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Trends in geographic and gender balance among authors

2023; Wiley; Volume: 34; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/jvs.13170

1654-1103

Viktoria Wagner, Valério D. Pillar, Jodi N. Price, Milan Chytrý,

Plant and animal studies

The Journal of Vegetation Science looks back at 33 years of publishing scientific progress in plant community ecology. Since its release in 1990, the journal has been a leading outlet in its field and has continuously expanded its number of publications. As an official journal of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), it is committed to equity, diversity, and inclusion in its professional conduct. Previous editorials have mapped study sites geographically (Pärtel et al., 2017) and identified collaboration networks (Pillar et al., 2021). In this editorial, we explore to what extent geographic and gender balance among our authors have changed over the last decades. The IAVS has increased its efforts in the last two decades to internationalize its membership. We tested to what extent the Journal of Vegetation Science authorship has diversified geographically. We extracted meta-data on all publications of our journal from the Clarivate Web of Science database (https://www.webofscience.com/, years 1990–2022), including authors' address information. Since addresses were only provided reliably starting with 1998 and not all publications for 2022 were included in the database by the time the analysis was conducted, we narrowed our analysis to the years 1998–2021. We identified the country of author affiliations and assigned it to a continent in the wide sense (Africa, Asia, Europe, North America, Oceania, South America). Contributions from Russia were scored for Asia (an assignment to Europe or Asia based on the city in the address did not change our overall results). Contributions from Turkey were also assigned to Asia (all addresses listed cities in Asia). We summarized our data so that each data point represented a distinct continental affiliation on a publication. For example, if all authors on a paper were from a single continent, this was scored as a single contribution for the continent. If authors on a paper were from different continents, the publication was scored as a contribution for each respective continent. In 2021, contributions from Europe (n = 104), North America (56), and South America (41) made up the highest count of articles in the Journal of Vegetation Science. The number of contributions increased for all continents over the studied period (Table 1, Figure 1). In general, this trend is in line with a total increase in publications in our journal for the same time (linear regression, F1,22 = 17.0, p < 0.001). The increase in contributions was particularly pronounced for Europe and South America, followed by Asia. This increase cannot be explained by trends in IAVS membership numbers in these continents, which did not change over the years 2008–2021 (unpublished data shared by the IAVS President Susan Wiser, based on nine data points across the years 2008–2021). When we restricted the authorship data to the same time period (2008–2021), the significant positive trend persisted for the three continents. The positive trend of authorship from these continents might thus reflect an enhanced output or increase in preference for our journal among scientists from these continents, including among IAVS members. We analyzed patterns in gender proportions by downloading author meta-data from all publications in the Journal of Vegetation Science (1990–2022), using the Clarivate Web of Science database. We assigned authors' names to a gender (female, male) based on their first name and gender match in the genderize CSV tool (https://genderize.io). We acknowledge that a binary gender classification might not reflect the gender identity of each author. However, given the lack of self-identification data, such an analysis was the closest estimate of gender patterns that we could compile. Since full author names were only available consistently starting with the year 2007 and not all publications for the year 2022 were listed in Clarivate Web of Science, we only included articles published in 2007–2021. This filtering resulted in a total of 5496 unique author names, of which 91% were assigned to a gender with a probability of p > 0.7. Next, we calculated percentages of female and male authors as percentages of unique names per year (allowing names to be present multiple times per year, but this did not affect the overall pattern). The average percentage of female authors in the Journal of Vegetation Science for the considered year span (30.6%) matches a value observed for the entire field of ecology (28.9%, based on 95,589 studies published during 2009–2015 in 152 journals; Fox et al., 2018) and is in line with the average female membership in the IAVS (27.5%, based on years 2008–2021; unpublished data shared by the IAVS President Susan Wiser). The percentage of female authors in our journal significantly increased over the examined year span (Figure 2; linear regression, p < 0.001, r2 = 0.58), with estimated values rising from 25.6% in 2007 to 35.6% in 2021, mirroring similar trends in ecology (Fox et al., 2018) and membership in the IAVS (p < 0.001, r2 = 0.75, based on nine data points across the years 2008–2021). Addressing geographic and gender imbalances among authors requires long-term strategies. As Chief Editors, we recently announced the first open call for Editorial Review Board memberships in the journal's history, with the aim to diversify membership (see also news below). The Journal of Vegetation Science is an international journal and encourages submissions in plant community ecology from all continents. Considering the geographical trends, we hope to publish more articles especially from Africa, Asia, and Oceania that are within the scope of our journal. We also encourage authors to diversify their network of collaborators to include a higher percentage of scientists from underrepresented regions and increase gender diversity. Every year, we select one article published in the Journal of Vegetation Science for the Editors' Award. For 2022, the winner is a Forum paper by 22 early-career scientists led by Yannelli et al. (2022). The group of authors performed a horizon scan for vegetation science by opening a call for topic submission and ranking the importance of suggested topics based on voting among group members. The 15 highest-ranking topics included, for example, using next-generation sequencing and metabarcoding to advance vegetation science, and developing predictive models of restoration outcomes under different scenarios of intervention and environmental change. Other examples included enhanced engagement between vegetation scientists and the public, and the incorporation of traditional ecological knowledge into vegetation management. In an era of rapid technological advancement and societal challenges, the horizon scan by Yannelli et al. (2022) is a creative approach to highlighting potential growth areas for vegetation science. It is also interesting to compare the perspectives of the young generation of vegetation scientists with a brief horizon scan by current and past Chief Editors of the Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science published three years earlier (Chytrý et al., 2019). The first runner-up for the award was a Research Article by Mazalla and Diekmann (2022) on the regression to the mean phenomenon in resurvey and longitudinal vegetation studies. By using artificial and observed datasets, the authors demonstrated that due to a stochastic artifact, more extreme first measurements will tend to approach the long-term trend in follow-up measurements, which could lead to biased inference when interpreting vegetation trends in relation to predictors over time. Although this effect is well known in medicine and psychology, it has received surprisingly little attention in ecology and vegetation science. The authors advocate to consider the regression to the mean effect when designing studies and analyzing repeated-measures data, for example, by including the initial measurements as potential predictors in the model. The contribution by Mazalla and Diekmann (2022) has important methodological implications for repeated-measures studies in vegetation science, including environmental impact assessments and global change monitoring. The second runner-up was an elegant experimental study by Anna Florianová and colleagues (Florianová et al., 2022). They conducted competition experiments including four grassland species that have similar habitat affinities and ecological optima, coexist in the same region, but tend to form independent dominance stands. The authors included different soil origins as a treatment and ran the experiment for three years, harvesting a subset of their experiment after each year and assessing competitive effect and response. Interestingly, competitive outcomes depended on the origin of the soil and changed with the duration of the experiment. The study underlines the value of long-term competition experiments and suggests that temporal change in competitive ability and spatial variation in soil properties can drive species dominance. To expand and diversify our Editorial Board, we selected 18 scientists to join the Journal of Vegetation Science as new Editorial Review Board members following an open call for applications and targeted invitations of frequently invited reviewers. The talent and expertise of our new members will be an asset for our journal, and we are looking forward to working with them. We would like to express our sincere gratitude to Meelis Pärtel, Ingolf Kühn, Dave Roberts, and Monika Wulf for their service to our journal. Meelis Pärtel (EE) retired from his position as Chief Editor of Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science, having shaped the journals through 13 years of service. His position was filled by Viktoria Wagner (CA). Ingolf Kühn (DE), Dave Roberts (US) and Monika Wulf (DE) retired from their role of Associate Editors in 2022. Our peer-review process would not be possible without the dedicated contribution by scientists who served as referees (listed in the Appendix 1) for our journal in the last year. We are also grateful for all the authors who submitted their manuscript in the last year, and we look forward to next year's submissions. We are grateful to Susan Wiser and David Zelený for comments on the draft of this editorial. We thank the referees who served the Journal of Vegetation Science from 1 November 2021 to 30 November 2022. Those who reviewed more than two times are indicated by asterisks. Michelle Agne Ken Aho Josu Alday Arshad Ali* Alice Altesor Aitor Ameztegui Samuel Andrew* Carlos Arnillas Julen Astigarraga Yuxuan Bai Mark Bakker Francielli Bao Paola Barajas José Ignacio Barrera Elisa Barreto Samuel Bartels Markus Bauer Stephen Bell Joanne M. Bennett Jonathan Bennett Leland D. Bennion Juliette M. G. Bloor Rossano Bolpagni Giuliano Bonanomi Gianmaria Bonari William Bond Coline Boonman Kauane Bordin Edward Bork Gudrun Bornette Noémie Boulanger-Lapointe Alejandro Brazeiro Alessandro Bricca* Jörg Brunet Chongfeng Bu Richard Busing Bradley Butterfield Luigi Cao Pinna Anabelle Cardoso Julieta Carilla Marcos Carlucci Kevin Cazelles Bruno Cerabolini Olivier Chabrerie Emilie Champagne Chia-Hao Chang-Yang Tristan Charles-Dominique Paolo Cherubini Ludovico Chieffallo Philippe Choler Pablo Cipriotti Corli Coetsee Scott Collins Simon Connor Irene Cordero Tyler Coverdale Mariana Criado Anikó Csecserits Mônica Cupertino-Eisenlohr L. Felipe Daibes Gabriella Damasceno Todd Dawson Francesco de Bello Miquel De Cáceres Melinda de Jonge Marcelino de la Cruz Karen de Pauw Roger del Moral Florian Delerue Jürgen Dengler* Michele Di Musciano* Dagne Tafa Dibar Martin Diekmann Joseph S. Diémé Jean-Christophe Domec Ke Dong Jan Douda Martin Dovčiak Choimaa Dulamsuren Giselda Durigan Thore Engel Howard Epstein László Erdős Ove Eriksson Adrián Escudero Anu Eskelinen Lorenzo Fattorini Claudia Feijoo Hannes Feilhauer Annamária Fenesi Gastón Fernández Marine Fernandez Felicia M. Fischer Paula Fornwalt Cintia Freitas Rosalina Gabriel Mário Garbin* Magda Garbowski David Garcia de Leon Sabrina Gavini Laureano Gherardi Eduardo Giehl François Gillet Frank Gilliam Eduardo Gonzalez Lars Götzenberger* Guylain Grange Andre Grosse-Stoltenberg John-Arvid Grytnes Wenyong Guo Olivia Hajek Per-Ola Hedwall Thilo Heinken Steffi Heinrichs Aveliina Helm Tomáš Herben Motoki Higa William Hoffmann Jeňýk Hofmeister Renan Hollunder Norbert Hölzel Pubin Hong Daniela Hoss Fujiang Hou John Householder Yuehua Hu Ching-Lin Huang Ricardo Ibáñez Mélanie Jean Yangyang Jia Borja Jiménez-Alfaro Guangze Jin Insu Jo Daniel Johnson Ronen Kadmon Stephan Kambach Jens Kattge Miklós Kertész Jaime Kigel Zaal Kikvidze Tania Kim Ryo Kitagawa Jitka Klimešová Marie Konečná Kadri Koorem Tineke Kraaij Lado Kutnar Charles Kwit Lauri Laanisto Pia Labenski Eric Lamb Luciola Lannes Gaetane Le Provost Attila Lengyel Jan Lepš* Wolfgang Lewandrowski Pierre Liancourt Jianchao Liang Emanuele Lingua María Lipoma Daijun Liu* Eva Lucas Wentao Luo Yahuang Luo Chris Lusk Simona Maccherini* S. Ellen Macdonald Petr Macek Lydia MacKenzie Marco Malavasi Matteo Marcantonio Vinícius Marcílio-Silva Elisa Marchetto Lorenzo Marini Bryndis Marteinsdottir Cristina Martínez-Garza Flavio Marzialetti Jhonny Massante Felipe Melo Glenda Mendieta-Leiva Sylvanus Mensah Sebastian Meyer Richard Michalet Russell Miller Ulf Molau Ian Moore Tobias Naaf Rory O'Connor Iñaki Odriozola Gábor Ónodi Devyn Orr Gabriel Ortega-Solis Kyle Palmquist Rabindra Parajuli Robert Pazur Cord Peppler-Lisbach* Michela Perrone Ion Petritan Shyam Phartyal Natashi Pilon Andreas Prinzing Philip Ramsey Amanda Ratier Backes Paul Reed Kurt Reinhart Triin Reitalu Björn Reu Casandra Reyes-García Lucy Ridding Dave Roberts Heather Root Bruno Henrique Rosado Sergey Rosbakh* Davi Rossatto Eszter Ruprecht Knut Rydgren Francesco Maria Sabatini* Autumn Sabo Pieter Sanczuk Daniel Saraiva Judith Sarneel Peter Scogings Guilherme Seger* Spyros Sfendourakis Efrat Sheffer Harry Shepherd Naoto Shinohara Bill Shipley Grégory Sonnier Diego Sotomayor Alexandre Souza Marta Gaia Sperandii Grzegorz Swacha Zhiyao Tang Federico Maria Tardella Shinichi Tatsumi Juliana Teixeira Leonardo Teixeira Cajo ter Braak Riccardo Testolin* Sean Thomas Kenneth Thompson Julius Tjelele Marcela Tonello Enrico Tordoni Iván Torres Béla Tóthmérész Václav Treml James Tsakalos Torbjörn Tyler Atushi Ushimaru Mercedes Valerio* Orsolya Valkó Kris Verheyen Alessandro Vitali Pascal Vittoz Christine Wallis Hsiao-Hsuan Wang Xugao Wang Yanping Wang Yutao Wang Soren Weber Ronja E. M. Wedegärtner Andrew Weitz Jan Wild Wolfgang Willner Jarrah Wills Scott Wilson Thomas Wohlgemuth Carrie Woods He Yunling Thais Zanata Michaela Zeiter David Zelený* Lin Zhang* Ning Zhao Victor Zwiener Accompanying publication data and R scripts can be accessed at https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.21739199.v2.