Biology Letters

Top Research Topics at Biology Letters?

Biology Letters mostly deals with topics like Ecology, Zoology, Evolutionary biology, Predation and Genetics. The work on Ecology addressed in Biology Letters expands to the thematically related Biological dispersal. Zoology research presented in Biology Letters encompasses a variety of subjects, including Offspring and Reproduction.

The main emphasis of the journal is the subject of Predation, focusing on Predator.

• Ecology (47.18%)
• Zoology (19.30%)
• Evolutionary biology (9.29%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

• Psychological benefits of greenspace increase with biodiversity (868 citations)
• Cues of being watched enhance cooperation in a real-world setting (840 citations)
• Species detection using environmental DNA from water samples. (834 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at Biology Letters:

The most cited papers mainly deal with areas of study such as Ecology, Zoology, Predation, Biodiversity and Climate change. The studies tackled in the most cited papers, which mainly focus on Ecology, apply to Biological dispersal as well. Issues in Zoology were discussed in the most cited papers, taking into consideration concepts from other disciplines like Offspring, Host (biology) and Phylogenetics.

What topics the last edition of the journal is best known for?

• Ecology
• Genus
• Gene

The previous edition focused in particular on these issues:

The foci of the journal are Zoology, Ecology, Evolutionary biology, Foraging and Predation. The journal holds forums on Zoology that merges themes from other disciplines such as Offspring, Adaptation, Selection (genetic algorithm) and Habitat. The journal connects research in Ecology with the related topic of Term (time).

The works on Evolutionary biology deal in particular with Sexual selection.

The most cited articles from the last journal are:

• Age and social experience induced plasticity across brain regions of the paper wasp Polistes fuscatus (6 citations)
• A marine zooplankton community vertically structured by light across diel to interannual timescales (5 citations)
• A review of clothing microbiology: the history of clothing and the role of microbes in textiles. (4 citations)

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

Top authors and change over time

The top authors publishing in Biology Letters (based on the number of publications) are:

• Richard Shine (19 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Michael D. Jennions (13 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Graeme D. Ruxton (13 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Mats Olsson (13 papers) absent at the last edition,
• Tim H. Clutton-Brock (12 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Top affiliations and change over time

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in Biology Letters (based on the number of publications) are:

• University of Oxford (102 papers) published 5 papers at the last edition, 2 less than at the previous edition,
• Centre national de la recherche scientifique (102 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition,
• Spanish National Research Council (87 papers) published 1 paper at the last edition, 1 less than at the previous edition,
• Max Planck Society (83 papers) published 5 papers at the last edition, 5 less than at the previous edition,
• American Museum of Natural History (81 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition, 3 less than at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 2.74% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 14.08% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 11.97% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 16.20% of all publications and 57.75% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

• Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
• Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
• Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
• Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
• Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.