Women and Global South strikingly underrepresented among top‐publishing ecologists

Abstract

The global scientific community has become increasingly diverse over recent decades, but is this ongoing development also reflected among top-publishing authors and potential scientific leaders? We surveyed 13 leading journals in ecology, evolution, and conservation to investigate the diversity of the 100 top-publishing authors in each journal between 1945 and 2019. Out of 1051 individual top-publishing authors, only 11% are women. The United States, the United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, and Canada account for more than 75% of top-publishing authors, while countries of the Global South (as well as Russia, Japan, and South Korea) were strikingly underrepresented. The number of top-publishing authors who are women and/or are from the Global South is increasing only slowly over time. We outline transformative actions that scientific communities can take to enhance diversity, equity and inclusion at author, leadership, and society level. The resulting promotion of scientific innovation and productivity is essential for the development of global solutions in conservation science.

Colonial history and global economics distort our understanding of deep-time biodiversity

“…While these discussions are ongoing, the status quo is maintained and researchers from lower income countries continue to face additional barriers with respect to their research, such as financial or visa restrictions. Similarly, the academic publishing culture contributes to this scientific gatekeeping: high-impact publications may offer more visibility, but researchers from lower income countries are highly underrepresented on the authorship of high-impact paleontological and ecological publications (13,54) due to factors such as language barriers, governmental expenditure on research and development, and parachute research (55). Academic paywalls and exhorbitant open access charges also mean that many scientific publications exacerbate existing inequalities by restricting access to scholarly resources (56).…”

Steps to diversify priority‐setting research in conservation: reflections on de Gracia 2021

“…Although conservation scientists and practitioners from the Global North are gradually waking up to the fact that local knowledge and agency--including that of Indigenous people--are essential for social justice and to achieving conservation outcomes, the road to decolonizing conservation science remains a long one (Baker et al, 2019). As a discipline, conservation has a long colonial history and remains heavily dominated by institutions in the Global North when it comes to publications, funding, and research networks (Maas et al, 2021).…”

The growing and vital role of botanical gardens in climate change research

“…We suggest that research at botanical gardens in the Global South should be better highlighted in the literature – for example, by recruiting representation into leadership of relevant organizations and by journals recruiting more diverse key staff and researchers from these institutions as editors, reviewers, and authors, and by organizing special issues (Primack et al ., 2019; Maas et al ., 2021; Pettorelli et al ., 2021). Botanical gardens in the Global North could also partner with gardens in the Global South to encourage and support the establishment of climate change research in regions that are understudied, underfunded, and disproportionately impacted by climate change.…”