AgroEcoList 1.0: A checklist to improve reporting standards in ecological research in agriculture

DAYKIN, G. M.; AIZEN, M.A.; BARRETT, L. G.; BARTLETT, L. J.; ET AL.

PLOS ONE

PUBLIC LIBRARY SCIENCE

Año: 2023 vol. 18

1932-6203

Many publications lack sufficient background information (e.g. location) to be interpreted,replicated, or reused for synthesis. This impedes scientific progress and the application ofscience to practice. Reporting guidelines (e.g. checklists) improve reporting standards.They have been widely taken up in the medical sciences, but not in ecological and agriculturalresearch. Here, we use a community-centred approach to develop a reporting checklist(AgroEcoList 1.0) through surveys and workshops with 23 experts and the wider agroecologicalcommunity. To put AgroEcoList in context, we also assessed the agroecologicalcommunity’s perception of reporting standards in agroecology. A total of 345 researchers, reviewers, and editors, responded to our survey. Although only 32% of respondents hadprior knowledge of reporting guidelines, 76% of those that had said guidelines improvedreporting standards. Overall, respondents agreed on the need of AgroEcolist 1.0; only 24%of respondents had used reporting guidelines before, but 78% indicated they would useAgroEcoList 1.0. We updated AgroecoList 1.0 based on respondents’ feedback and usertesting.AgroecoList 1.0 consists of 42 variables in seven groups: experimental/samplingset-up, study site, soil, livestock management, crop and grassland management, outputs,and finances. It is presented here, and is also available on github (https://github.com/AgroecoList/Agroecolist). AgroEcoList 1.0 can serve as a guide for authors, reviewers, andeditors to improve reporting standards in agricultural ecology. Our community-centredapproach is a replicable method that could be adapted to develop reporting checklists inother fields. Reporting guidelines such as AgroEcoList can improve reporting standards andtherefore the application of research to practice, and we recommend that they are adoptedmore widely in agriculture and ecology.