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ORI GIN AL PA PER
Knowledge of Colombian biodiversity: publishedand indexed
Enrique Arbelaez-Cortes
Received: 27 January 2013 / Accepted: 29 August 2013� Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2013
Abstract Documenting patterns of published studies on the biodiversity of megadiverse
countries can offer valuable insights on global biodiversity knowledge. Here, I present
results from a bibliometric analysis of 5,264 indexed publications on biodiversity in
Colombia published during the period 1990–2011 and gathered by searching the Web of
Knowledge database. I classified studies into six overlapping subjects: taxa lists, new
taxa, new records, conservation, genetic diversity, and other. Publications were also
classified by geographic location and the taxonomic group studied. I found variation in
the number of studies per year, which presented a long-term trend of increasing volume.
The 31 continental departments of Colombia and both the Atlantic and the Pacific oceans
were represented in the studies, which included 98 taxonomic classes from 47 phyla.
However, there were strong biases in taxonomic, geographic, and subject coverage. For
instance, 75 % of studies focused on animals; and the Atlantic Ocean showed the highest
number of studies, followed by Antioquia and Valle del Cauca departments. Genetic
diversity and conservation were the least-studied subjects. I also found that Colombian
researchers and Colombian institutions have played an important role in documenting the
country’s outstanding biodiversity. However, Colombian biologists still prefer to publish
in domestic or Latin American journals, which are mainly regional and have low inter-
national visibility. The patterns I present here can have important implications for opti-
mizing and guiding research on Colombian biodiversity, and the paper concludes with
some recommendations.
Keywords Bibliometrics � Colombia � Conservation � Data base � South
America � Species � Taxon
E. Arbelaez-Cortes (&)Museo de Zoologıa, Departamento de Biologıa Evolutiva, Facultad de Ciencias and Posgrado enCiencias Biologicas, Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico, Ciudad Universitaria, 04510Mexico, DF, Mexicoe-mail: [email protected]
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Biodivers ConservDOI 10.1007/s10531-013-0560-y
Introduction
For more than 250 years, scientific information about biodiversity has been archived in
scientific collections and published in diverse media, but only now is it becoming available
digitally through several databases (e.g., Biodiversity Heritage Library 2012; Encyclopedia
of Life 2012; Global Biodiversity Information Facility 2012). This relative ease of
accessing biodiversity information is opening a new approach in the study of biodiversity
(Soberon and Peterson 2004; Smith et al. 2009; Liu et al. 2011; Wheeler et al. 2012). One
field of study that bridges this new approach is bibliometrics, which uses several quanti-
tative procedures to analyze scientific publications, and is a useful tool for evaluating
scientific output and identifying gaps in knowledge (Pritchard 1969; Broadus 1987;
Glanzel et al. 2006; Liu et al. 2011; Caputo et al. 2012). For example, a recent bibliometric
analysis revealed that global biodiversity studies became an important and dynamic field of
environmental and ecological research in 1990, with a strong emphasis on conservation
and a high volume of publications from institutions in the United States (Liu et al. 2011).
Biodiversity is a broad unifying concept, encompassing all forms and combinations of
natural variation at all levels of biological organization (Gaston and Spicer 2004), yet this
variation is not randomly distributed across the globe; for example, Latin America makes a
disproportionately large contribution to global biodiversity (Myers et al. 2000; Orme et al.
2005; Kier et al. 2009). Latin American countries also have a bio-environmental publi-
cation profile that focuses mainly on the biological, Earth, and space sciences (Glanzel
et al. 2006). The scientific output of Latin American countries is related to their economic
input, with the largest economies (i.e., Brazil, Mexico, and Argentina) having the highest
scientific production (De Moya-Anegon and Herrero-Solana 1999; Inonu 2003; Glanzel
et al. 2006; Caputo et al. 2012). While other Latin American countries have increased their
scientific production during recent years (De Moya-Anegon and Herrero-Solana 1999;
Bucheli et al. 2012; Caputo et al. 2012), Latin American journals remain under-represented
in major international bibliographic databases, to the detriment of those publication efforts
(Gomez et al. 1999; Michan 2011; Nielsen-Munoz et al. 2012).
Documenting publication patterns of biodiversity knowledge in megadiverse countries
is an important component of understanding global biodiversity knowledge. Likewise, as
noted by Wilson (1984), biological knowledge has the potential to stimulate public interest
in a country’s biodiversity, to the degree that it will be considered part of the national
heritage. Colombia is a mid-sized country (1.1 million km2) located in northwestern South
America, with marine territory in both the Atlantic and Pacific oceans (IAvH 1998).
Colombia is one of the world’s most megadiverse countries, appearing frequently in the top
ranks of species richness for several taxa and probably harboring more than 10 % of global
biodiversity (Rangel-Ch. 1995, 2006; Samper 1997; IAvH 1998; Myers et al. 2000;
Andrade-C 2007; Bernal et al. 2007; Stiles et al. 2011; IUCN 2012a; Sistema de Infor-
macion sobre Biodiversidad de Colombia 2013). Governmental and non-governmental
institutions have long been aware of Colombia’s outstanding biodiversity, which is rec-
ognized by several international treaties (IAvH 1998). However, Colombian biodiversity is
not just a matter of conservation policy bound by international treaties, but also a source of
national pride with strong connections to Colombian history, culture, and artistic expres-
sions (Reichel-Dolmatoff 1976; Osborn 1995; Legast 2000; Saenz 2001; Morcote-Rıos
2006; Quintero 2011). Biodiversity can also be regarded as a storehouse of natural capital
that can provide a diverse array of socioeconomic benefits (Barrett et al. 2011; Atkinson
et al. 2012; Palmer and Di Falco 2012). A scientific understanding of Colombian
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biodiversity is thus of critical importance, and describing patterns of biodiversity publi-
cations can help optimize further research on Colombia’s outstanding biota.
Several bibliometric and scientometric studies have examined scientific production in
Colombia (Meyer et al. 1995; De Moya-Anegon and Herrero-Solana 1999; Anduckia et al.
2000; Inonu 2003; Bucheli et al. 2012; Caputo et al. 2012). In particular, analyses of
Colombian research in ecology and systematics describe the country as having made a
modest contribution in comparison with other tropical countries (Michan et al. 2008;
Stocks et al. 2008; Pitman et al. 2011). However, these studies did not include Colombian
journals, in which publications about Colombian biodiversity are common (Arbelaez-
Cortes 2013). Likewise, few studies have focused on analyzing Colombian biodiversity
using bibliometric approaches. One study analyzed the number of new species described
for Colombia over the last decade (Arbelaez-Cortes 2013), and two other studies focused
on vertebrate taxa (Estela et al. 2010; Stevenson et al. 2010). However, there is currently
no bibliometric analysis of Colombian biodiversity as a whole. In this paper I use an
explicit and repeatable method to analyze bibliographic information about Colombian
biodiversity over a 22-year period (1990–2011) and to identify several key gaps in
knowledge. More specifically, my aims are: I) to depict temporal trends and geographical
patterns, II) to examine taxonomic and subject coverage, and III) to describe basic bib-
liometric issues.
Methods
Data collection and classification
To compile a bibliographical dataset about Colombian biodiversity I searched the Web of
KnowledgeSM (‘‘all databases’’, including Biological Abstracts, Biosis, Current Contents
Connect, Web of Science, and Zoological Records) of Thomson Reuters� (New York,
USA) through Universidad Nacional Autonoma de Mexico database facilities. The version
of the Web of Science included the following editions: Science Citation Index Expanded,
Social Sciences Citation Index, Arts & Humanities Citation Index, Conference Proceedings
Citation Index-Science, and Conference Proceedings Citation Index-Social Science &
Humanities. In February 2012 I performed searches in the ‘topic’ field, using the word
‘Colombia’ plus the following keywords: biodiversity, biological, biology, checklist,
ecological, ecology, endemic, endemism, fauna, faunistic, flora, floristic, species, and
taxon. I used these general keywords because I considered them to be present in a broad
range of biodiversity studies. The ‘topic’ field retrieves results from: title, abstract, author’s
key words, and the Keywords Plus� of Web of Knowledge (i.e., a set of common words
obtained from the references cited in each study). All results were saved as text files and
compiled in a database manager. I restricted my search to the period of 1990–2011,
because a recent analysis has shown that biodiversity publications worldwide increased
dramatically after 1990 (Liu et al. 2011).
After eliminating duplicates, my searches yielded 9,404 studies. I then used the infor-
mation from each study (i.e., title and abstract) to choose only studies conducted in
Colombian territory, or studies that were explicitly based on Colombian samples or
specimens, including the following kinds of studies: checklists, descriptions of new taxa,
new records or range extensions, revisions of taxonomic groups, ecology, conservation,
natural history, morphometry, biogeography, phylogenetics, phylogeography, population
genetics, ethnobiology, biodiversity management, and studies discussing issues of
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conservation and access to biological information from a political, economic, or legal
standpoint. I excluded studies conducted in other countries as well as studies with insuf-
ficient information in the title or abstract to assign the study to Colombia with absolute
certainty. I also excluded studies related to other fields, such as: the humanities, geology,
paleontology, paleoecology, agronomy, aquaculture, phytopathology, biological control,
veterinary, epidemiology, medicine, clinical studies of human infectious diseases, labo-
ratory essays in pathogens, and nomenclatural accounts. After this filtering, the final
database consisted of 5,264 studies on Colombian biodiversity. I then classified each study
under various categories (see details below) by reviewing titles, abstracts, and (in cases in
which abstracts and titles contained little information and the entire paper of the study was
accessible to me) the main text (N = 1,320). I dedicated approximately 3 min to reviewing
and classifying each study.
Each study was first classified by study subject, using six overlapping major subjects.
Thus, one study could correspond to more than one subject, but each subject was analyzed
independently. The six subjects were: I) ‘Taxa lists’: locality, regional, or country
checklists, taxonomic revisions that included Colombian specimens, and some ecological
studies reporting checklists of genera or species assigned to a defined landscape/locality or
to an explicit ecological interaction (e.g., parasites from mammal species). II) ‘New taxa’:
studies including descriptions of new varieties, subspecies, species, and genera. Studies
which suggested but did not formally describe new species were not included in this
subject. Additionally, for each study in this subject I counted the number of new taxa
described and recorded their taxonomic category. III) ‘New records’: studies including
explicit reports of a taxon in a locality where it was not previously known. These studies
included both new records for Colombia and range extensions within the country. While
new species can also be considered as new records I did not include them in this subject.
IV) ‘Conservation’: studies dealing explicitly with the conservation or management of a
particular species, ecosystem, or landscape. Studies on general issues related to conser-
vation in the country were also included in this subject. V) ‘Genetic diversity’: studies
using any molecular or genetic marker (e.g., DNA sequences, AFLPs, microsatellites,
allozymes, or chromosomes) to analyze intraspecific variation. VI) ‘Other’: I used this
subject to group a heterogeneous set of studies dealing with different issues, such as natural
history, ecology, biological interactions, biogeography, taxonomy, systematics, morpho-
metric variation, reproductive biology, and development. A detailed classification of this
set of studies into their specific subjects would require a detailed review of each study,
which was beyond of the scope of this work. Examples of studies assigned to each subject
can be provided upon request.
Each study was then classified by its geographic location. I recorded the department
(i.e., first administrative level in Colombian political division) or ocean where the study
was carried out. I designated studies on marine ecosystems and islands to the ocean where
they were conducted. In this way, studies from San Andres and Providence department, a
Colombian Caribbean archipelago, were recorded as ‘Atlantic Ocean’, while studies from
the Malpelo and Gorgona islands were recorded as ‘Pacific Ocean’. General studies (e.g.,
national taxa checklists or conservation analyses on a country scale), and studies conducted
in more than two departments were defined as: ‘Colombia’. For studies conducted in two
departments I recorded both departments and analyzed them independently. When infor-
mation about the location of a study was not available I scored it as ‘not indicated’.
Likewise, when locality information was not clear in a study (e.g., mention of just one
locality in Colombia without another geographic reference), it was classified as ‘not clear’.
I used this geographic classification by department because it was available for the
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majority of the studies. Additionally, several Colombian academic and conservation/
management institutions (e.g., universities and corporaciones regionales) are circum-
scribed to departments and focus their activities at that level.
Studies were also classified by the taxon examined. I used high taxonomic ranks
(kingdom, phylum, and class), as defined by the Catalogue of Life (Bisby et al. 2011), and
ascribed each study to the respective taxon included. Studies dealing with species from
different classes, phyla, or kingdoms were defined as ‘several’ and studies with broader
issues (e.g., general issues about conservation or land cover analyses) were defined as ‘not
applicable’.
At this point I consider it necessary to clarify the reasons for including some studies
focused on humans among the results. Several issues of human biology are studied by
particular disciplines such as history, medicine, economy, anthropology, and in general
what is known as social sciences; and none of these were included in the database. Other
issues, however, are still in the domain of biology. For instance, ethnological knowledge of
natural resources is studied by ethnobiology, genetic variation in human populations is part
of population genetics and evolutionary biology, and the study of human impacts on
ecosystems and the policy issues related to them fall into the context of conservation
biology. These three kinds of human-related studies were included in the database. For the
taxonomic classification of studies, only population genetic studies of humans were
classified as ‘Mammals’. Studies focused on the conservation of a particular taxon were
assigned to that taxon, while ethnobiology and other conservation studies were given the
taxonomic classification of ‘several’ or ‘not applicable’ because of the broad scope of such
works.
Assessment of omission error
Studies like this one, which are based on keyword searches in major databases, always
suffer from some degree of omission error (i.e., the number of studies identified by the
search is less than the number of existing studies). This error can be caused by the absence
of some journals in the databases and by the absence of some studies in the search results
due to inappropriate or incomplete keywords. While this kind of error can strongly bias the
results of bibliometric studies, it is rarely discussed (Lorini et al. 2011). Another kind of
error, the overestimation of the scientific production, was minimized because I filtered each
study by examining the information in the title and abstract (see above). Here, I describe
three different ways in which I measured the omission error of my database.
First, I contacted 85 researchers via e-mail, including both Colombian researchers (from
different institutions) and foreign researchers associated with Colombian institutions. I
asked each researcher to supply five to ten references of scientific papers that he or she
considered to qualify as studies of Colombian biodiversity published during the period
1990–2011. I created a ‘secondary list’ consisting of these references plus additional
references that I had classified as studies of Colombian biodiversity before the database
search. Then, I searched for all references of the ‘secondary list’ in my database and
defined the omission error as the percentage of ‘secondary list’ references not included in
my database. All omitted references were classified in the same way as references in my
database in order to check for any conspicuous bias of those references and the studies
included in my database.
Second, I used the information presented in a recent study of all papers based on field
work in the Andes and Amazon published between 1995 and 2008 in Biotropica and
Journal of Tropical Ecology (Pitman et al. 2011). I searched the studies included in my
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database for the same period in those two regions and in both journals. After comparing my
numbers with the numbers in Pitman et al. (2011), I considered the differences a second
measure of omission error for my database.
Third, following a recommendation of one reviewer, I performed a search in the Web of
Science of studies published from 1990 to 2011 and including ‘Colombia’ in the topic, and
then filtered them by the sub-category ‘‘biodiversity conservation’’. This search retrieved
166 studies, but the titles of several studies made it clear that they were conducted in
another country or focused on paleontology. After removing them, 126 studies remained. I
searched for these in my database and considered the difference as a third measure of
omission error.
Data analyses
I used the information from the 5,264 studies to address questions related to four main
issues. First, I used bar graphs and three-year mean tendency lines to describe the temporal
trends in the number of studies per year for the complete dataset and for each subject
dataset independently. Additionally, I divided the complete dataset into four five-year
periods (1990–1994, 1995–1999, 2000–2004, and 2005–2009) to test whether there were
differences in the number of studies published per year, using a Kruskal–Wallis ANOVA
followed by a Mann–Whitney pairwise comparison.
Second, I quantified the taxonomic coverage of studies about Colombian biodiversity by
tallying the frequency of the major taxonomic ranks. Studies ascribed to ‘several’ or ‘not
applicable’ were excluded (N = 635). To quantify trends in research on different taxo-
nomic classes I recorded the subjects of the studies conducted for each taxonomic class
which included more than nine studies (N = 4,444).
Third, I used the department where each study was conducted to explore the geographic
distribution of studies on Colombian biodiversity. I analyzed all studies with location
information (N = 3,169), excluding studies ascribed to ‘Colombia’, ‘not indicated’, and
‘not clear’. Studies conducted in two departments were counted twice, once for each
department. Additionally, I calculated the Simpson diversity index for each department,
using PAST (Hammer et al. 2001), considering the number of studies for each taxonomic
class. Because this index is sensitive to the most common taxa, low values could indicate
which Colombian departments have a publication bias toward one or a few taxonomic
classes. I then used ArcGis 9.3 (ESRI 2009) to assign the total number of studies, and the
number of studies by subject, to the respective department or ocean. I classified these
results into five categories using natural breaks. I used this method to categorize the
departments because my data were not normally distributed (Shapiro–Wilk test, all
W \ 0.93, all P \ 0.05). I also depicted geographical trends of studies in botany, ento-
mology, and vertebrate zoology, using taxa that are the focus of such disciplines. I used
ArcGis 9.3 (ESRI 2009) to assign the total number of studies in each of these three
disciplines to the respective department, classifying these results into five categories using
natural breaks, because my data were not normally distributed (Shapiro–Wilk test all
W \ 0.9 all P \ 0.01). I also examined studies conducted in two departments to analyze
whether neighboring departments were more frequently studied together than distant
departments.
Fourth, continental Colombia is typically divided into five broad regions: Amazon,
Andean, Caribbean, Orinoquia, and Pacific, and the numbers of species of both vertebrates
and plants are available for these regions (Rangel-Ch. 2006; Sistema de Informacion sobre
Biodiversidad de Colombia 2013). Therefore, in order to identify regions which are under-
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researched in relation to their species richness I grouped vertebrate and plant studies per
department in each of the five regions, as indicated in Table 1. Because the Cauca, Narino,
and Valle del Cauca departments include significant territory in both the Pacific and
Andean regions, I reviewed the studies assigned to these departments to determine in
which region they were conducted.
Fifth, I reviewed the journals included in my database and selected the ones with more
than 22 studies (i.e., journals with at least one study per year), and then assessed the
taxonomic coverage of each journal to depict basic bibliometric patterns of publications
about Colombian biodiversity. Additionally, I analyzed the words included in the abstracts
(N = 4,223 abstracts) using ConcApp V5 software (Greaves 2008), which provides several
utilities for text analysis. I extracted the ten most common words by year to check for
evidence of changes in researcher emphasis over time. I also examined the context in
which those common words were used. Additionally, I grouped abstracts according to the
three major disciplines (i.e., botany, entomology, and vertebrate zoology) to explore how
researchers in different disciplines communicate their findings about biodiversity in
Colombia. I also analyzed the abstracts and grouped them into mainland (excluding studies
defined as Colombia) and marine studies to test for differences in the focus of researchers
in the two ecosystems. For these latter analyses I extracted the twenty most common words
using ConcApp V5 (Greaves 2008). Once word counts were obtained, I excluded common
words such as prepositions, articles, pronouns, some verbs, and numbers (e.g., to, from,
the, of, we, are, was, two, three).
Sixth, bibliometric studies usually include analysis of the institutional affiliation of the
authors to depict geographic patterns of research institutions and collaboration among them
(Glanzel et al. 2006; Stocks et al. 2008; Liu et al. 2011). However, institutional information
is only available for searches conducted directly in the Web of Science database (i.e., full
Table 1 Number of studies on Colombian vertebrates and plants (1990–2011) for each major region
Region Departments included Vertebrates Plants
Studies Species Studiesperspecies
Studies Species Studiesperspecies
Amazon Amazonas, Caqueta, Guainia,Guaviare, Putumayo, andVaupes
110 1,903 0.058 86 5,300 0.016
Andean Antioquia, Boyaca, Caldas,Cauca*, Cundinamarca, Huila,Narino*, Norte de Santander,Quindıo, Santander, Risaralda,Tolima, and Valle del Cauca*
505 2,019 0.250 208 11,500 0.018
Caribbean Atlantico, Bolıvar, Cesar,Cordoba, La Guajira,Magdalena, and Sucre
136 1,289 0.106 48 3,151 0.015
Orinoquia Arauca, Casanare, Meta,Vichada
80 1,527 0.052 15 2,692 0.006
Pacific Cauca*, Choco, Narino*, andValle del Cauca*
86 1,491 0.058 56 4,525 0.012
Data on species number per region are from Rangel-Ch. (2006) and Sistema de Informacion sobre Bio-diversidad de Colombia (2013). Departments included in each region are indicated and asterisks indicatedepartments with significant territory in two regions
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record option), and not in searches conducted in the broader Web of Knowledge. Besides,
analyses based on institutional affiliations do not reflect researcher nationality (Stocks et al.
2008). Therefore, in order to explore the nationality of the authors contributing to biodi-
versity research in Colombia I used ConcApp V5 (Greaves 2008) to extract the 100 most
common surnames in the ‘author’ field of my database. Afterwards, I searched for those
100 surnames in an online list of Colombian surnames (Genealogıas de Colombia 2010). I
considered the proportion of the top 100 author surnames identified as Colombian sur-
names as a proxy of the contribution of Colombian researchers to biodiversity knowledge
of the country. I am aware that this measure is based in the assumption that authors with
such surnames are Colombian citizens. However, this assumption is plausible because I
analyzed only studies about Colombia, several of them published in Colombian or Latin
American journals (see below). I also applied my personal knowledge of the authors
publishing on Colombian biodiversity, combined with specific queries to my database, to
identify authors with high production and those assigned erroneously as Colombian or
foreign according to the online list of Colombian surnames (Genealogıas de Colombia
2010).
Results
My database comprised 5,264 studies on Colombian biodiversity published during the
years 1990–2011, in 849 journals and 72 symposia and conferences. These studies included
information about 98 taxonomic classes of 47 phyla ascribed to Animalia (3,947 studies),
Archaea (1), Bacteria (32), Chromista (12), Fungi (115), Plantae (810), Protozoa (55), and
Viruses (29). Additionally, 169 studies considered several kingdoms, while 97 were not
taxon-specific. The studies were conducted in Colombia’s 31 continental departments and
in both oceans, with 1,759 studies classified as ‘Colombia’ and 337 as ‘not indicated’ or
‘not clear’. The ‘secondary list’ of 280 references provided by 29 researchers from 17
institutions in five countries included 37 studies that were not present in my database (an
omission error of 13 %), but I did not find any conspicuous bias in the coverage of those
omitted references (see below). The second and third omission errors were lower: 9 and
9.6 %, respectively.
There was considerable variation in the number of studies per year, with a general trend
towards an increase in the number of studies through time (Figs. 1, 2). Differences in the
number of studies among five-year periods were significant (Fig. 1, Kruskal–Wallis
Anova: P = 0.0005, Mann–Whitney pairwise comparisons: all P \ 0.05). The number of
studies per year grew from 64 in 1990 to a peak of 426 in 2008, but declined during
2009–2011 (Fig. 2). A continuous growth rate was evident only for the subjects ‘taxa lists’,
‘new records’, and ‘other’, while the remaining subjects showed noticeable oscillations.
The ‘other’ and ‘new taxa’ subjects accounted for the highest number of studies, 2,173 and
1,536 respectively, while ‘conservation’ and ‘genetic diversity’ accounted for only 460 and
287 studies, respectively. The ‘new taxa’ subject included studies describing 2,646 new
taxa (50 genera, 2,490 species, 98 subspecies, and 8 varieties). Additionally, 24 new taxa
were mentioned but not formally described.
Studies were biased toward animals (75 %), and other taxa were represented by few
studies. Only 29 taxonomic classes had more than nine studies (Table 2) while 38 classes
were represented by just one or two studies. Insecta (1,564 studies) was the most studied
class, followed by Magnoliopsida and by the five classes of the phylum Chordata
(Table 2). The remaining 22 classes comprised only 17.3 % of the studies. Taxonomic
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coverage of each subject (Table 2) was similar to the major pattern depicted by the total set
of studies. However, ‘conservation’ studies focused on some classes of Animalia and
Plantae, with 48 % of studies conducted on Aves and Mammalia. By comparison, the
‘genetic diversity’ subject included a high number of studies of classes such as Sorda-
riomycetes and Trypanosomatidae, taxonomic groups that were poorly represented in other
subjects.
The number of studies for each Colombian department and ocean varied broadly (from
9 to 448 studies, N = 3,169; Fig. 3). The most studied category ([208 studies) included
the Atlantic Ocean with 448 studies, followed by Antioquia (286 studies), Valle del Cauca
(285) and Cundinamarca (270). The second category (154–207 studies) included Ama-
zonas in southern Colombia, the Pacific Ocean, and Magdalena in the north. The following
two categories (43–153 studies) comprised mainly departments from the west (Pacific
region) and from central Colombia (Andean region). The least-studied category (\43
studies) comprised 14 departments (almost one half of Colombia), some located in the east
and south (Orinoquia and Amazon regions) and others in the north (Caribbean region).
Analyses by subject showed a similar geographic pattern. However, Valle del Cauca and
Cundinamarca dropped to a less-studied category for one or two subjects (e.g., ‘conser-
vation’, ‘genetic diversity’, and ‘new records’), while other departments such as Boyaca,
Choco, Narino, and Santander moved up in the ranking for some subjects (e.g., ‘conser-
vation’ and ‘new taxa’). Studies conducted in two departments (N = 214) were more
common (69 %) between neighboring departments. The Simpson diversity index indicated
that Valle del Cauca and Cundinamarca, both at the top of the total number of studies,
dropped to lower ranks. This is related to a bias towards studies of Insecta, which
accounted for 88 and 129 studies, for Cundinamarca and Valle del Cauca, respectively
(Fig. 4).
The analysis of the three major disciplines (Fig. 4) showed a similar pattern as that
already described for the Colombian mainland. For instance, Antioquia and Cundinamarca
appeared at the top in two disciplines, and Amazonas and Valle del Cauca were in the first
Fig. 1 Box plot depicting thenumber of studies on Colombianbiodiversity per year, for four5-year periods
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rank in one discipline and in the second category for the other two disciplines. Magdalena
and Narino appeared in the second category for two disciplines, while several departments
in the east and north were always at the bottom of the ranking. The analysis by region
(Table 1) showed that vertebrates were better studied than plants in all of the five
Colombian regions, both in total number of papers and when study number was corrected
by species richness. In the Andes, the most studied region for both taxa, I calculated that
there was one study per four vertebrate species while this value was as low as one study per
56 plant species.
The analysis of the 37 omitted references revealed no bias in their coverage. For
instance, they included 13 Colombian departments and both oceans, plus other studies
classified as ‘Colombia’ and ‘not indicated’. Taxonomically, they included animals in 25
Fig. 2 Temporal patterns of the number of studies per year on Colombian biodiversity (1990–2011) for theentire dataset and for six subjects (taxa lists, new taxa, new records, conservation, genetic diversity, andother). The total number of studies for each year is indicated above each bar. The red line depicts a 3-yearmean tendency. (Color figure online)
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Biodivers Conserv
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Biodivers Conserv
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studies and plants in six studies. The remaining six studies were classified as ‘not appli-
cable’. Most corresponded to the ‘other’ and ‘taxa lists’ subjects. Chronologically, they
included studies published in most years from 1990 to 2011. Finally, 13 of those studies
were from Colombian journals, some of which were not included in the Web of Knowledge
database.
While 849 journals were represented in my database, studies on Colombian biodiversity
were concentrated in a few journals. Only 32 journals included more than 22 studies (Table 3
in Appendix), while 590 included just one or two studies. The 32 top journals accounted for
46.7 % of studies. The top ten journals (Table 3 in Appendix) included seven Colombian
journals, of which Caldasia was by far the most important both in number of studies and in
taxonomic and subject coverage. The journals Zootaxa, Revista Colombiana de Entomo-
logıa, and Revista de Biologıa Tropical were the next most important, with the latter showing
the broadest taxonomic and subject coverage after Caldasia. Half of these 32 top journals
were indexed in the 2011 Web of Science with an impact factor. The two journals with the
highest impact factor were Biotropica and Memorias do Instituto Oswaldo Cruz, but they
ranked only 19th and 20th in number of publications on Colombian biodiversity. The
majority of these listed journals (Table 3 in Appendix) focused on Animalia, including
seven focused on Insecta and four on Aves. Of those 32 journals, seven included studies up
until 2010, in spite of publishing volumes in 2011.
The most common words in the abstracts for every year were: ‘species’, ‘Colombia’,
‘described’, and ‘new’. The word ‘species’ was used in different contexts, such as
descriptions of new species, reports of species counts, and descriptions of the natural
history of a particular species. The words ‘new’ and ‘described’ were most commonly
related to the description of new taxa. The other six common words varied among years but
in general were similar to the previous ones (e.g., ‘sp.’, ‘genus’, ‘Colombian’, ‘nov.’, and
‘illustrated’). Only a few words showed some trend. For example, ‘Brazil’ was common
during the first half of the 1990s and then disappeared; ‘forest’ appeared during 8 years and
was constant from 1997 to 2001, then disappeared and was common again in 2010.
‘Species’, ‘Colombia’, and ‘new’ were also among the most common words for major
disciplines and mainland and marine studies (Table 4 in Appendix). However, the latter
analyses showed other noteworthy results. For instance, both botany and entomology
showed other Latin American country names as common words, sharing ‘Ecuador’ and
‘Peru’, while botany and vertebrate zoology shared ‘Andes’. Mainland and marine studies
shared half of their common words, but exclusive words were illustrative of the focus in
each main ecosystem (Table 4 in Appendix).
Most author surnames (87 of the top-100 list, see Table 5 in Appendix) were identified
as Colombian according to the list of surnames consulted. However, G. Kattan, a prolific
Colombian biologist and a well-known leader in research on Colombian biodiversity, did
not appear as Colombian in the list of Colombian surnames. In contrast, the list identified
as Colombian the surnames Johnson and Brown, which in this case correspond to foreign
researchers (e.g., K. Johnson, W.C. Johnson, C.D. Johnson, J.L. Brown, and J.W. Brown).
J. J. Jimenez and M. Ruiz-Garcıa are productive Spanish authors who were also identified
as Colombian, and the latter is associated with a Colombian university. T. Defler, J.
D. Lynch, and F. G. Stiles are other productive foreign researchers working at Colombian
institutions. My analysis was also useful for identifying Colombian authors who have
contributed large bodies of work on Colombian biodiversity, including: A. Acero, R.
Alvarez-Leon, G. Amat-Garcıa, N.E. Ardila, I. Armbrecht, E.E. Bejarano, J. Betancur, R.
Benal, R. Botero-Trujillo, A. Cadena, C.D. Cadena, M.R. Campos, J. Cavelier, P. Chacon,
L.M. Constantino, F. Escobar, F. Fernandez, E. Florez, C.B. Garcıa, J. Garzon-Ferreira, D.
Biodivers Conserv
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Biodivers Conserv
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Giraldo-Canas, R. Gonzalez, V.H. Gonzalez, J.A. Maldonado-Ocampo, L.G. Naranjo, G.
Nates-Parra, V.P. Paez, L.C. Pardo-Lorcano, C. Roman-Valencia, P.R. Stevenson, P.M.
Ruiz-Carranza, J.A. Salazar, O.D. Solano, S. Zea, and M. d. C. Zuniga.
Discussion
The 5,264 studies on Colombian biodiversity compiled in this study represent the broadest
bibliographic, subject, and taxonomic coverage of any bibliometric study on biodiversity
for a Neotropical country. This is mostly because other studies focused on particular
regions, taxa, subjects, or journals, or used a less comprehensive database (Cortes and
Nielsen 2002; Pitman et al. 2007; Michan et al. 2008; Stocks et al. 2008; Estela et al. 2010;
Stevenson et al. 2010; Liu et al. 2011; Pitman et al. 2011; Nielsen-Munoz et al. 2012;
Arbelaez-Cortes 2013). For instance, a study of global patterns of biodiversity publications
did not include Colombia among the most productive countries, despite having gathered
information for a broader period (1900–2009), and listed ten countries with fewer than
1,000 studies (Liu et al. 2011). This probably reflects differences in data collection
methods. Despite those differences, it is possible to compare my results, to some extent,
with other studies.
The number of studies on Colombian biodiversity for the period 1990–2011 is relatively
high, considering that Colombia spends only 0.15 % of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP)
on research and development while countries with the highest scientific production spend
over 2 % (The World Bank 2012). However, Colombian scientific production is still below
the expected output according to its GDP (De Moya-Anegon and Herrero-Solana 1999;
Inonu 2003). Biodiversity publications represent around 30 % of Colombian scientific
production (E. Arbelaez-Cortes unpublished data), which is similar to the proportions
reported for other Latin American countries (Glanzel et al. 2006; Caputo et al. 2012).
Fig. 4 Geographic patterns of the number of studies on Colombian biodiversity (1990–2011) for eachdepartment according to three major disciplines
Fig. 3 Geographic patterns of the number of studies on Colombian biodiversity (1990–2011) and theSimpson diversity index for each department and ocean. Number of studies is presented for the total datasetand for six subjects (taxa lists, new taxa, new records, conservation, genetic diversity, and other). Inset mapdepicts the location of Colombia in South America
b
Biodivers Conserv
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The increasing number of studies per year is not an idiosyncratic characteristic of
Colombia, but rather reflects changes in the international research landscape (De Moya-
Anegon and Herrero-Solana 1999; Glanzel 2001; Michels and Schmoch 2012), particularly
in the growth rate of biodiversity publications over the last two decades (Liu et al. 2011),
and is similar to the pattern found for Venezuela (Caputo et al. 2012). However, my
database indicated a decrease of studies by 2011. This could be related to a methodological
bias, since my search was conducted in February 2012, and some journals probably had not
fully updated their 2011 volumes at that time.
Publications on Colombian biodiversity covered several subjects. However, the subject
‘other’ accounted for the highest number of studies. Because ‘other’ was a subject com-
prising several kinds of studies, a detailed classification of these studies could be more
informative, and deserves further attention. With regard to the ‘new taxa’ subject, I found
that at least 2,490 new species were described in Colombia between 1990 and 2011. It has
been shown that the number of studies describing new species has increased both globally
and in Latin America (Michan 2011; Costello et al. 2013). In fact, descriptions of new
species in Colombia grew from the year 2000 to 2009, and averaged 0.73 % of all new
species in the world, but there was ample variation among taxa (0.06–9.59 %, Arbelaez-
Cortes 2013). Another notable result is that departments with the largest cities in the
country (i.e., Bogota, Cali, and Medellın) account for the most studies describing new taxa.
In fact, the most recent new bird species (Thryophilus sernai, Lara et al. 2012) was
described from a locality less than 50 km from Medellın. This indicates that there is a large
number of unknown species even in the best-studied regions of Colombia, implying that
the species numbers that make Colombia a megadiverse country are still low in comparison
with their real numbers. One aim of biodiversity research is to describe ten million species
in less than 50 years (Wheeler et al. 2012); therefore, a large portion of the international
resources assigned to complete the global biodiversity inventory must be allocated to
megadiverse countries such as Colombia in order to increase the rate of new species
description.
While studies in the ‘taxa lists’ and ‘new records’ subjects are basic and descriptive,
they are important for documenting biodiversity at local and regional scales, and offer key
support for conservation initiatives. Moreover, species lists can be used as data sources for
more general studies (e.g., Kattan and Franco 2004; Kattan et al. 2004; Patten and Smith-
Patten 2008; Bass et al. 2010). However, despite the high number of descriptive studies,
the basic documentation of biodiversity is still poor for several Colombian departments
and for different taxa. Studies on conservation in Colombia focused on a few taxonomic
classes, reflecting the taxonomic bias in global conservation (IUCN 2012b), and most of
the territory had few publications. Additionally, studies on conservation in Colombia
represented only 9 % of the database, in contrast to a global analysis indicating that
conservation held a central position in biodiversity studies (Liu et al. 2011). Finally, studies
on genetic diversity showed a bias towards taxa related to infectious diseases, taxa of
economic importance, and humans (which comprise one half of mammal studies in this
subject).
The most conspicuous characteristic of the taxonomic coverage of Colombian studies is
that studies of Animalia outnumber those of Plantae. This same result had been already
reported for Costa Rica (Nielsen-Munoz et al. 2012) and for studies about systematics in
Latin America (Michan et al. 2008). While Plantae ranks second among taxa reporting the
most descriptions of new species for Colombia, they only represent 1.25 % of species
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described for the world, a proportion that is lower than the proportion represented by new
Colombian vertebrate taxa (Arbelaez-Cortes 2013). The low number of studies of Plantae
is even evident when compared with studies of vertebrates. The relatively few publications
on Plantae over the last two decades is rare and merits further analyses, because Colombia
has an outstanding flora, almost two million herbarium specimens, and a long tradition in
botany (Dıaz 1991; Bernal et al. 2007).
The most notable feature in the geographic distribution of studies on Colombian
biodiversity is the high rank of the Atlantic Ocean. This parallels the results of
Miloslavich et al. (2010), suggesting that biodiversity of Colombian Atlantic Ocean was
well represented in Caribbean marine biodiversity databases. The Pacific Ocean showed
fewer publications than the Atlantic, probably due to the relatively more easy access to
the second region. Besides, my word count analysis suggested that marine studies were
biased toward coral reefs, which are more common and species rich in the Colombian
Atlantic Ocean (Garzon-Ferreira and Pinzon 1999; Reyes 2000). However, a biblio-
graphic analysis of marine birds (Estela et al. 2010) indicated a greater number of
studies in the Pacific Ocean, implying that the pattern presented here could change
depending on the taxa analyzed. It is worth noting that the high rank of both
Colombian maritime territories is the result of comparing them to continental depart-
ments. When all continental studies are clumped they comprised 79 % of all studies,
leaving only 21 % for marine studies (including islands). Other bibliometric studies
have reported for Revista de Biologıa Tropical that 27 % of studies are on marine
biodiversity (Cortes and Nielsen 2002; Nielsen-Munoz et al. 2012), while analyses of
particular disciplines have shown that marine organism are underrepresented (5–17 %)
in comparison with mainland organisms (Hampe and Petit 2005; Beheregaray 2008).
Also, journals that focus on marine ecosystems are poorly represented among the most
active journals publishing on global biodiversity (Liu et al. 2011). Therefore, the
proportion of studies on marine biodiversity in Colombia falls into the expected range
for the marine ecosystem.
The geographic patterns found for continental Colombia were expected because the
highest numbers of studies were from departments that harbor the most productive
academic institutions (Meyer et al. 1995; Anduckia et al. 2000; Bucheli et al. 2012).
However, other departments such as Amazonas, Choco, and Magdalena ranked highly
for several subjects. Those departments are of particular interest for biodiversity
research because they harbor extensive areas covered by forests of extraordinary species
richness or endemism (Faber-Langendoen and Gentry 1991; Duivenvoorden 1994;
Lynch 2005; Bass et al. 2010; Forero-Medina and Joppa 2010). In contrast, several
departments in eastern and southeastern Colombia presented few studies. This is
probably a consequence of the difficult access of these areas or the high number of
armed actions there (Franco et al. 2006; Vicepresidencia de la Republica de Colombia
2008, Regalado 2013). In fact, some studies have discussed the relationship between
Colombia’s armed conflict and its biodiversity (Davalos 2001; Alvarez 2002; Fjeldsa
et al. 2005; Lynch and Arroyo 2009; Stevenson et al. 2010). The low number of
studies in northern departments could be caused by a focus there on marine research. In
studies involving two departments I found that neighboring departments were more
common, suggesting that they are studied together probably because the ecosystem or
taxon under study ranges across the area.
It is clear that the number of studies presented here should be considered as a minimum
of the total scientific production on Colombian biodiversity, due to the omission error of
my database and because of the several studies that I assigned to general definitions (e.g.,
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location = ‘Colombia’ and Class = ‘several’). However, the omission error estimates
suggest that my results are close to the total number of studies. I am aware that there is a
large volume of information on Colombian biodiversity in several books that could fill
some of the taxonomic, geographical, or subject gaps (e.g., Rangel-Ch. 1995; IAvH 1998;
Rangel-Ch. 2000; Ardila et al. 2002; Calderon et al. 2002; Rangel-Ch. 2004; Chaves and
Santamarıa 2006; Garcıa and Galeano 2006; Amat-G et al. 2007; Rangel-Ch. 2008; Ro-
mero et al. 2008; Rangel-Ch. 2009, 2010). However, books were not included in the data
source that I used, and I did not find another way to conduct an explicit and reproducible
methodology to analyze book references. Other than books, ‘gray literature’ is another
source of biodiversity information in tropical countries (Pitman et al. 2007; Estela et al.
2010; Stevenson et al. 2010; Corlett 2011), but such documents are neither visible/
accessible nor easily citable.
Despite the high volume of publications on Colombian biodiversity, the majority of this
information remains in journals that have low to no impact factor; a fact that is clearly
detrimental to the visibility of these works. As documented for Brazilian scientists (Glanzel
et al. 2006), Colombian biologists still prefer to publish in domestic and regional journals.
Latin American journals are under-represented in international databases, partially because
of language and financial reasons (Gomez et al. 1999; Michan 2011). Therefore, the
scientific community must read and cite Latin American journals (several of them are open
access), which include a lot of information from a region of incomparable biodiversity.
Another feature of Colombian biodiversity publications is that none of the top journals
identified here are among the top journals identified in a global assessment of biodiversity
publications (Liu et al. 2011). As previously noted, this could be explained by methodo-
logical differences, but probably also indicates that Colombian biodiversity research is out
of the mainstream of the field. However, several good examples of research on Colombian
biodiversity dealing with topics of broad interest have been published in top-level journals
(e. g., Andrade and Rubio-Torgler 1994; Duivenvoorden 1994; Arango-Velez and Kattan
1997; Bernal 1998; Cavelier et al. 1998; Cavelier and Tobler 1998; Garcıa et al. 1998;
Renjifo 1999; Restrepo et al. 1999; Restrepo and Vargas 1999; Valenzuela 2000; Renjifo
2001; Luddecke 2002; Zapata and Herron 2002; Armbrecht et al. 2005; Etter et al. 2005;
Numa et al. 2005; Rodriguez-Buritica et al. 2005; Arbelaez-Cortes et al. 2007; Camargo
et al. 2009; Muriel and Kattan 2009; Castellanos-Galindo et al. 2010; Etter et al. 2011;
Stevenson 2011).
The role of megadiverse countries in advancing the knowledge of their own bio-
diversity seems to be increasing, as documented by the increase in taxonomists based
in South America and Asia (Costello et al. 2013). A remarkable feature of publications
about Colombian biodiversity is that they are dominated by authors with Colombian
surnames (probably Colombian citizens), as well as foreign researchers affiliated with
Colombian institutions. This feature is shared with Brazil, Mexico, and the Madre de
Dios department of Peru, where lead authors of ecological or biodiversity studies,
tended to belong to local institutions; the pattern stands in contrast, however, to results
from Costa Rica and Panama, where publications have mainly been written by authors
from foreign institutions (Pitman et al. 2007; Stocks et al. 2008; but see Nielsen-Munoz
et al. 2012). This result could indicate a consolidation of biodiversity research around
Colombian scientists and institutions, and is a good sign which indicates that biodi-
versity is a ‘mature’ field of Colombian science. Nevertheless, a precise quantification
of the contribution of Colombia to the knowledge of its own biodiversity deserves an
Biodivers Conserv
123
analysis based on institutional affiliation (e.g., Glanzel et al. 2006; Stocks et al. 2008;
Liu et al. 2011).
Finally, my results suggest some recommendations for improving the documentation
of knowledge about Colombian biodiversity. This could be addressed by two different,
but complementary, approaches: first, publishing more and in more ‘visible’ journals;
and second, conducting more research on particular targets. The first approach is rel-
atively less expensive than the second, and could quickly increase publication volume
in coming years, continuing the trend depicted here. While precise numbers are not
available, the ‘grey literature’ (i.e., theses and technical reports), laboratory and field
notebooks, and scientific collections (some with data available through internet) are
other sources of data about Colombian biodiversity. The use of these already-collected
data to generate published studies is a priority. In fact, there are examples in which
combining such data with the published literature has generated information at local,
departmental, and regional scales (Bass et al. 2010; Miloslavich et al. 2010; Arbelaez-
Cortes et al. 2011; Castellanos-Galindo et al. 2011). In addition, universities and
funding agencies could ask researchers to include published studies, or studies sub-
mitted to journals, in the results expected from the research they support. These same
institutions, and other academic associations, could also promote more training in
academic writing. In addition, researchers must recognize that much of their data merits
publication and that there are particular journals specialized in publishing basic
information about biodiversity (e.g., Check List: Journal of species lists and distribu-
tion). Table 3 in Appendix presents a list of the most active journals publishing on
Colombian biodiversity that could be useful for some researchers to identify suitable
forums for their studies. The editors of these journals also have a responsibility to
maintain not only the quality and visibility of the studies they publish, but also the
continuity and regularity of published volumes in order to satisfy international stan-
dards for indexing.
The second approach is to conduct more research on particular targets. First, I have
shown that a large part of Colombia (the Amazon, Orinoquia, and part of the Caribbean) is
poorly represented and must be considered the principal geographical priorities for basic
research during the next years. However, those regions have been under a severe armed
conflict over the last several years and their poor knowledge is due to a complex reality that
does not reflect scientific negligence (see Regalado 2013). In fact, Colombian institutions
have tried to fill those gaps with particular publications (e.g., Romero et al. 2009 and the
series: Field studies of the fauna and flora of La Macarena, Colombia). Biological field
stations are keystones for conducting research in the Amazon and Orinoquia (Pitman 2010;
Stevenson et al. 2010; Pitman et al. 2011), and it is therefore necessary to both increase
support for existing stations (e.g., Caparu in Vaupes) and create or reactivate others. The
second target is to increase the number of published studies on plants. My data indicate that
more such studies are necessary for the Andean region (which has the richest flora in
Colombia), particularly in the departments of Cauca, Caldas, Huila, Quindıo, and Tolima.
Third, studies dealing with conservation and genetic diversity are common in the inter-
national research landscape and are another immediate priority for research in Colombia.
While the number of these studies has increased in Colombia, it remains modest. The
largest obstacle to conducting research based on genetic information in Colombia is
obtaining the permits necessary to access genetic resources and collect specimens (Ne-
moga and Rojas 2007; Fernandez 2011). Therefore, it is necessary that the governmental
Biodivers Conserv
123
agencies responsible for issuing permits understand the relevance of scientific research and
provide efficient and prompt services for researchers, something that seems to be occurring
(Ministerio de Ambiente y Desarrollo Sostenible 2013). Conservation studies are also an
urgent priority in the Andean region, which faces the highest anthropogenic pressures and
has the greatest species diversity for several taxa. Such studies are particularly necessary in
Boyaca, Caldas, Huila, Norte de Santander, and Tolima. Fourth, the least-studied taxa
probably harbor a large bulk of Colombian biodiversity and increasing knowledge about
such taxa is another priority. Knowledge about groups such as Archaea, Bacteria, and
Chromista, in addition to particular groups of Animalia (e.g., Rotifera, Acanthocephala),
Fungi (e.g., Glomeromycota), and Protozoa (e.g., Mycetozoa, Cercozoa), could be
enhanced by implementing new research techniques and strengthening cooperation with
foreign researchers. More precise targets could be defined for particular taxa or subjects
(e.g., Arbelaez-Cortes 2013), and by the whole Colombian scientific community, of which
I have indicated and cited some of the most prominent biodiversity researchers over the last
two decades. Their opinions and experience are crucial for optimizing knowledge about
Colombian biodiversity: a unique, irreplaceable, and very important natural resource of the
country.
Conclusion
Despite several economic, security, and political problems faced by Colombia over the
last century, I documented a growth in the number of publications on Colombian
biodiversity over the last two decades. I also highlighted several gaps in the geo-
graphical, taxonomic, and subject coverage that should be addressed in the near future.
Colombian researchers and institutions have played an important role in documenting
the biodiversity of their country; however, Colombian biologists must find a way to
contribute with higher impact publications in order to gain more attention from the
international community. The patterns presented here reflect the general status of
published studies on Colombian biodiversity and can be useful for optimizing and
guiding research within this field. Colombia ranks among the elite of megadiverse
countries and their outstanding biodiversity is of great scientific importance. In addi-
tion, Colombian biodiversity is a source of national pride and is tightly intertwined
with the cultural richness of the country. Therefore, biodiversity should remain a top
research priority for Colombian science.
Acknowledgments Thanks to the Direccion General de Bibliotecas of Universidad Nacional Autonoma deMexico (DGB-UNAM) for providing access to the database and to the journals. Thanks to CONACyT -Mexicofor a graduate studies scholarship (# 210543). I also thank A. S. Nyari, T. Kobelkowsky-Vidrio, I. MacGregor-Fors, N. Pitman, and two anonymous reviewers who made valuable comments and corrections that improvedthis manuscript. A special acknowledgment to the researchers who sent me the references used to test theomission error of my database.
Appendix
See Tables 3, 4, and 5.
Biodivers Conserv
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0.9
27
18
178
32
152
24
01
14
Rev
ista
Colo
mb
ian
ad
eE
nto
mo
log
ıaC
olo
mb
ia1
99
1,
20
11
0.2
48
31
50
57
22
28
55
69
Rev
ista
de
Bio
log
ıaT
rop
ical
Cost
aR
ica
19
90,
20
11
0.4
59
26
14
93
52
11
61
47
10
0
Rev
ista
de
laA
cadem
iaC
olo
mbia
na
de
Cie
nci
asE
xac
tas
Fıs
icas
yN
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rale
s
Colo
mb
ia1
99
1,
20
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N.A
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71
47
52
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81
22
61
Bole
tın
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ntı
fico
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ode
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tori
aN
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iver
sid
add
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ald
asC
olo
mb
ia1
99
6,
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N.A
.9
14
77
12
62
11
00
50
Bole
tın
de
Inv
esti
gac
ion
esM
arin
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Co
ster
asC
olo
mb
ia1
99
7,
20
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N.A
.2
41
40
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81
41
62
Act
aB
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olo
mb
ian
aC
olo
mb
ia1
99
1,
20
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N.A
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21
15
63
11
09
75
9
No
vo
nU
nit
edS
tate
s1
99
3,
20
11
0.1
95
31
06
21
02
30
04
Act
ual
idad
esB
iolo
gic
as(M
edel
lın
)C
olo
mb
ia1
99
0,
20
11
N.A
.1
68
83
87
67
34
8
Bio
taC
olo
mb
ian
aC
olo
mb
ia2
00
0,
20
09
N.A
.1
58
48
21
11
00
Orn
ito
log
ıaC
olo
mb
ian
aC
olo
mb
ia2
00
3,
20
10
N.A
.1
68
10
33
49
03
7
Bole
tın
SA
OC
olo
mb
ia1
99
1,
20
10
N.A
.1
62
20
01
84
02
5
Pro
ceed
ing
so
fth
eB
iolo
gic
alS
oci
ety
of
Was
hin
gto
nU
nit
edS
tate
s1
99
0,
20
10
0.2
92
12
56
44
82
00
7
Bole
tın
del
Mu
seo
de
En
tom
olo
gıa
de
laU
niv
ersi
dad
del
Val
leC
olo
mb
ia1
99
3,
20
11
N.A
.2
54
30
61
02
02
3
Dah
lia
Colo
mb
ia1
99
6,
20
08
N.A
.1
52
10
67
30
36
Bri
tto
nia
Un
ited
Sta
tes
19
97,
20
11
0.4
75
64
96
39
61
01
1
Rev
ista
Bra
sile
ira
de
Ento
molo
gia
Bra
zil
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0.5
36
24
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05
Bio
tro
pic
aU
nit
edS
tate
s1
99
1,
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ori
asdo
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ituto
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aldo
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9
Biodivers Conserv
123
Ta
ble
3co
nti
nu
ed
Jou
rnal
Jou
rnal
cou
ntr
yY
ear
of
the
firs
tan
dla
stp
aper
20
11
Imp
act
fact
or
Tax
on
om
iccl
asse
sin
clu
ded
Nu
mb
ero
fp
aper
sT
axa
list
sN
ewta
xa
New
reco
rds
Co
nse
rvat
ion
Gen
etic
div
ersi
tyO
ther
Pro
ceed
ing
so
fth
eE
nto
mo
log
ical
So
ciet
yo
fW
ash
ing
ton
Un
ited
Sta
tes
19
90,
20
11
0.4
02
13
74
26
40
01
4
SH
ILA
PR
evis
tad
eL
epid
opte
rolo
gia
Sp
ain
19
90,
20
07
N.A
.1
35
13
12
21
01
4
Orn
ito
log
ıaN
eotr
op
ical
Un
ited
Sta
tes
19
93,
20
10
0.3
36
13
15
23
31
23
Pap
eis
Av
uls
os
de
Zo
olo
gia
(Sao
Pau
lo)
Bra
zil
1990,
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N.A
.5
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618
50
09
Ces
ped
esia
Colo
mb
ia1
99
1,
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97
N.A
.6
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13
12
20
12
Car
ibb
ean
Jou
rnal
of
Sci
ence
Un
ited
Sta
tes
19
90,
20
08
0.2
21
22
79
44
20
19
Rev
ista
Bra
sile
ira
de
Zoolo
gia
Bra
zil
1992,
2008
N.A
.3
27
325
10
03
Cole
opte
rist
sB
ull
etin
Unit
edS
tate
s1991,
2011
0.4
04
12
71
13
30
01
4
Stu
die
so
nN
eotr
op
ical
Fau
na
and
En
vir
on
men
tE
ng
lan
d1
99
0,
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09
0.3
57
62
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13
20
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Iher
ingia
Ser
ieZ
oolo
gia
Bra
zil
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0.2
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25
325
40
00
Neo
tropic
alE
nto
molo
gy
Bra
zil
2003,
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0.6
03
22
47
64
04
9
Bull
etin
of
the
Bri
tish
Orn
ith
olo
gis
ts’
Clu
bE
ng
lan
d1
99
3,
20
10
N.A
.1
23
06
12
10
6
Info
rmat
ion
inea
chco
lum
nis
from
the
wh
ole
dat
abas
e,ex
cep
tfo
rth
ejo
urn
alco
un
try
and
imp
act
fact
or,
wh
ich
wer
eo
bta
ined
from
the
web
of
scie
nce
or
fro
mth
ere
spec
tiv
ejo
urn
al’s
web
pag
e.N
.A.
ind
icat
esth
atn
oim
pac
tfa
cto
rh
asb
een
assi
gn
ed
Biodivers Conserv
123
Tab
le4
Ab
stra
ctw
ord
cou
nts
Bota
ny
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Ento
molo
gy
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Ver
tebra
te
zoolo
gy
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Mai
nla
nd
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Mar
ine
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Spec
ies
or
sp2,1
78
2.0
0S
pec
ies
or
sp4,9
77
2.9
9S
pec
ies
or
sp3,2
10
1.6
9S
pec
ies
or
sp6,1
77
1.9
5S
pec
ies
or
sp1,2
84
1.4
6
Colo
mbia
or
Colo
mbia
n
1,0
02
0.9
2N
ewor
nov
2,1
80
1.3
1C
olo
mbia
or
Colo
mbia
n
1,4
17
0.7
5C
olo
mbia
or
Colo
mbia
n
2,3
28
0.7
4C
olo
mbia
or
Colo
mbia
n
670
0.7
6
New
or
nov
635
0.5
8C
olo
mbia
or
Colo
mbia
n
1,7
50
1.0
5P
opula
tion
or
popula
tions
714
0.3
7N
ewor
nov
1,7
48
0.5
5C
ora
lor
cora
ls
504
0.5
7
Fore
stor
fore
sts
626
0.5
8G
enus
or
gen
era
1,0
49
0.6
3F
ore
stor
fore
sts
625
0.3
3F
ore
stor
fore
sts
1,4
88
0.4
7C
arib
bea
n458
0.5
2
Gen
us
or
gen
era
447
0.4
7D
escr
ibed
826
0.5
0N
ewor
nov
572
0.3
0G
enus
or
gen
era
966
0.3
0A
rea
or
area
s342
0.3
9
Des
crib
ed383
0.3
5B
razi
l538
0.3
2A
rea
or
area
s552
0.2
9D
escr
ibed
794
0.2
5R
eef
or
reef
s340
0.3
9
Pla
nt
or
pla
nts
277
0.2
5G
roup
or
gro
ups
419
0.2
6G
roup
or
gro
ups
440
0.2
4A
rea
or
area
s780
0.2
5N
ewor
nov
259
0.2
9
Andes
or
Andea
n
252
0.2
3P
opula
tion
or
popula
tions
409
0.2
4A
ndes
or
Andea
n
437
0.2
3F
ound
766
0.2
4P
acifi
c256
0.2
9
Are
aor
area
s246
0.2
2M
ale
or
mal
es405
0.2
4F
ound
420
0.2
2P
opula
tion
or
popula
tions
652
0.2
1Is
land
or
isla
nds
249
0.2
7
Ecu
ador
239
0.2
2E
cuad
or
401
0.2
4F
ish
or
fish
es414
0.2
2S
tudy
613
0.1
9F
ish
or
fish
es239
0.2
7
Dis
trib
uti
on
or
dis
trib
uti
ons
227
0.2
0P
eru
375
0.2
3H
abit
ator
hab
itat
s
413
0.2
2H
igh
532
0.1
7F
ound
196
0.2
2
Hig
h207
0.1
9K
eyor
key
s349
0.2
1D
istr
ibuti
on
or
dis
trib
uti
ons
404
0.2
2D
iver
sity
504
0.1
6D
istr
ibuti
on
or
dis
trib
uti
ons
182
0.2
0
Div
ersi
ty203
0.1
9F
ore
stor
fore
sts
347
0.2
1R
iver
or
river
s333
0.1
8D
istr
ibuti
on
or
dis
trib
uti
ons
495
0.1
7C
oas
t178
0.2
0
Found
196
0.1
8F
ound
331
0.2
0S
ize
320
0.1
7A
ndes
or
Andea
n
491
0.1
5G
enus
or
gen
era
172
0.1
9
Illu
stra
ted
194
0.1
8C
oll
ecte
d318
0.1
9S
tudy
317
0.1
7D
iffe
rent
482
0.1
5C
oll
ecte
d168
0.1
9
Per
u184
0.1
7T
ype
or
types
308
0.1
9In
div
idual
s294
0.1
5F
irst
481
0.1
5F
irst
161
0.1
8
Biodivers Conserv
123
Tab
le4
con
tin
ued
Bota
ny
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Ento
molo
gy
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Ver
tebra
te
zoolo
gy
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Mai
nla
nd
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Mar
ine
Count
Fre
quen
cy
(%)
Stu
dy
184
0.1
7D
istr
ibuti
on
or
dis
trib
uti
ons
312
0.1
8D
iffe
rent
260
0.1
4T
ota
l481
0.1
5A
bundan
ceor
abundan
ces
154
0.1
7
Type
or
types
153
0.1
4F
irst
302
0.1
8F
irst
254
0.1
3N
um
ber
or
num
ber
s
479
0.1
5D
escr
ibed
149
0.1
7
Am
eric
a150
0.1
4V
enez
uel
a300
0.1
8C
onse
rvat
ion
252
0.1
3R
egio
nor
regio
ns
474
0.1
5S
tudy
141
0.1
6
Cro
at146
0.1
3C
ost
aR
ica
268
0.1
6H
igh
251
0.1
3C
oll
ecte
d442
0.1
4S
eaor
seas
138
0.1
6
The
20
most
com
mon
word
sin
abst
ract
sof
studie
son
Colo
mbia
nbio
div
ersi
ty(1
990–2011)
from
thre
em
ajor
dis
cipli
nes
and
from
mai
nla
nd
and
mar
ine
terr
itory
are
pre
sente
d
Biodivers Conserv
123
Table 5 Top 100 surnames ofthe authors of studies on Colom-bian biodiversity (1990–2011)
Surname Count Nationality
Gonzalez 115 Colombian
Garcia 101 Colombian
Salazar 101 Colombian
Rodriguez 82 Colombian
Lynch 82 Foreign
Campos 75 Colombian
Diaz 71 Colombian
Acero 66 Colombian
Lopez 64 Colombian
Ramirez 63 Colombian
Sanchez 63 Colombian
Duque 62 Colombian
Velez 60 Colombian
Martinez 58 Colombian
Roman-Valencia 58 Colombian
Fernandez 55 Colombian
Gomez 55 Colombian
Martins 52 Foreign
Bernal 50 Colombian
Jimenez 48 Colombian
Giraldo 44 Colombian
Morales 43 Colombian
Moreno 43 Colombian
Stevenson 43 Colombian
Ubirajara 43 Foreign
Alvarez-Leon 42 Colombian
Munoz 42 Colombian
Kattan 41 Foreign *
Restrepo 39 Colombian
Gutierrez 38 Colombian
Perez 38 Colombian
Rojas 37 Colombian
Vargas 37 Colombian
Alvarez 36 Colombian
Florez 36 Colombian
Cadena 35 Colombian
Escobar 35 Colombian
Ruiz 35 Colombian
Chacon 34 Colombian
Hernandez 34 Colombian
Torres 34 Colombian
Acosta 33 Colombian
Stiles 33 Foreign
Constantino 32 Colombian
Biodivers Conserv
123
Table 5 continuedSurname Count Nationality
Castro 32 Colombian
Botero 32 Colombian
Bejarano 32 Colombian
Castillo 32 Colombian
Correa 32 Colombian
Garzon-Ferreira 32 Colombian
Decaens 32 Foreign
Pardo 31 Colombian
Jaramillo 31 Colombian
Londono 31 Colombian
Navas 30 Colombian
Armbrecht 30 Colombian
Zea 30 Colombian
Ruiz-Carranza 29 Colombian
Arango 29 Colombian
Ulloa 29 Colombian
Donegan 29 Foreign
Taylor 29 Foreign
Ardila 28 Colombian
Suarez 28 Colombian
Zapata 28 Colombian
Castano 27 Colombian
Leon 27 Colombian
Paez 27 Colombian
Velasquez 27 Colombian
Ruiz-Garcia 27 Colombian *
Herrera 26 Colombian
Cavelier 26 Colombian
Maldonado-Ocampo 25 Colombian
Naranjo 25 Colombian
Ospina 25 Colombian
Reyes 25 Colombian
Valencia 25 Colombian
Johnson 25 Colombian*
Medina 24 Colombian
Betancur 24 Colombian
Palacio 24 Colombian
Silva 24 Colombian
Wolff 24 Colombian
Salaman 24 Foreign
Marin 23 Colombian
Parra 23 Colombian
Giraldo-Canas 23 Colombian
Solano 23 Colombian
Biodivers Conserv
123
References
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Andrade-C G (2007) Proyecto diversidad de las mariposas Andinas tropicales. http://www.andeanbutterflies.org/colombia_sp.html. Accessed 03 Dec 2012
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Table 5 continued
The assignation of each surnameas Colombian or foreign is basedon Genealogıas de Colombia(2010). Surnames marked withasterisk are indicating ‘false’assignations. Surnames arepresented with the spelling theyappear in web of knowledge
Surname Count Nationality
Amat-Garcia 22 Colombian
Franco 22 Colombian
Zuniga 22 Colombian
Defler 22 Foreign
Wingfield 22 Foreign
Arias 21 Colombian
Castellanos 21 Colombian
Cardona 21 Colombian
Brown 21 Colombian*
Clark 21 Foreign
Lourenco 21 Foreign
Mejia 21 Colombian
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123
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