Authors and editors assort on gender and geography in high-rank ecological publications

Abstract

Peer-reviewed publication volume and caliber are widely-recognized proxies for academic merit, and a strong publication record is essential for academic success and advancement. However, recent work suggests that publication productivity for particular author groups may also be determined in part by implicit biases lurking in the publication pipeline. Here, we explore patterns of gender, geography, and institutional rank among authors, editorial board members, and handling editors in high-impact ecological publications during 2015 and 2016. A higher proportion of lead authors had female first names (33.9%) than editorial board members (28.9%), and the proportion of female first names among handling editors was even lower (21.1%). Female editors disproportionately edited publications with female lead authors (40.3% of publications with female lead authors were handled by female editors, though female editors handled only 34.4% of all studied publications). Additionally, ecological authors and editors were overwhelmingly from countries in the G8, and high-ranking academic institutions accounted for a large portion of both the published work, and its editorship. Editors and lead authors with female names were typically affiliated with higher-ranking institutions than their male peers. This description of author and editor features provides a baseline for benchmarking future trends in the ecological publishing culture.

Male principal investigators (almost) don’t publish with women in ecology and zoology

“…female PIs in ecology publish more with female peers) rather than true gender parity. Similar gender segregation patterns have been reported on editorial boards of ecological journals, where female editors review female-led publications at much higher rates than their male peers [51].…”

“…Also, active learning pedagogies [55] and undergraduate research experiences [56] greatly increase self-efficacy and thus reduce stereotype threats. Finally, assortative gender patterns, in which female PIs deliberately recruit female students and junior scholars, may be necessary to improve inclusion and retention of women and other minority groups [9, 51].…”

Two decades of data reveal that Biological Invasions needs to increase participation beyond North America, Europe, and Australasia

“…Recent studies in ecology and related disciplines show that researchers from a handful of countries publish the majority of scientific articles, while publications from many regions of the world are poorly represented in international journals (Martin et al 2012;Lowry et al 2013;Mammides et al 2016;Manlove and Belou 2018;Nun ˜ez et al 2019;Maas et al 2021). This skewed geographic distribution of international journal publications has many causes often related to socio-economic factors (Barlow et al 2018) but is also due to language barriers (Amano and Sutherland 2013;Amano et al 2016).…”

Gender diversity of editorial boards and gender differences in the peer review process at six journals of ecology and evolution

“…Women remain underrepresented among reviewers of journal papers (Fox, Burns, & Meyer, 2016a;Helmer, Schottdorf, Neef, & Battaglia, 2017;Lerback & Hanson, 2017). Women also remain underrepresented among the gatekeepers of scientific publishing; while representation varies substantially among disciplines and among journals within disciplines (Amrein, Langmann, Fahrleitner-Pammer, Pieber, & Zollner-Schwetz, 2011;Morton & Sonnad, 2007;Topaz & Sen, 2016), when compared to the gender of authors in a journal, women are underrepresented on editorial boards (Fox, Burns, & Meyer, 2016a;Helmer et al, 2017;Manlove & Belou, 2018;Topaz & Sen, 2016;Wehi, Beggs, & Anderson, 2019), especially at more senior editorial levels, for example, editors in chief (Amrein et al, 2011;Cho et al, 2014). While it is clear that women are underrepresented as reviewers and editors, we still lack a clear understanding of the causes and consequences of this gender disparity.…”