The more things changed,the more they stayed the same: Trends in conservation focus 2010–2019

The conservation literature provides an important resource for conservation practice and reflects key areas of current research interest, but not necessarily those of highest priority, in the field of conservation science. In one of the most comprehensive studies of its kind, this paper evaluates 4388 articles from three leading conservation journals with different impact factors (Biological Conservation, Conservation Letters, and Oryx) for the period 2010–2019. The analysis shows that previously identified trends still hold true in many instances, including a continuing taxonomic bias towards vertebrates and particularly in favour of mammals. Geographical biases also persist, favouring Europe and North America with respect to where research is undertaken, who writes about it, and how it is funded, although publication of research conducted in Africa is increasing. It is difficult to evaluate changes in author gender outside the decade studied as this topic has not been widely considered in previous studies, but parity in authorship has not yet been achieved in any of the journals examined. To overcome the biases identified, researchers, editors, and funding organisations collectively still need to do more to redirect conservation efforts where they are most urgently needed and encourage more women and more researchers from lower income countries to participate in research by helping to remove the barriers that currently limit them.     

Meta-analysis,funnel plots and sensitivity analysis

Publication bias is a major problem, perhaps the major problem, in meta-analysis (or systematic reviews). Small studies are more likely to be published if their results are 'significant' than if their results are negative or inconclusive, and so the studies available for review are biased in favour of those with positive outcomes. Correcting for this bias is not possible without making untestable assumptions. In this paper, a sensitivity analysis is suggested which is based on fitting a model to the funnel plot. Some examples are discussed.     

Bibliography of the living coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae,with comments on publication trends

Synopsis A list of published references on the coelacanth Latimeria chalumnae is provided. All known publications in the scientific literature are included as well as popular articles and press reports that are considered to provide new information or interpretations. Marked trends are noticeable in the literature as different disciplines have been applied to research on the coelacanth over the past five decades. The bibliography lists a total of 823 publications including 490 papers in journals, 37 books, 3 theses, 45 chapters in books, 166 popular articles, 22 reports and 60 newspaper articles. Studies on taxonomy and morphology initially dominated the literature followed by reports on research in the fields of physiology, behaviour, breeding biology, ecology and conservation as frozen and eventually live specimens became available for study. The literature on the living coelacanth is predominantly in English, French, Japanese and German but references in 12 other languages were also traced. The dominant authors in the first decades of coelacanth research were the French scientists J. Millot and J. Anthony and the South African describer of the first and second coelacanths, J.L.B. Smith. In subsequent years French, British, American, South African, Japanese, Canadian and German authors, among others, have made significant contributions.     

Species of the genus Papio (Cercopithecidae, primates) as subjects of biomedical research: II. Quantitative characteristics of contemporary use of baboon species in medical and biological investigations

Independence of the five Papio species is evaluated. Baboons appear to be more similar to man than are other monkey species, which makes them a desirable model for use in experimental research to approximate human health conditions. They are, however, used less widely than macaques. Publications on baboons account for 10.3% of literature on the use of primates in experimental research. Baboons were most intensively used in surgery, then in hematology, cardiology, endocrinology. They were most rarely used in stomatology and in studies on infectious diseases.     

Review Times in Statistical Journals: Tilting at Windmills?

Using limited data, I argue that the review times in statistics are far too long for the field to keep pace with the rapidly changing environment in science. I note that statisticians do not appear to believe in statistics because data on the review process are not widely available to members of the profession. I suggest a few changes that could be made to speed up the review process, although it would appear that a change in our culture is required before the problem will be solved.     

The Role of Context-Dependent Mutations in Generating Compositional and Codon Usage Bias in Grass Chloroplast DNA

Abstract The influence of local base composition on mutations in chloroplast DNA (cpDNA) is studied in detail and the resulting, empirically derived, mutation dynamics are used to analyze both base composition and codon usage bias. A 4 × 4 substitution matrix is generated for each of the 16 possible flanking base combinations (contexts) using 17,253 noncoding sites, 1309 of which are variable, from an alignment of three complete grass chloroplast genome sequences. It is shown that substitution bias at these sites is correlated with flanking base composition and that the A+T content of these flanking sites as well as the number of flanking pyrimidines on the same strand appears to have general influences on substitution properties. The context-dependent equilibrium base frequencies predicted from these matrices are then applied to two analyses. The first examines whether or not context dependency of mutations is sufficient to generate average compositional differences between noncoding cpDNA and silent sites of coding sequences. It is found that these two classes of sites exist, on average, in very different contexts and that the observed mutation dynamics are expected to generate significant differences in overall composition bias that are similar to the differences observed in cpDNA. Context dependency, however, cannot account for all of the observed differences: although silent sites in coding regions appear to be at the equilibrium predicted, noncoding cpDNA has a significantly lower A+T content than expected from its own substitution dynamics, possibly due to the influence of indels. The second study examines the codon usage of low-expression chloroplast genes. When context is accounted for, codon usage is very similar to what is predicted by the substitution dynamics of noncoding cpDNA. However, certain codon groups show significant deviation when followed by a purine in a manner suggesting some form of weak selection other than translation efficiency. Overall, the findings indicate that a full understanding of mutational dynamics is critical to understanding the role selection plays in generating composition bias and sequence structure.     

Anatomy and physiology of a scientific paper

Writing and publishing a scientific paper in academic journals is a highly competitive, time-consuming stepwise process. The road to scientific writing and publication is rarely straightforward. Scientific writing has uniform format, which is perplexing for the novice science writers due to its inflexible anatomy (structure) and physiology (functions). Many obstacles are allied with the scientific writing path which can be minimized by applying some simple guidelines and practices. The scientific papers have an almost similar format but, original articles are divided into distinct sections and each segment contains a specific type of information. The basic anatomy of scientific papers is mainly comprised of the structure of the various components of a scientific paper, including title, abstract, introduction, methods, results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgments and references. However, the physiology of a scientific paper is difficult to understand. Early career researchers and trainees may be less familiar with the various components of scientific papers. In this study, we applied an observational approach to describe the essential steps to facilitate the readers and writers to understand the basic characteristics, anatomy and physiology of writing the various sections of a scientific paper for an academic science journal.