Ideas in Ecology and Evolution最新文献

{"title":"What makes a topic “relevant” to journal editors?","authors":"S. Palacio, A. Escudero","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2014.7.18.F","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2014.7.18.F","url":null,"abstract":"Suitability of a paper for a specific journal is often based on an evanescent concept: the relevance of the topic covered to managing editors. Pressure for publishing has never been so high. An academic’s future position, funding, and prestige all depend on the quantity of papers published, their quality (or that of the journal in which they are published) and the number of citations they receive. Similarly, scientific journals face increasing pressure to boost their impact factor and climb up the journal rank of their respective categories. Most journals (particularly those with the highest impact factors) receive an overwhelming number of manuscripts that exceeds their capacity for peer-review. Consequently, editors often base a decision to accept or reject a manuscript on the interest of papers for the readers of their journal. The first decision that editors face is whether to send a paper for peer review. Editorial rejections prior to peer review reduce the burden on the already saturated community of reviewers and may save time for authors who can readily submit their paper to a different journal (Cooke and Lapointe 2012). However, they also increase the rejection rate per author. Indeed, editorial rejections are an important source of frustration for authors, who have to spend tedious time in reformatting their papers without any reward in terms of feedback, because these rejections are normally poorly justified and based on very general statements. Leaving aside issues on the fit of papers to the journal scope and aims (which should be clearly explained in the journal web site, (Cooke and Lapointe 2012)), editorial decisions are mostly based on this ethereal idea of the perceived relevance of the topic covered by deciding editors. Hidden by anonymity (in pre peer-review rejections, the name of the subject editor is frequently not revealed) and justified by a baseless “lack of space” in the journal (when most journals are online and available space has become almost infinite (Aarssen 2012, Wardle 2012)), editors are empowered to reject papers, openly disregarding the scientific quality of the contribution in favour of an alleged lack of interest or the consideration that the manuscript is of relevance only for a narrow community. But editors, by their very nature, must be generalists, even in specialized journals. This means they are frequently not familiar with the field of the paper they are evaluating. Consequently, a decision based on the relevance of the paper to their audience may not be straightforward, particularly without the expert views of peers. Should this type of decision be left in the hands of just one person? We argue here that assessments from a sole individual, frequently not familiar with the field of the paper, may be thematically and/or geographically biased, and therefore, lead to erroneous conclusions, preventing the advance of knowledge. Ideally, a relevant paper would be one that has the capacity to move the field","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234688","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Assessing the relationship between biodiversity and stability of ecosystem function – is the coefficient of variation always the best metric?","authors":"T. Carnus, J. Finn, L. Kirwan, J. Connolly","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2014.7.20.C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2014.7.20.C","url":null,"abstract":"The role of biodiversity in regulating the stability of ecosystem functioning (functional stability) has importance for the reliable delivery of ecosystem services. To date, ecological studies that aim to measure stability in ecosystem function across a range in diversity have almost universally used the coefficient of variation (CV, the ratio of standard deviation of functional response to its mean) in reaching conclusions. We argue that the use of CV for this purpose can lead to misleading conclusions on functional stability. We use illustrative scenarios to show that an assessment of functional stability based on the CV is not as effective in many cases as one based on joint consideration of mean and standard deviation, and may be completely misleading, especially where low values of functional response are a desirable outcome. Faced with similar questions, agronomic studies that aim to assess the stability of ecosystem function (comparison of yield of different varieties within and across different sites) take both the average response and variability within- and between-sites into consideration. We argue that the way stability is measured should be appropriate for the questions about the delivery of ecosystem services that are being addressed. Assessment of the importance of diversity in providing ecosystem services for society is more likely to be made on socio-economic evaluation of trade-offs between mean and variability of the function rather than its stability as measured by the coefficient of variation.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"7 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2014-01-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2014.7.20.C","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234919","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"A response to Poisot et al.: Publishing your dataset is not always virtuous","authors":"A. Moles, J. Dickie, Habacuc Flores‐Moreno","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6B.15.F","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6B.15.F","url":null,"abstract":"Poisot et al. (2013) present an interesting paper that extols the benefits of researchers making their data publicly accessible. We absolutely agree that making your own primary data publically available is a virtuous, helpful, positive thing to do, and should be encouraged. However, we believe that Poisot et al. (2013) have overlooked two important factors: 1) the ethics of publishing data that were gathered by other people, and 2) the potential for enforced data release to actually slow our progress in science by removing incentives for scientists to undertake large data compilation efforts.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234327","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Moving toward a sustainable ecological science: don't let data go to waste!","authors":"T. Poisot, R. Mounce, D. Gravel","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6B.14.F","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6B.14.F","url":null,"abstract":"Claude Bernard (Bernard 1864)wrote that “art is me; science is us”. his sentence has two meanings. First, the altruism of scientists is worth more to Bernard than the self-indulgence of mid-nineteenth century Parisian art scene. Second, and we will keep this one in mind, creativity and insights come from individuals, but validation and rigour are reached through collective eoorts, cross-validation, and peerage. Given enough time, the conclusions reached and validated by the eoorts of many will take prominence over individualities, and this (as far as Bernard is concerned), is what science is about. With the technology available to a modern scientist, one should expect that the dissolution of me would be accelerated, and that several scientists should be able to cast a critical eye on data, and use this collective eoort to draw robust conclusions.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":"11-19"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-12-05","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2013.6B.14.F","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234294","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Comparing the influence of ecology journals using citation-based indices: making sense of a multitude of metrics","authors":"D. Hocking","doi":"10.7287/PEERJ.PREPRINTS.43V2","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.7287/PEERJ.PREPRINTS.43V2","url":null,"abstract":"The links among scholarly citations creates a tremendous network that reveals patterns of influence and flows of ideas. The systematic evaluation of these networks can be used to create aggregate measures of journal influence. To understand the citation patterns and compare influence among ecology journals, I compiled 11 popular metrics for 110 ecology journals: Journal Impact Factor (JIF), 5-year Journal Impact Factor (JIF5), Eigenfactor, Article Influence (AI), Source-Normalized Impact per Paper (SNIP), SCImago Journal Report (SJR), h-index, h c -index, e-index, g-index, and AR-index. All metrics were positively correlated among ecology journals; however, there was still considerable variation among metrics. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, and Ecology Letters were the top three journals across metrics on a per article basis. Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ecology, and Molecular Ecology had the greatest overall influence on science, as indicated by the Eigenfactor. There was much greater variability among the other metrics because they focus on the mostly highly cited papers from each journal. Each influence metric has its own strengths and weaknesses, and therefore its own uses. Researchers interested in the average influence of articles in a journal would be best served by referring to AI scores. Despite the usefulness of citation-based metrics, they should not be overly emphasized by publishers and they should be avoided by granting agencies and in personnel decisions. Finally, citation-based metrics only capture one aspect of scientific influence, they do not consider the influence on legislation, land-use practices, public perception, or other effects outside of the publishing network.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-11-27","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"71078363","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Creativity in the review of science.","authors":"C. Lortie","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6.16.E","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.16.E","url":null,"abstract":"Science is fundamentally a creative pursuit. At every step of the process, novel ideas that are useful to the scientific task at hand are employed—the very definit-ion of creativity (Runco and Jaeger 2012). In a recent commentary on novelty and editorial peer review, it was proposed that novelty be abandoned as a criterion assoc-iated with decisions by editors to reject (Arnqvist 2013). I find this a challenging proposition for at least two reasons. Novelty is important. Editors are useful. I high-ly value the creative aspects of what we do. I do not restrict this assessment of novel and useful to the inter-pretation proposed by the authors but apply the search for this criterion to the application, visuals, statistics, and integration of different ideas that in their combin-ation become novel like hybrid vigor. Importantly, creativity research is an extensive and well-established field. Training (Graham et al. 2012, Ha 2006, Scott et al. 2004), environment (Hunter et al. 2009), testing (Ander-son et al. 2004, Kim 2008, Kuncel et al. 2007), and self- versus non-self ratings (Ng and Feldman 2012) provide clear guidelines and opportunities for effectively using creativity in peer review. Ecological editors may be chasing novelty based on intuition, and I recognize that there is variation in editors just as there is in any set of reviews by external referees, but this does not, however, directly implicate the loss of novelty or creativity as an important consideration when reviewing. On the con-trary, perhaps we should embrace it, improve how we evaluate it, formalize it, and place it in its appropriate context.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-11-23","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234365","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Unequal opportunities in science: expanding our perspectives","authors":"M. David","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6.13.F","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.13.F","url":null,"abstract":"Scientific merit is commonly assessed through a researcher’s number of publications, or other citation metrics. However this procedure has been criticized as being biased, unfair and not representative of the true contribution of academic researchers to the advancement of science. Notably, citation metrics have been found to be detrimental to the assessment of female researchers’ achievement and maybe to women’s representation in academia. Yet very little is known about the real causes of differential gender representation in science. In this paper, I discuss these causes, and argue that recently proposed improvements in favour of more equal opportunities may instead generate other inequalities. I also anticipate that discriminative guidelines, if employed, should take other potentially disadvantaged communities into account and eventually promote communitarianism in science. I conclude that science as a whole has a lot more to gain by adopting a multi-dimensional, universal, and qualitative perspective when assessing scientific merit.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-11-18","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234351","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"‘Speed collaborations’ and the quality versus quantity debate in ecology and evolution publications","authors":"M. Donaldson","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6.10.C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.10.C","url":null,"abstract":"The argument over whether quality or quantity is more valuable to the advancement of ecology and evolutionary science continues to rage (Fischer et al. 2012, Loyola et al. 2012). With research quantity (i.e., number of papers published) leading to higher citation rates and increased funding (Lortie et al. 2012), some researchers have made the call for their colleagues to refocus efforts in order to emphasize the roles of creativity and communication to inspire quality research (e.g., Fischer et al. 2012). The quality and quantity spectrum does not need to represent a trade-off; both attributes are important to the advancement of science and should not be considered mutually exclusive. Unfortunately, finding equilibrium between quality and quantity is a difficult balancing act in the electronic era. How then, can we ensure both quality and quantity in scientific research? The answer may lie in innovative collaborations. Collaboration among researchers is immensely powerful and, arguably perhaps, becoming a necessary means of advancing knowledge. To remain influential and to keep pace in a fast moving world, researchers must find new ways to spark scientific creativity, and must do so in a timely manner. One novel approach to tackle this is short duration, focused, multi-disciplinary collaborations, herein referred to as ‘speed collaborations’ (Favaro et al. 2013). Here, I argue that expanding on this new view of rapid, collaborative research could bridge the gap between quality and quantity research by (i) generating new ideas, (ii) enhancing networks, and (iii) facilitating communication over a compressed time-scale. i. Speed collaborations to spark ideas and ignite creative scientific thinking","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-09-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234106","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Interpreting local adaptation studies","authors":"Amy L. Parachnowitsch","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6.8.C","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.8.C","url":null,"abstract":"Adaptation through natural selection is the basis for evolutionary change. At the micro-evolutionary scale, population differentiation is the path from which species eventually form. For this reason, researchers have a long history of studying local adaptation within species. Tests of local adaptation usually involve reciprocal transplants of individuals between populations and com-paring some kind of performance/fitness measure of the individuals. In general, local adaptation is defined as when local individuals do better in their local habitat than individuals transplanted from other environments ('local vs. foreign', Kawecki and Ebert 2004). Alternat-ively, local adaptation can also be defined as individuals having higher fitness at their home site compared with other sites ('home vs. away', Kawecki and Ebert 2004). Of course, not all comparisons of reciprocal transplants meet these criteria, and Kawecki and Ebert (2004) suggest that the ‘local vs. foreign’ criteria should be used as a diagnostic for local adaptation, especially when the ‘home vs. away’ criterion is met, but not the ‘local vs. foreign.’ In these cases, further studies could reveal why some genotypes do better than the local ones. Of course, local adaptation is not predicted to be or found in all cases (Leimu and Fischer 2008, Hereford 2009). However, Vesakoski and Jormalainen (2013) suggest we might be ignoring a signal of local adapta-tion from reciprocal transplant studies. Similar to the ‘home vs. away’ criterion, their ‘allopatric site advantage’ hypothesis (naming is mine) suggests some genotypes are superior in all conditions. However, it differs from the ‘home vs. away’ criterion because the ‘home’ site is not necessarily the best for all populations. Vesakoski and Jormalainen suggest that individuals may locally adapt to the level of stress to which they are exposed. If the ‘allopatric site advantage’ operates in populations, than Vesakoski and Jormalainen lay out a particular pattern that one would expect from reciprocal transplant studies. Here, a ‘low’ stress population should do better in its home site than away sites, meeting the ‘home vs. away’ criterion. In a ‘high’ stress population, individuals from the high stress environment should do better than individuals from the low stress environment, meeting the ‘local vs. foreign’ criterion. However, at the low stress site, individuals from the high stress environment should do equally well or better than the low stress individuals, meeting none of the local adaptation criteria. The ‘allopatric site advantage’ hypothesis shares similarities with the idea that the opportunity for selection is related to the interaction strength (e.g. Vanhoenacker et al. 2013). In general, the opportunity for selection on traits is expected to increase with the interaction strength (although perhaps not linearly). Similarly, if a population is tolerant of the local stress, than one would not expect further selection for having even hig","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"6 1","pages":"37-39"},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.8.C","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234216","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}

{"title":"Ignored pattern in studies of local adaptations: When the grass is greener on the allopatric site","authors":"O. Vesakoski, V. Jormalainen","doi":"10.4033/IEE.2013.6.7.N","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.4033/IEE.2013.6.7.N","url":null,"abstract":"Recently, the focus within microevolutionary studies has been on the ecological divergence of populations. One subset of this research field includes studies on local adaptation. This approach is useful for studying whether or not adaptive spatial variation takes place in a metapopulation context. There is growing body of research studying local adaptations of populations, and much of this has used a formal test for assessing the existence of local adaptation. According to Kawecki and Ebert (2004), the “Local vs. foreign” criterion is fulfilled if the local population has higher fitness than other populations in its own locality and “Home vs. away” is fulfilled if a population has higher fitness in the sympatric than allopatric environment. Interestingly, interpretation of results not fulfilling these criteria has received scant attention even though the question of how to measure local adaptation is vital for the study field. At present, there is an extensive volume of published results showing other kinds of patterns than those proposed by the “Local vs . foreign” or “Home vs . away” criteria. Here, we highlight one of these alternative patterns that we believe may have an adaptive background and may show local adaptation not recognized by the above-mentioned criteria.","PeriodicalId":42755,"journal":{"name":"Ideas in Ecology and Evolution","volume":"5 1","pages":""},"PeriodicalIF":0.2,"publicationDate":"2013-08-30","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"70234161","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":0,"RegionCategory":"","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}