservation for five randomly selected years from the same time period. While some differences in authorship and the geographic distribution of research existed, the results from these journals generally mirrored patterns observed in the two focal ones—almost 54 percent of publications were based on research conducted in only ten countries, and most studies had lead authors from a developed country. The results of our review suggest that the geographical distribution of research in the tropics is unequal, and that some important regions remain understudied. The results also suggest a need for a greater focus on establishing collaborative relationships with scientists from tropical countries.

本研究梳理了1995年至2004年间发表于《Biotropica》与《热带生态学杂志（Journal of Tropical Ecology）》的1333篇论文。本次调研仅覆盖62%的热带国家，且其中62%的论文的研究仅开展于10个国家。62%的论文第一作者的所属机构位于研究开展国境外。跨国合作比例偏低，在多作者论文中仅占28%。为评估核心期刊的选取是否会对研究结果造成偏倚，本研究同时梳理了同期5个随机选取年份中发表于《生态学（Ecology）》、《Oecologia》、《保护生物学（Conservation Biology）》与《生物保护（Biological Conservation）》的652篇论文。尽管在作者构成与研究地理分布方面存在一定差异，但上述期刊的研究结果整体上与两款核心期刊的观测结果一致：近54%的论文研究仅开展于10个国家，且绝大多数研究的第一作者来自发达国家。本次综述结果显示，热带地区研究的地理分布并不均衡，部分重要区域仍存在研究不足的问题；同时也凸显出亟需加强与热带国家科研人员的合作联系。