Mammola, S. | bioRxiv Science

bioRxiv2020

Scientometric correlates of high-quality reference lists in ecological papers

It is said that the quality of a scientific publication is as good as the science it cites, but the properties of high-quality reference lists have never been numerically quantified. We examined seven numerical characteristics of reference lists of 50,878 primary research articles published in 17 ecological journals between 1997 and 2017. Over this 20-years period, there have been significant changes in reference lists’ properties. On average, more recent ecological papers have longer reference lists, cite more high Impact Factor papers, and fewer non-journal publications. Furthermore, we show that highly cited papers across the ecology literature have longer reference lists, cite more recent and impactful papers, and account for more self-citations. Conversely, the proportion of ‘classic’ papers and non-journal publications cited, as well as the temporal range of the reference list, have no significant influence on articles’ citations. From this analysis, we distill a recipe for crafting impactful reference lists.View Full Text

scientific communication and education↗

bioRxiv2020

Functional diversity metrics using kernel density n-dimensional hypervolumes

O_LIThe use of n-dimensional hypervolumes in trait-based ecology is rapidly increasing. By representing the functional space of a species or community as a Hutchinsonian niche, the abstract Euclidean space defined by a set of independent axes corresponding to individuals or species traits, these multidimensional techniques show great potential for the advance of functional ecology theory. C_LIO_LIIn the panorama of existing methods for delineating multidimensional spaces, the R package hypervolume [Glob. Ecol. Biogeogr. (2014) 23:595-609] is currently the most used. However, functions for calculating the standard set of functional diversity (FD) indices--richness, divergence, and regularity--have not been developed within the hypervolume framework yet. This gap is delaying its full exploitation in functional ecology, meanwhile preventing the possibility to compare its performance with that of other methods. C_LIO_LIWe develop a set of functions to calculate FD indices based on n-dimensional hypervolumes, including alpha (richness), beta (and respective components), dispersion, evenness, contribution, and originality. Altogether, these indices provide a coherent framework to explore the primary mathematical components of FD within a multidimensional setting. These new functions can work either with hypervolume objects or raw data (species presence or abundance and their traits) as input data, and are versatile in terms of input parameters and options. C_LIO_LIThese functions are implemented within BAT (Biodiversity Assessment Tools), an R package for biodiversity assessments. As a coherent corpus of functional indices based on a common algorithm, it opens the possibility to fully explore the strengths of the Hutchinsonian niche concept in community ecology research. C_LI

ecology↗