Chondrichthyan research in South America: research trends over 50 years (1967-2016) compared with the rest of the world

SOMOZA, G. M.; AWRUCH C. A.; BALDOCK, C.

Congreso; Sharks International 2018; 2018

Research interest in chondrichthyans has beengradually increasing over the last 50 years, with the number of scientificoutputs on chondrichthyan research undertaken globally increasing about 12times from 1967 to 2016. However, to date there is a limited knowledge andunderstanding on how the different chondrichthyan research areas have evolvedovertime. South America has a large concentration of Chondrichthyan specieswith scientific publications on Chondrichthyans slowly increasing from aboutsix during the 1967-1981 period to about 112 in 2016. However, as with the restof the world, the specific progress of chondrichthyan research in South Americaremains limited. Understanding the growth and trajectory of research of aspecific scientific discipline and its so-called ?hot topics? assistsresearchers and stakeholders in making strategic decisions regarding whichresearch areas require further attention and potential funding investment.Undertaking bibliometric studies of scientific publications enables anunderstanding of trends in specific research fields. Further, visualisationtechniques based on bibliometric analysis of data are used to generateso-called term maps to assist in the understanding of the structure and trendsof research areas overtime. In the current study, term maps were created andanalysed from Chondrichthyan research publications using the VOSviewer softwareto gain an understanding of the trends and active growth areas ofChondrichthyan research undertaken in South America over the past 50 years andcompared with the rest of the world for the past 15 years.