Year: 2003
Type: article
Abstract: Why are some waders better studied than others?We investigated the effects of life-history and ecological traits (population size, conservation status, body mass, wing length, breeding latitude, mating system, and migratory behaviour) on the number of publications in waders.A phylogenetic comparative approach is employed using an unpublished wader supertree.Overall, population size appears to be the most useful predictor of citation.The presence of publication bias may impact upon comparative and meta-analyses.The trend towards studies of taxa with large populations indicates that taxa at risk of local or global extinction may be understudied.1977).It is not yet clear what manner of bias exists across wader studies, nor is it obvious what impact this may have on our understanding of their biology.The focus of our study is therefore to investigate publication bias in waders with respect to a range of life-history and ecological traits, namely, population size, conservation status, body mass, wing length, breeding latitude, mating system, and migratory behaviour.We aim to quantify some of the key variables that may influence the choice of study taxa and present statistical analyses using the method of phylogenetically independent contrasts (Felsenstein 1985, Harvey & Pagel 1991).MATERIALS AND METHODS Data and phylogeny Published wader studies were identified from online searches of Web of Science (WoS).Both the text (i.e.title, abstract and keywords), and title-only options of WoS were searched using the names of 221 species of waders and 16 species of sandgrouse (all of which were included as an outgroup) to give two measures of the publication record of each species since 1980 (the full date range covered by WoS; see Appendix 1).Species names were taken from Monroe & Sibley (1993).Estimates of population size were taken from del Hoyo et al. (1996).Only those taxa for which an estimate of the worldwide population (as opposed to regional or local estimates) is provided, or can be readily calculated, were used.Conservation status was scored using the following categories listed in Stattersfield & Capper (2000): not globally threatened (1); least concern (2); near threatened (3); conservation dependent (4); vulnerable (5); endangered (6); critically endangered (7); extinct in the wild (8); extinct (9).Of the 237 species considered in this study, 236 fell into one of these nine categories, and only one (Glareola nordmanni) is listed as data deficient.Data for the remaining variables -body size (body mass and wing length), breeding latitude, mating system, and migratory behaviour -are taken from the data sets of Reynolds & Sz•kely (1997), and Sz•kely et al. (2000).We used the mean values of body mass and wing length rather than splitting these measurements by sex.Breeding latitude was sub-divided into two variables.Absolute breeding latitude is a measure of the distance (in degrees latitude) of the breeding site from the equator (see Reynolds & Sz•kely 1997).A categorical variable of breeding site was used to split waders into those breeding north of the equator (scored as 1) and
Language: English
Topic: Avian ecology and behavior
Subfield: Ecology
Field: Environmental Science
Domain: Physical Sciences
Open Access status: green
OpenAlex ID: W2100425762