Fun ecological synthesis facts

Submitted by drupaladmin on 3 July 2013.

In my recent explorations into synthesis and the role of Oikos and other major drivers of this movement, here are some facts from Web of Knowledge and online search tools.

(1) Close to 20,000 primary research publications discuss/report effect size estimates in ecology.

(2) Approximately 15 times more meta-analyses published in ecological journals relative to systematic reviews.

(3) PLOSONE publishes majority of systematic reviews for most disciplines possibly including evolutionary biology.

(4) Historical signal of narrative reviews persists in modern synthesis.

(5) Citations per item to meta-analyses now trump narrative reviews.

(6) Oikos ranks 5th in publishing meta-analyses.

(7) The benefit to effort for systematic reviews generally higher than meta-analyses*.

*However, see pre-print on this as it does not necessarily mean we should do them instead of meta-analyses as evidence-based transformations are more likely to occur from meta-analyses.

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