Evolution of interdisciplinarity in biodiversity science
Evolution of interdisciplinarity in biodiversity science
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DOI：
10.1002/ece3.5244
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发表时间：
2019-06-01
影响因子：
2.6
通讯作者：
Wirth, Christian
中科院分区：
文献类型：
--
作者：
Craven, Dylan;Winter, Marten;Wirth, Christian
生物多样性的研究在过去的30年里呈指数级增长，以响应对地球生物多样性的功能和重要性的更好理解并找到保护它的解决方案的需求。在这里，我们测试了生物多样性科学随着时间的推移变得更加跨学科的假设。为此，我们分析了22年（1990-2012）的97，945篇同行评审文章，采用连续时间动态模型，将文章分类为概念（即，主题和想法）基于词共现。使用模型输出，我们然后量化不同方面的跨学科性：概念多样性，即在生物多样性科学，跨学科的主题和想法的多样性，学科多样性，即跨概念，跨学科的多样性和网络结构，捕捉概念和学科之间的相互作用。我们发现，平均而言，生物多样性科学中的概念和子学科多样性要么稳定，要么下降，这种模式分别是由稀有概念和子学科的持续存在以及常见概念和子学科多样性的下降所驱动的。此外，我们的研究结果提供的证据表明，概念同质化，即时间β概念多样性的减少，是所观察到的跨学科趋势的基础。总之，我们的研究结果表明，生物多样性科学正在经历一个动态的阶段，作为一个科学学科，是围绕一套核心概念巩固。我们的研究结果表明，在研究期间，通过更大的跨学科解决生物多样性危机的进展可能会因外部因素而放缓，例如未能投资于跨概念和学科的研究。然而，生物多样性和生态系统服务政府间科学政策平台（IPBES）等近期举措可能会吸引对生物多样性相关问题的更广泛支持，从而吸引跨学科方法来应对未来几年的科学、政治和社会挑战。
The study of biodiversity has grown exponentially in the last thirty years in response to demands for greater understanding of the function and importance of Earth's biodiversity and finding solutions to conserve it. Here, we test the hypothesis that biodiversity science has become more interdisciplinary over time. To do so, we analyze 97,945 peer-reviewed articles over a twenty-two-year time period (1990-2012) with a continuous time dynamic model, which classifies articles into concepts (i.e., topics and ideas) based on word co-occurrences. Using the model output, we then quantify different aspects of interdisciplinarity: concept diversity, that is, the diversity of topics and ideas across subdisciplines in biodiversity science, subdiscipline diversity, that is, the diversity of subdisciplines across concepts, and network structure, which captures interactions between concepts and subdisciplines. We found that, on average, concept and subdiscipline diversity in biodiversity science were either stable or declining, patterns which were driven by the persistence of rare concepts and subdisciplines and a decline in the diversity of common concepts and subdisciplines, respectively. Moreover, our results provide evidence that conceptual homogenization, that is, decreases in temporal beta concept diversity, underlies the observed trends in interdisciplinarity. Together, our results reveal that biodiversity science is undergoing a dynamic phase as a scientific discipline that is consolidating around a core set of concepts. Our results suggest that progress toward addressing the biodiversity crisis via greater interdisciplinarity during the study period may have been slowed by extrinsic factors, such as the failure to invest in research spanning across concepts and disciplines. However, recent initiatives such as the Intergovernmental Science-Policy Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services (IPBES) may attract broader support for biodiversity-related issues and hence interdisciplinary approaches to address scientific, political, and societal challenges in the coming years.