Scientometrical review of Dinoflagellate studies in Brazil

Abstract

Scientific production in developing countries is currently increasing, but there is still an unbalanced distribution of scientific production between developed and developing countries. With the need to elucidate disparities in scientific production, this paper aims to review publications on dinoflagellates in Brazil by discussing spatial and temporal trends. A search for papers referring to dinoflagellates was performed in the Scopus database up to the year of 2016. A total of 125 papers were found, but only 106 were selected according to established criteria. A linear regression was used to evaluate the increasing temporal trend in production and non-parametric ANOVA for comparisons among study categories. Dinoflagellate and toxic taxa-based publications have increased from 1990 to 2016 for Brazil, yet a discrepancy in performance with other countries is evident. There is a constant increase in the number of functional ecology studies focusing on toxin-producing species related to blooms. The spatial distribution of production in Brazil revealed that the Southeast and South regions are the most productive, where there more graduate programs and advanced research centers. Investments in this ecological subject are fundamental to the management of biodiversity, and a call for more equal resource distribution in developing countries is imperative.

A scientometric study of the molecular data on Brazilian red algae

“…These findings are in line with the previous information, demonstrating that the regions where there is a greater number of papers/sequences are not necessarily the regions in which the institutions responsible for such studies are located. This is due to the great concentration of researchers, institutions, universities, and botanical collections in southeastern Brazil (Nabout et al 2015;Noga & Gomes 2018;Gasper et al 2020;Mcmanus et al 2021) with infrastructure and funding to carry out the stages of molecular biology and bioinformatics work.…”

“…In this context, scientometrics studies are relevant tools from which it is possible to quantify scientific literature data in a particular field (Hood & Wilson 2001;Coelho et al 2014), to demonstrate current trends and to detect knowledge gaps, as well as to provide guidelines and motivations for future research in specific fields or areas (Coelho et al 2014;Oliveira et al 2020). Regarding the algal research, some studies have focused on themes such as genomics (Konur 2020a), algal structures (Konur 2020b), and macroalgal biomass (Coelho et al 2014), or in specific groups such as macrophytes (Padial et al 2008), seaweeds (Mohan & Ravi 2007;Kumaresan et al 2015), phytoplankton (Nabout et al 2015) and dinoflagellates (Noga & Gomes 2018;Oliveira et al 2020).…”

Connecting environmental education, science–technology–society and ecological theory: possible pathways to reduce socioenvironmental problems

“…In spite of their importance, phytoplankton communities have been neglected with regard to conservation efforts. In Brazil, dinoflagellates (unicellular microscopic organisms responsible for toxic or harmful blooms, also called red tides) have remained far less studied than in other countries in the last 50 years, especially when compared with Japan, China, Germany, the United Kingdom, and the United States (Noga and Gomes, 2018).…”

A Scientometric Overview of Global Dinoflagellate Research

“…Recently, bibliometric analyses have been reported on eutrophication [17], diatom research [18], microcystins in China [19], photosynthesis [20] and microalgae research [21]. However, although these reports indirectly addressed dinoflagellate research, curiously this area has not been specifically emphasized-with the exception of Barbosa Noga and Ferreira Gomes [22] summarizing Brazilian dinoflagellate studies.…”