Positioning agroforestry within the scientific literature on Vanilla planifolia: a global bibliometric and thematic assessment

Abstract

Vanilla planifolia cultivation faces critical sustainability, conservation, and management challenges within tree-based production systems. As a hemiepiphytic climbing orchid, the species depends on arboreal environments, suggesting that agroforestry research should be central to its scientific literature. However, the representation of this agroforestry dimension remains unclear. To assess this structural visibility, we applied a three-level hierarchical thematic classification and bibliometric science mapping to a dataset of 531 publications from Scopus and Web of Science. We identified nine thematic domains; notably, 84.9% of the literature fell within the dominant domains of aroma chemistry, plant biotechnology, genetics, biotic interactions, and physiology, whereas the agroforestry subset represents only 4.9%. Furthermore, while agronomic management studies represented 17.1% of the dataset, most studies adopt a crop-centered or management-oriented perspective rather than integrated agroforestry frameworks. Mexico emerged as the leading country in institutional research within both the global dataset and the agroforestry subset. Overall, research predominantly frames V. planifolia as an industrial product, leaving its ecological and arboreal context underrepresented. These findings reveal a structural mismatch between the tree-dependent biology of the species and the dominant scientific priorities, where agroforestry questions remain marginal. Together, these findings provide an organised perspective on the current agroforestry knowledge base and highlight opportunities for developing more integrated research on the plant-tree-environment relationships underlying V. planifolia cultivation.