text analysis

Scientific knowledge production in the form of scientific publication is an increasingly connected and global endeavour, and institutional and funding pressures make it likely that studies addressing local questions may become less frequent and less obvious in the literature. We used the Scopus database and a focused subset of research published in ecological journals to evaluate trends in scientific publishing in New Zealand from 1980–2020 in the broad field of biological and environmental sciences.

The Proceedings of the Ecological Society of New Zealand (PESNZ) and its continuation, the New Zealand Journal of Ecology (NZJE), published more than 1250 articles over the 58 years from 1961–2019. Over this period, the emphasis of ecology as a science and the social context in which it is embedded have changed.