Quantitative analysis of research trends in a leading ecological journal: bibliometric study during 2003-2012

The journal Ecology is one of the premier journals in the field of ecology, published by the Ecological Society of America. Ten volumes of the journal containing 120 issues from 2003 to 2012 have been taken into consideration for the present study that carries out a bibliometric analysis of the 3,359 papers and 164,369 references of this journal. The analysis covers parameters like growth pattern, authorship pattern and author productivity, with most productive countries and institutions. Out of 3,359 contributions, only 410 were single-authored and the rest were multi-authored with a Collaboration Coefficient of 0.21. Applicability of Lotka's Law has been tested. The most productive institution was the University of California at Davis, with 183 publications. The United States of America topped the list of countries with 2,188 papers, while South Africa occupied eighteenth position.