Are Latin American ecologists recognized at the world level? A global comparison

Abstract

Background: Ioannidis et al. (2020) reported a standardized estimate of scientific productivity obtained from a worldwide database of 6,880,389 scientists who published at least 5 papers picked up by the Scopus database, and elaborated a ranking of ca. 120,000 scientists by both whole trajectory (career-long) impact and their current impact at year 2019. The goal of our paper is to contextualize Latin American ecologists’ contribution at the world level based on the four most scientifically productive countries in the region. Methods and findings: Ioannidis et al. (2020) proposed a composite index that is the sum of six scientometric indicators: (1) The number of allocites, (2) the h index, (3) a per capita corrected version of h, (4) the allocites received as single author, (5) those received as single + first author, and (6) those as single + first + last author. We selected data for ecologists from Argentina, Brazil, Chile, and Mexico and comparatively analyzed their productivity according to the proposed index. We also compared these data with those obtained from a global sample of the top ecologists worldwide. Conclusions: Based on Ioannidis et al.’s proposition to evaluate scientific productivity we extract three lessons: (1) It does not pay to publish many papers; what counts is the number of allocites (i.e., self-citations do not add up). (2) Either be single, first, or last author; it does not pay to be in the middle of an authorship line. (3) Even worse it is to be among many co-authors because the proposed index allocates credits on a per capita basis.