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Collaboration, conservation and the changing face of limnology
Author(s) -
Wishart M.J.,
Davies B.R.
Publication year - 2002
Publication title -
aquatic conservation: marine and freshwater ecosystems
Language(s) - English
Resource type - Journals
SCImago Journal Rank - 0.95
H-Index - 77
eISSN - 1099-0755
pISSN - 1052-7613
DOI - 10.1002/aqc.507
Subject(s) - limnology , lake ecosystem , river ecosystem , library science , geography , ecology , ecosystem , biology , computer science
1. The fauna of inland waters has the highest rates of imperilment of any ecosystems as a result of human demands and catchment manipulations. Thus, the conservation of these systems requires multi‐disciplinary and international collaboration. 2. In order to examine patterns of change in collaborative research we examined eight of the leading limnological journals over a 10 yr period, with another two journals examined over 5 yr. 3. Of the 9758 surveyed papers, single‐authored papers were proportionally the second most commonly published ( N =2523: 25.86%) while dual‐authored papers accounted for the greatest number of papers ( N =3517: 36.04%). There was a significant increase in collaboration and a decline in the relative proportion of single‐ ( r 2 =0.71; P =0.00) and dual‐authored ( r 2 =0.54; P =0.00) papers. 4. Collaboration between authors from different countries was recorded for 827 of the 8636 (9.58%) papers examined. While there was an annual average of 864 (8.57%) papers involving international collaboration, the range varied from 464 (5.60%: 1990) to 1374 (12.66%: 1995). There was a significant increase ( r 2 =0.59; P =0.01) in the number of papers involving international collaboration. 5. ‘Third World’ contributions constituted an average of 7.64% of papers published annually, ranging from 5.32% of all papers in 1987 to 9.31% in 1994. 6. Roughly equal proportions of lentic, lotic and marine papers were published over the survey period. Taxonomic and estuarine research was poorly represented probably due to the many specialist journals available for such publications. The data do not support the assertion that there has been an increase in lotic research at the expense of lentic research. Indeed, our data show a significant decrease in the number of papers published relating to lotic systems ( r 2 =0.51; P =0.02). 7. The future of collaborative research conducted by multi‐institutional and multi‐disciplinary teams and its significance in terms of the management and conservation of aquatic ecosystems globally is discussed. Copyright © 2002 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.