Abstract

MICHAN, LAYLA. Bibliometric Analysis of Systematics Production in Latin America. Acta biol.Colomb. [online]. 2011, vol.16, n.2, pp.33-46. ISSN 0120-548X.

I compare six bibliographic databases with information on Latin American systematics: Biosis, CAB, Periódica, SCI, Scopus and Zoological Record. The databases are characterized and compared considering their content, temporal, typological, geographical, thematical coverage, kind of access and new taxon description, to identify which and how many should be used to be more representative. Of the 1363 journals analyzed, 36.5% are found in more than one database and 63.46% are recorded in a single one. Zoologial Record contains 63421 documents, Biosis 19079, CAB 14363, Periódica 11185, SCI 3257 and Scopus 916. CAB and ZR are the oldest databases, the average number of articles published per year was 6417 for Biosis, 433 for ZR, 361 for Periódica, 145 for CAB, 91 for SCI and 30 for Scopus. According to the network analysis, there are stronger relations between SCI and Biosis, which share at least 16% of titles, CAB and Biosis share 15%, Biosis and ZR 14%, and CAB and ZR 11%. Based on the cladogram obtained from a parsimony analysis on the shared journals, the strongest relation is between Biosis and SCI; Periódica has the largest number of exclusive journals with 285. ZR has 72.9% of published articles with descriptions of new taxa and an average of 322 a year, CAB 54.6% with 82, and Periódica 24.6% with 90. None of databases meets the characteristics to be used as a single source of information, therefore it would be appropriate to use different combinations according to the aim of the analysis. Biosis has the most comprehensive information on any current taxon, Zoological Record and CAB have a broader temporal coverage and include mainly animals or plants, respectively. SCI has the largest number of documents in mainstream journals, with references, citations and bibliometric indicators. Periódica has the largest number of documents and temporal coverage published in the area. The cladogram proved to be an optimal visualization tool to represent the main features of each data base.

Keywords : Bibliometry; journals; parsimony analysis; network analysis; systematics.

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