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Latin America embodies countries of special interest for ecological studies, given that areas with great value for biodiversity are located within their territories. This highlights the importance of an evaluation of ecological research in the Latin America region. We assessed the scientific participation of Latin American researchers in ecological journals, patterns of international collaboration, and defined the main characteristics of the articles. Although Latin American publications have increased in fourteen years, they accounted up to 9% of publications in Ecology. Brazil leaded the scientific production in Latin America, followed by Argentina and Mexico. In general, Latin American articles represented a low percentage of most journals total publication, with particularly low expression in high impact-factor journals. A half of the Latin American publications had international collaboration. Articles with more than five authors and with international collaboration were the most cited. Descriptive studies, mainly based in old theories, are still majority, suggesting that Ecology is in a developing stage in Latin America.
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An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
Anais da Academia Brasileira de Ciências (2017)
(Annals of the Brazilian Academy of Sciences)
Printed version ISSN 0001-3765 / Online version ISSN 1678-2690
http://dx.doi.org/ 10.1590/0001-3765201720160535
www.scielo.br/aabc | www.fb.com/aabcjournal
Latin American scientic contribution to ecology
JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI1, FERNANDA CESCHIN2, SUELEN C.A.S. PERETO1, LUIZ G.S. RIBAS3,
LUIS A.V. BEZERRA1, JAQUELINE DITTRICH2, TADEU SIQUEIRA4 and ANDRÉ A. PADIAL1,2
1Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Conservação, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Av. Coronel
Francisco H. dos Santos, 100, Jardim das Américas, 81531-990 Curitiba, PR, Brazil
2Pós-Graduação em Ecologia de Ambientes Aquáticos Continentais, Universidade Estadual de
Maringá, Av. Colombo, 5790, Jardim Universitário, 87020-900 Maringá, PR, Brazil
3Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Universidade Federal de Goiás, Av.
Esperança, s/n, Campus Samambaia, 74690-900 Goiânia, GO, Brazil
4Universidade Estadual Paulista Júlio de Mesquita Filho, Instituto de Biociências de Rio Claro,
Departamento de Ecologia, Av. 24 A, 1515, Bela Vista, 13506-900 Rio Claro, SP, Brazil
Manuscript received on August 23, 2016; accepted for publication on January 27, 2017
ABSTRACT
Latin America embodies countries of special interest for ecological studies, given that areas with great
value for biodiversity are located within their territories. This highlights the importance of an evaluation
of ecological research in the Latin America region. We assessed the scientic participation of Latin
American researchers in ecological journals, patterns of international collaboration, and dened the main
characteristics of the articles. Although Latin American publications have increased in fourteen years, they
accounted up to 9% of publications in Ecology. Brazil leaded the scientic production in Latin America,
followed by Argentina and Mexico. In general, Latin American articles represented a low percentage of
most journals total publication, with particularly low expression in high impact-factor journals. A half of
the Latin American publications had international collaboration. Articles with more than ve authors and
with international collaboration were the most cited. Descriptive studies, mainly based in old theories, are
still majority, suggesting that Ecology is in a developing stage in Latin America.
Key words: article citations, international collaboration, journal impact factor, Neotropics, research poli-
cies, scientometrics.
Correspondence to: Juliana Wojciechowski
E-mail: julianawoj@gmail.com
INTRODUCTION
The overall scientic production of Latin American
countries rose almost 200 percent between 1988
and 2001 (Hill 2004). Especially in the last two
decades, the Brazilian scientic output quintupled
(Van Noorden 2014) and the Argentine number of
science doctorates increased tenfold (Catanzaro
et al. 2014). Despite this robust increase, the
contribution of these countries to the world
scientic production is still low (Hermes-Lima et al.
2007) when compared to Europe and USA, which
contribute with more than 30% each to worldwide
publications (Glänzel et al. 2006). In addition,
studies carried by Latin American (LA hereafter)
authors receive much less citations than others
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
2 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
carried out by authors from developed countries
of Asia, Europe, North America and Oceania
(Hermes-Lima et al. 2007). For example, Brazil
ranked rst in Latin America and 17th in the rank
among 146 countries in terms of overall scientic
production, but drops off to the 91st position in
terms of citation per article (data from a 10-year
country ranking of ISI Essential Science Indicators
consulted in June 2016; In-Cites 2006). In South
America, the highest citation impact weighted by
research belongs to Peru, whereas two-thirds of
South America’s science personnel are in Brazil
and the highest proportion of researchers per
workers belongs to Argentina (Van Noorden 2014).
Socio-economic and political instability, inertial
eect of dictatorial regimes and language barriers
are possibly the main reasons accounting for the
relatively low scientic production and impact of
the research conducted in LA countries (Catanzaro
et al. 2014).
Even so, areas of special interest for ecological
studies are located in LA countries, since within
their territory there are seven out of 25 hotspots
for biodiversity conservation priorities (Myers
et al. 2000). Latin America is the most complex
ecological area on Earth considering its primary
productivity, biotic and ecosystem-level diversities
(Toledo and Castillo 1999). Furthermore, LA
habitats are facing several environmental problems
such as deforestation, inecient land-use practices,
biodiversity loss, contamination of surface waters,
depletion of aquifers and soil erosion (Martínez et al.
2006). Thus, the evaluation of ecological research
conducted in Latin America is useful to inform
policy makers and support management efforts
aiming mitigation of environmental pressure and
conservation of biodiversity and natural resources
(Martínez et al. 2006). Thereby, the development
of Ecology as a science must be a priority to LA
researchers due to high anthropogenic alterations
on natural environments (Toledo and Castillo
1999).
Scientic production on a particular research
area reveals its trends and gaps (Verbeek et al. 2002).
Several studies have evaluated Latin American
scientic production in elds such as Conservation
Biology (Galindo-Leal 2000), Medical Plant
Sciences (Calixto 2005), Social Sciences and
Public Health (Nunes 2006), Biochemistry and
Physiology (Hermes-Lima and Navas 2006),
health and several sub-elds of Medical Sciences
(e.g., Pellegrini Filho et al. 1997, Weisinger and
Bellorín-Font 1999, Falagas et al. 2006). Studies
conducted in Latin America had an important role
for the development of contemporary ecological
knowledge. For example, several founders of
modern Ecology, Biogeography and Evolution
(including Charles Darwin, Alfred R. Wallace and
Alexander von Humbolt) were attracted to this
region due to its unique environmental diversity
and evolutionary history (Martínez et al. 2006).
Additionally, it is interesting to mention that
Eugene Warming, considered by Arthur Tansley
as “the father of Plant Ecology” (Godwin 1977)
developed his most prominent research in Central
Brazil. Even so, Ecology as a formal discipline
emerged in Latin America in the last century,
and only in the last years it is denitely gaining
attention (Martínez et al. 2006). Latin America
contributes worldwide with important and relevant
researchers such as Eduardo H. Rapoport, an
important Argentinean ecologist in the eld of the
Biogeography and Macroecology (see Rapoport’s
rule reported by Stevens 1989). Therefore, it is
time for a critical evaluation of the Latin American
scientic contribution to Ecology.
Here, we analyzed the participation of LA
authors in Ecology from 2000 to 2014. Our study had
two main objectives: to evaluate the general trends
of scientic articles from LA authors (According to
denition of Latin American Network Information
Center – LANIC http://www1.lanic.utexas.edu/; see
Appendix S1 - Supplementary Material) in Ecology
during the last fourteen years and to identify the
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN LATIN AMERICA 3
main characteristics of ecological studies in the
region. Considering the rst goal, we analyzed the
temporal trends of LA scientic publication, the
characteristics of journals in which LA researches
published their works, the main international
cooperation and their role on the scientic impact
of LA researches. Considering the second goal, we
quantied the main habitats, levels of ecological
organization, response variables (organism or
object studied), data organization approaches (e.g.,
experiment, survey or modeling), and theoretical
approaches used by Latin Americans in ecological
studies. In this case, we compared two journals:
“Journal of Tropical Ecology”, with clear focus
to tropical research, where most LA countries are
located; and “Ecology Letters”, with no focus to a
specic geographic region.
We presented a framework of Latin America
scientific investigations in Ecology that reveals
future perspectives on nature’s conservation
and management. Developing science in
emerging regions is essential to guide worldwide
policymakers’ decisions, aiming to conserve nature
at the global level.
MATERIALS AND METHODS
DATABASE USED
We analyzed 80 journals indexed by ISI’s Web
of Science® (www.isiknowledge.com), within
the “Ecology” subject category (http://scientic.
thomsonreuters.com/cgi-bin/jrnlst/jlsubcatg.
cgi?PC=K). This list comprised journals with
more general scope (e.g., “Oikos” and “Ecology”),
journals where Ecology is focused along with
zoological, botanical and geographical issues
(e.g., “Journal of Animal Ecology” and “Journal
of Biogeography”), and journals with an applied
approach (e.g., “Journal of Applied Ecology” and
“Ecological Applications”). In March 18th 2015,
we recorded 12,673 articles published from 2000
to 2014, in which at least one author was from LA.
We compiled into a single database the articles’
title, abstract, authors’ countries, authors’ names,
publication year, journal title, 2014’s impact factor
(JCR-2014), and the frequency of citation. The list
of the analyzed journals (80), their impact factors,
and the percentage of articles from LA authors
per journal are detailed in Appendix S2. We opted
to analyze only English written manuscripts,
which were published in journals with worldwide
circulation, to better understand the contribution of
LA researches to worldwide Ecology.
DATA ANALYSIS
General trends of LA scientic publication
We firstly analyzed the percentage of articles
authored by at least one researcher from LA. It is
important to emphasize that we considered as LA
authors those authors who were aliated to Latin
American institutions, regardless their nationality.
This percentage was plotted against the total
scientic production in the selected journals versus
publication years. Therefore, we could visualize
temporal trends in LA publications after controlling
for the increase in published studies. Moreover, to
identify which country had the fastest growth rate
in terms of scientic production, we plotted the
percentage of articles of authors from each country
separately versus publication years. We also plotted
the percentage of LA articles in the period of 2000-
2014 against the 2014 Impact Factor (JCR-2014) of
journals in which they were published.
We classied the articles according to dierent
types of co-authorship to evaluate international
collaboration as follows: (a) NonLA-LA - articles
in which the first author was from a Non-Latin
American country and all the co-authors were
from Latin America; (b) LA-NonLA - articles in
which the first author was from Latin America
and all the co-authors were from Non-Latin
American countries; (c) LA-LA - articles in
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
4 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
which the first author was from Latin America
and all the co-authors were from Latin American
countries, at least one co-author from a dierent
Latin American country from the rst author; (d)
LA-Both - articles in which the rst author was
from Latin America and there was at least one co-
author from Latin America and another one from
a Non-Latin American country; (e) NonLA-Both
- articles in which the rst author was from a Non-
Latin America country and there were co-authors
from Latin American and Non-Latin American
countries; and (f) LA-None - only authors from
the same Latin American country, i.e., articles
that had no international co-authorship. We then
evaluated the eect of co-authorship and number of
authors on citation counts by using an Analysis of
Covariance (ANCOVA). Considering that the age
of publication aects intrinsically the citation of
the papers (Gingras et al. 2008), this variable was
treated as a co-variable in ANCOVA. We evaluated
which cooperation type was mostly associated with
high citation of the articles by comparing the slopes
or the intercept of the linear regression (depending
on the homogeneity of slopes analyses). We did the
same considering number of authors versus article
citation. Higher citations along the time span were
associated to higher absolute values of slopes (in
case of non-homogeneous slopes) or intercepts (in
case of homogeneous slopes).
Characteristics of Latin American scientic
production
In order to describe Latin American publication
in Ecology, we analyzed the abstracts of all Latin
American articles published in two journals in our
database: “Journal of Tropical Ecology” (JTE;
1078 articles, Impact factor 2014 = 0.904) and
“Ecology Letters” (ECL; 2086 articles, Impact
factor = 10.689). We considered these journals
representatives of the publications, since they have
numerous articles. In addition, it would be roughly
impracticable to analyze the abstracts of all articles
of the selected database. Also, JTE have specic
focus on tropical region, where most LA countries
are located; whereas ECL does not have geographic
bias.
We analyzed the articles regarding
environments and ecosystems under study,
levels of ecological organization, organism or
variable on focus, data organization approaches,
and main theoretical approach. Categories for
characteristics assessed are detailed in Appendix
S3. Some abstracts did not provide all necessary
information and some of them have studied more
than one environment or ecosystem. Then, the
relative number of articles could be higher or lower
considering each characteristic analyzed. We used
chi-square tests to assess if there were dierences
between journals, considering the categories for
each analyzed characteristic.
RESULTS
GENERAL TRENDS OF LA SCIENTIFIC
PUBLICATION
Despite the low percentage of LA articles in
relation to the total published articles in the journals
obtained from the search on ISI’s Web of Science®
(maximum 9.3%), Latin America scientific
production in Ecology has been increasing. There
was a prominent increase over the time span
analyzed, but the faster increase occurred between
2000 and 2005 (Figure 1a). The most productive
countries considering LA rst authors were Brazil,
Argentina, Mexico and Chile (Figure 1b). Despite
the low production considering rst authors between
2003 and 2004, Brazil showed the fastest growth
(slope of linear regression = 0.52). Argentina also
showed increased scientic production (slope of
linear regression = 0.39), while other countries
remained stable (Figure 1b).
In general, journals had low contribution of
LA researchers (Figure 2). Furthermore, journals
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN LATIN AMERICA 5
with high Latin American participation had impact
factors lower than ve (Figure 2). “Biotropica” and
“Journal of Tropical Ecology” were the journals in
which Latin Americans published more (45.7% and
37.8% of LA articles, respectively).
More than a half of LA publications had
international collaboration (58% of the articles).
These collaborations were divided in NonLA-both:
34%, LA-both: 18%, LA-LA: 3%, LA-NonLA: 2%
and NonLA-LA: 1% of the total. By contrast, 42%
of articles had no international co-authorship (LA-
none).
The number of citations, after controlling for
year of publication, is signicantly related to co-
authorship type (Figure 3a; F = 119.4, P < 0.001)
and number of authors (Figure 3b; F = 13.37, P
< 0.001). NonLA-both was associated with more
citations, followed by LA-both, LA-LA, LA-none,
LA-NonLA and NonLA-LA (Absolute values of
slopes: -3.50, -2.93, -2.54, -2.49, -2.43 and -1.99,
respectively). Considering the number of authors
versus times cited, more than 5 authors had the
highest absolute value of slope (-4.09) followed by
5, 2, 3, 4 and 1 author (Absolute values of slopes:
-2.85, -2.85, -2.83, -2.59 and -2.16, respectively).
CHARACTERISTICS OF LATIN AMERICAN
SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION
LA articles signicantly diered between JTE and
ECL considering the environment studied 2 =
41.18, d.f. = 3, P < 0.001). Only one article dealt
with marine environments in “Journal of Tropical
Ecology”, whereas freshwater ones were rarely
focused on “Ecology Letters” (4 articles; Figure
4a). However, terrestrial environments were
more studied in both journals (74% and 88%,
respectively; Figure 4a).
The journals also diered regarding ecosystems
2 = 133.28, d.f. = 9, P < 0.001). In both journals,
the studies were carried out mostly in forests
(Figure 4b), while lentic waters, arid and semi-
arid ecosystems, ocean and steppe were poorly
studied (Figure 4b). Coastal shoreline ecosystems
were recurrent on ECL, whereas savannah had
higher publication numbers on JTE (Figure 4b). No
articles dealt with steppe and ecotone forest-steppe
on ECL.
JTE and ECL had the same characteristics when
considering the ecological organization level of the
researches 2 = 1.5, d.f. = 4, P > 0.108). In both
journals, communities were more studied followed
by populations, ecosystems and individuals (Figure
4c).
Figure 1 - Time series of ecological articles (in relation to the total number of articles published in the 80 selected journals) of Latin
America as a whole (a) and of each Latin American country as rst author (b).
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
6 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
LA articles from these two journals diered
considering the organism or variable focused (χ2 =
31.44, d.f. = 7, P < 0.001). In both journals, studies
focusing on plants were much more numerous, but
particularly in JTE, followed by vertebrates and
invertebrates (Figure 4d). No articles dealt with
virus on JTE.
Surveys or observational studies were much
more numerous in both journals in relation to
other organization approaches (i.e., reviews, meta-
analysis or methodological approaches; Figure
4e). However, JTE and ECL diered considering
organization approaches (χ2 = 114.48, d.f. = 6, P <
0.001) due to the higher number of surveys articles
in JTE (almost 80%) compared to ECL (less than
50%), and the higher number of modeling articles
in ECL (18%) compared to JTE (1%). There were
few review and methodological articles published
by LA authors in both journals. In addition, there
were no meta-analysis on JTE (Figure 4e).
ECL and JTE also differed considering the
main theoretical approach 2 = 16.51, d.f. = 8,
P < 0.036). “Interactions” was the theoretical
approach mostly considered in both journals, but
particularly in ECL (Figure 4f). Articles focusing
on “Community structure or fluctuation” and
“Community assembly” were common in JTE,
whereas “Disturbance” and “Population uctuation
or distribution range” were recurrent in ECL
(Figure 4f).
DISCUSSION
GENERAL TRENDS OF LA SCIENTIFIC
PUBLICATION
Latin America is passing through a process of
increasing number of publications in Ecology.
Although the development of Ecology as a formal
discipline in Latin America is recent (Castillo and
Toledo 2000, Martínez et al. 2006), the growth of
ecological publications by Latin Americans is very
similar to the observed in other traditional scientic
fields (between 1988 and 2001, Hill 2004).
Nevertheless, the LA contribution to Ecology is
still small (less than 10% of ecological articles
published per year; see Figure 1a). Considering that
the Neotropical region (which comprises the Latin
America) has unique characteristics and has been
facing severe environmental threats, the growth is
still unsatisfactory.
Previous studies have also shown that Brazil,
Argentina and Mexico are among the LA countries
with relatively high scientic expression (Stocks et
al. 2008). Accordingly, these countries are among
the largest economies in the region (World Bank
2007); besides, when compared to all countries in
this region, they present the highest investment
in scientific research (Macilwain 1999). High
scientic production has been related to economic
development (May 1997). However, LA science
investments has not been growing at the same
rate of publications (Hermes-Lima et al. 2007).
Figure 2 - Percentage of Latin American articles (from 2000 to
2014) considering the total number of papers from each journal
against 2014 journal impact factors (JCR-2014). J Tropical
Ecol = Journal of Tropical Ecology; J Nat History = Journal
of Natural History; Austral Ecol = Austral Ecology; Biod
Cons = Biodiversity and Conservation; J Biog = Journal of
Biogeography; BAMNH = Bulletin of the American Museum
of Natural History; Glob Ecol Biog = Global Ecology and
Biogeography; Ecol Letters = Ecology Letters; AREES =
Annual Review of Ecology and Systematics; Trends Ecol
Evol = Trends in Ecology and Evolution. For the full list of
journals, corresponding impact factors, and the percentage of
Latin American articles, see Appendix S2.
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN LATIN AMERICA 7
Figure 3 - Linear regression of citation counts of Latin American articles from 2000 to 2014 on (a) dierent cooperation types (see
description above) and (b) number of authors.
Expenses in Latin America scientific research,
relatively to the gross domestic product, are at
least two fold smaller than in developed countries
(Zenteno-Savín et al. 2007). Unfortunately, it
seems that LA policy makers are not considering
scientic research to solve their countries’ problems
(Martínez et al. 2006). This is particularly relevant
for ecological publications, given that LA has high
biodiversity of all biological groups, e.g., one of the
highest species richness of vertebrates and plants in
the planet (Myers et al. 2000), and investment in
ecological science is thus central.
Participation of LA countries was smaller in
high impact journals, as also has been found by other
authors (see Stocks et al. 2008). We found higher LA
participation in journals devoted to publish studies
conducted in Tropical or Neotropical environments.
Even so, LA researchers only authored 46% of
the articles published in “Biotropica” and 38%
of the articles published in “Journal of Tropical
Ecology”, which only accept studies carried
on tropical ecosystems. Thus, LA researchers
presented relatively low scientic expression, even
in tropical environments. The high percentage of
articles in low impact journals seems to be a natural
trend of nations with low scientic tradition, and
are related to the quality/relevance of articles
and/or social-psychological reasons (Meneghini
et al. 2008). Additionally, this context feeds the
vicious circle that aects the development of LA
journals: local journals are relegated or viewed
as simply recipients of manuscripts not accepted
outside or with a high probability to be rejected in
journals with high impact factors. This judgment
might be due to a variety of reasons, including
the authors’ perceived value of the manuscript,
the subject focused on local problems or interests,
and language barriers (Packer 2001). Increases
in the budgetary or human resources (see Moya-
Anegón and Herrero-Solana 1999), theory-oriented
studies, and advances in international cooperation
(including with Latin American countries among
themselves) may change this panorama and
stimulate the development of Ecology as a science
in the region.
The past decades experienced a strong increase
in the international collaboration, as measured in
internationally co-authored scientic publications
(ISI 2007, Van Noorden et al. 2014). Unfortunately,
this increase was lower in Ecology, which may
be attributable to the less internationalization of
biological sciences (Jappe 2007). Considering that
environmental problems and related innovation
needs are ubiquitous, international collaboration of
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
8 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
Figure 4 - Characteristics of ecological articles published by Latin Americans in Journal of Tropical Ecology and
Ecology Letters. (a) Environments and (b) ecosystems mostly studied: FOR = Forests; CSH = Coastal Shoreline;
SAV = Savannah; LOW = Lotic Waters; LEW = Lentic Waters; DSA = Deserts or Semi-Arid; OCE = Ocean;
STE = Steppe; EFS = Ecotone Forest-Steppe; (c) Level of Ecological Organizations; (d) Organisms or variables:
PLA = Plants; VER = Vertebrates; INV = Invertebrates; FUN = Fungus; ENV = Environmental variables; BAC
= Bacteria; VIR = Virus; (e) Organization approaches: SUR = Survey; MOD = Modeling; EXP = Experimental;
REV = Review; MAN = Meta-analysis; MET = Methodological approach; and (f) Main theoretical approaches:
INT = Interactions; CSF = Community structure or uctuation; CAS = Community assembly; DIS = Disturbance;
PFD = Population uctuation or distribution range; RUS = Resource use; BCY = Biogeochemical cycles; TME
= Test of methods. For “Others”, see Appendix S3.
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
ECOLOGICAL RESEARCH IN LATIN AMERICA 9
students and graduated researches must be improved
to provide intellectual and financial support to
Neotropical and undeveloped countries (Stocks
et al. 2008). Here, we identied that international
collaboration is central to improve visibility, and
consequent citations, of articles authored by LA
authors. The USA, England, and other English-
speaking coutries have mostly cooperated with
tropical countries in ecological studies (see also
Melo et al. 2006, Padial et al. 2010, Stocks et al.
2008).
Accordingly, the effect of international
cooperation on citations can also be partially
responsible for our observation that more authors
are associated to more citations. Probably, there
is a positive correlation in our data between
international cooperation and number of authors. A
modern tendency is that all scientic elds become
increasingly interdisciplinary, combining authors,
oftentimes from dierent subareas (Nabout et al.
2015). Moreover, it is possible that the higher
the number of authors, the larger the network of
scientists that might know of one of them and, thus,
cite them (Leimu and Koricheva 2005). However,
it is also likely that international cooperation and
numerous authors improve the quality of articles,
explaining the increase in citation counts (Padial et
al. 2010). Simultaneously, it seems that the relative
number of single-authored biological papers is
decreasing over the years (Nabout et al. 2015).
CHARACTERISTICS OF LATIN AMERICAN
SCIENTIFIC PRODUCTION
Modest attention dispended to aquatic environments
is startling in LA studies, since Neotropical marine
and inland waters support a huge number of
species (Agostinho et al. 2005). In addition, these
environments are facing numerous anthropogenic
threats and habitat degradation (Agostinho et al.
2005, Vitule et al. 2012). This result is similar to
those found by Siqueira et al. (2015) who found
that amongst 1,156 papers investigating species
richness, 74% did that in terrestrial habitats whereas
21% addressed aquatic habitats. On the other
hand, the predominance of studies performed in
forests such as Amazon and Atlantic forests may be
explained by the fact that they are the most diverse in
the world (Myers et al. 2000). Another explanation
could be that most of Brazilian research centers are
located within the highly threatened Atlantic forest
biome (see www.capes.gov.br). Studies carried on
Savannahs were mostly due to the “Cerrado”; a
Neotropical Savannah located in Brazil and one of
the seven Latin American hotspots for biodiversity
conservation (Myers et al. 2000). On the other hand,
studies carried in arid and semi-arid ecosystems
were present due to the extensive and biologically
unique areas of Chilean and Argentinean deserts.
Once again, historical inuences of Ecology
may be partially responsible for the predominance
of studies dealing with plants, since several
pioneer studies focused on this biological group
(Clements’ and Cowles’ publication about
ecological succession). The term “Ecology” was
rst used in America by botanists (Real and Brown
1991). Besides, Eugene Warming carried important
ecological studies in Brazil during the XIX century,
mainly with amphibian and aquatic vegetation.
Another explanation is that plants are sessile
macroscopic organisms easy to manipulate, which
facilitate ecological studies. It is also interesting to
notice the scarcity of articles dealing with bacteria
and fungus, organisms associated to important
ecological processes such as nutrient cycling (see
Figure 4d).
The predominance of studies at the community
level indicated that Latin Americans were
interested in understanding biodiversity (Figure
4c). Indeed, community studies are essential to
support biodiversity conservation and management
of ecosystem functioning and must be encouraged,
especially facing the increasing environmental
threats in Latin America (Hardoy et al. 2010).
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
10 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
The high percentage of observational studies
(i.e., surveys, see Figure 4e) indicates that most
LA investigations are still carried in a preliminary
way, since surveys are the rst step for scientic
knowledge improvement (Kothari 2014). Indeed,
hypotheses are rstly generated by observing the
environment (Peters 1991), the assessment of these
hypotheses could be done by (in situ or in vitro)
experiments. Also, the low percentage of articles
using modeling techniques, meta-analyses or
reviews (mainly in JTE, see Figure 4e) highlighted
the recent development of Latin Americans
ecological researches. Situations like type II
errors, isolated and presumably examples, and
statistical signicance emphasis are controlled and/
or reduced in a meta-analysis (Lajeunesse 2013),
emphasizing the importance of these approaches
for the development of science.
The most common theoretical approaches of
LA articles were related to well-established theories
(see Figure 4f). Studies had mostly a descriptive
goal, suggesting that ecological researches carried
by Latin Americans are still in the basic ground.
However, this can be still a worldwide panorama,
and recent and intriguing theories may be less
studied than well-established theories.
By analyzing article-by-article, we could
describe the main trends and gaps of ecological
researches conducted by Latin Americans. This is
essential to guide future researches in LA. Although
journal proles diered regarding its publication
features, the overall characteristics were similar;
the low number of theoretical studies and the
predominance of descriptive researches suggest
that ecological research in Latin America is slowly
growing and has not yet reached the maturity.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Suelen C.A. da Silva Pereto, Luis A.V. Bezerra,
Fernanda Ceschin, and Juliana Wojciechowski
received scholarships from Coordenação de
Aperfeiçoamento de Pessoal de Nível Superior
(CAPES) and Jaqueline Dittrich from Conselho
Nacional de Desenvolvimento Científico e
Tecnológico (CNPq). André A. Padial also
acknowledges CNPq for continuous financial
supports. Tadeu Siqueira has been funded by grant
#2013/50424-1, Fundação de Amparo à Pesquisa
do Estado de São Paulo (FAPESP). Authors
acknowledge three anonymous reviewers for
valuable suggestions in a previous draft.
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SUPPLEMENTARY MATERIAL
Appendix S1 - List of countries considered in the analyses of
participation of LA authors in the eld of Ecology from 2000
An Acad Bras Cienc (2017)
12 JULIANA WOJCIECHOWSKI et al.
to 2014. These countries returned publications in journals
indexed by ISI’s Web of Science®, within the “Ecology”
subject category, and were alphabetic organized by region
(South America, Caribbean and Central America).
Appendix S2 - List of journals obtained from the search on
Thomson-ISI, their corresponding impact factor (JCR-2014),
total of articles published by each journal from 2000 to 2014,
number of articles with at least one Latin American author per
journal (LA articles) and percentage of LA articles in relation
to total (% LA articles).
Appendix S3 - Characteristics and categories used to compare
Latin American articles published in “Ecology Letters” and
“Journal of Tropical Ecology” between 2000 and 2014.
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