Measuring ‘impact’ - news of highly downloaded papers

There are many ways these days to measure the impact of scientific publications but it’s always nice to be told that people are actually downloading your paper (of course, whether they read it or not is a different matter!).

Various scientific journals have collated all kinds of statistics covering activity in 2014 - some have now published lists of their most downloaded articles.

Members of CEH’s Plant-Soil Interactions group (based at our Lancaster site) figure prominently in the top download list from Global Change Biology Bioenergy. The group, which has conducted research on bioenergy for a number of years, including on projects such as ELUM and Carbo-Biocrop, are lead or co-authors on 4 of the 15 most downloaded GCB Bioenergy articles in 2014.

Well done to all involved!

The CEH staff and students are highlighted in bold:

Can biochar reduce soil greenhouse gas emissions from a Miscanthus bioenergy crop?
Sean D C Case, Niall P McNamara, David S Reay and Jeanette Whitaker

Implications of land-use change to Short Rotation Forestry in Great Britain for soil and biomass carbon
Aidan M Keith, Rebecca L Rowe, Kim Parmar, Mike P Perks, Ewan Mackie, Marta Dondini and Niall P McNamara

Evaluation of the ECOSSE model for simulating soil carbon under short rotation forestry energy crops in Britain
Marta Dondini, Edward O Jones, Mark Richards, Mark Pogson, Rebecca L Rowe, Aidan M Keith, Mike P Perks, Niall P McNamara, Joanne U Smith and Pete Smith

Modelling the carbon cycle of Miscanthus plantations: existing models and the potential for their improvement
Andy D Robertson, Christian A Davies, Pete Smith, Marta Dondini and Niall P McNamara

Meanwhile another CEH-led paper, "Horizon-scanning for invasive alien species with the potential to threaten biodiversity in Great Britain", was one of the top 15 most downloaded articles from the Global Change Biology journal last year. Lead author Dr Helen Roy told us the news was very exciting, and said she was delighted that the research had been of such interest.

This prescient paper was published before sightings of the Quagga mussel and Asian shore crab were confirmed in Britain later in 2014. There were also some unconfirmed sightings of raccoons. Interestingly, being published in May 2014, it is one of the more recent publications on the list! A 2002 article on climate change effects on insect herbivores, co-authored by former and current CEH staff members, was also among the top 15 downloaded from GCB. Again, well done to all the authors!

2014 article: Horizon-scanning for invasive alien species with the potential to threaten biodiversity in Great Britain
Helen E Roy, Jodey Peyton, David C Aldridge, Tristan Bantock, Tim M Blackburn, Robert Britton, Paul Clark, Elizabeth Cook, Katharina Dehnen-Schmutz, Trevor Dines, Michael Dobson, François Edwards, Colin Harrower, Martin C Harvey, Dan Minchin, David G Noble, Dave Parrott, Michael J O Pocock, Chris D Preston, Sugoto Roy, Andrew Salisbury, Karsten Schönrogge, Jack Sewell, Richard H Shaw, Paul Stebbing, Alan J A Stewart, Kevin J Walker

2002 article: Herbivory in global climate change research: direct effects of rising temperature on insect herbivores
Jeffery S Bale, Gregory J Masters, Ian D Hodkinson, Caroline Awmack, T Martijn Bezemer, Valerie K Brown, Jennifer Butterfield, Alan Buse, John C Coulson, John Farrar, John E G Good, Richard Harrington, Susane Hartley, T Hefin Jones, Richard L Lindroth, Malcolm C Press, Ilias Symrnioudis, Allan D Watt, John B Whittaker

Related links

GCB Bioenergy

Global Change Biology

CEH News:  Top 30 high risk invasive alien species with potential to threaten British biodiversity identified by scientists

Integration and reflection - paperblog 8

This week we concentrate on recent papers with CEH scientists as the first author.

PhD student Philip Martin recently published a major paper summarising his research over the last few years. You can read more about "Carbon pools recover more quickly than plant biodiversity in tropical secondary forests" (published in Proceedings of the Royal Society B) on the CEH website and on Philip's blog.

Another PhD student, Christopher Malley, has a new paper out in Atmospheric Research which takes a detailed look at how well two of the UK's atmospheric monitoring 'supersites', including the site run by CEH at Auchencorth Moss in Scotland, represent the UK's background ozone conditions.

CEH is a Centre that carries out both ecological and hydrological science, sometimes together (the clue is in the name!). Our scientists produce many papers that seek to bring together varied data on water quantity, freshwater ecology, and water quality. In recent weeks, CEH scientists have published on estimating concentrations in rivers of different chemicals originating from sewage treatment plants (Keller et al., open access in Environmental Toxicology and Chemistry), and a new approach for predicting phosphorus concentrations in rivers (Greene et al., Journal of Hydrology).

Sometimes it is necessary to take a step back from day to day research to ponder some fundamental questions on how scientific knowledge can be used in wider society. Two examples have recently appeared. Alan Gray has a new paper in Transgenic Research examining whether applied ecology has failed the transgenic crops debate. Stefan Reis and colleagues from CEH, Universities and Health Institutes across the UK have put together a new analysis on how to integrate health and environmental impact analysis to address some of the new public health challenges.

Nitrogen science plays a big role in CEH activities. Laurence Jones and CEH colleagues have produced a new review of the evidence for nitrogen impacts on ecosystem services. Read it in the journal Ecosystem Services, where the paper is open access (full text freely available). Meanwhile, Mark Sutton is lead author on another new open access paper in Environmental Development looking at "Green Economy thinking" and relevance to control of nitrous oxide emissions.

Finally, Robert Mills, who completed a PhD at CEH's site in Bangor, North Wales, has just published a new paper on organic carbon turnover rates in natural and semi-natural topsoils. Working with Professor Ed Tipping, the study concludes with the interesting result that turnover is faster under trees than non-trees. Read more in the journal Biogeochemistry.

That's it. As ever, we welcome suggestions and comments on the material presented in the paperblog. Let us know what you think!

Barnaby Smith, Media Relations Manager

Additional information

If you'd like a fuller picture of new papers from CEH, just follow the CEH Paper Alerts Twitter feed, which lists CEH peer-reviewed papers newly published online. Full details of Centre for Ecology & Hydrology science publications, including those published in peer-reviewed science journals, are eventually catalogued on the NERC Open Research Archive (NORA).

Those of you who follow the scientific literature will know some journal websites require registration and some are subscription-only. CEH, as part of NERC, is working with publishers and funders to make more of our output open access, and we have indicated above where this is the case.

We also publish lots of our other outputs including biological records atlases and project reports. More details can be found in the publications section of the CEH website.

British birds, pollinators and penguin poo - paperblog 7

In the latest edition of the CEH paperblog, we first highlight a recent PLoS ONE paper that involved researchers from Anglia Ruskin University and Dr Shelley Hinsley of CEH in a ten-year study of British birds, and how weather interacts with habitat to determine breeding success. The Cambridgeshire-focused study discovered that birds breeding in urban areas are better able to cope during unusually cold and wet weather, because they are less reliant on a single food source for feeding their chicks. The study compared 2012 - with its notable weather, including a cold and wet spring and lower than average temperatures - to the previous nine years.

Over the whole ten years of the study, birds living in the traditional woodland habitat had fared significantly better and produced larger and healthier broods than their city cousins. However, if extreme weather events become more commonplace due to the effects of climate change, then those birds living in urban environments may ultimately have the advantage. The PLoS ONE paper is open access.

Staying with PLoS ONE, and open access, a study led by Professor Hui Wang of CEH has used new technology to investigate viruses such as varroa destructor virus in honeybees and bumblebees. The results, from a small field trial, show how the use of Next Generation Sequencing (NGS) technology can help understand virus infections in key pollinating insects, with novel observations even from a small sample size. Such technology has potentially interesting applications in ecological and environmental science.

A new paper in the Journal of Applied Ecology also looks at pollinators and other invertebrates that provide important ecosystem services crucial to crop production. A team of researchers led by CEH mapped the distribution of species richness and functional diversity for ground beetles which are important in the delivery of natural pest control and for bees, important for pollination. Understanding national patterns can help to promote more effective crop management and contribute to longer-term food security.

Next, penguins are under the spotlight in a new paper in Atmospheric Environment. The emissions from remote seabird colonies often represent the main source of atmospheric nitrogen into surrounding ecosystems, and can provide useful case studies for scientists investigating nitrogen cycling and emission processes. However before this study no field-based estimates of ammonia emissions from penguin colonies had been published. Data was collected from seven locations around an Adelie penguin colony in the Antarctic and three different atmospheric dispersion models were used to derive the first field-based emission estimates of a penguin colony.  The researchers, including Sim Tang and Mark Sutton of CEH, estimate that 2% of the nitrogen excreted by the penguins is emitted as ammonia.

Finally, a featured article in the Journal of Environmental Quality led by Prof Andrew Sharpley (University of Arkansas) and involving Helen Jarvie, Bryan Spears and Linda May of CEH, used long-term monitoring data from a range of case studies (including CEH's Loch Leven and River Lambourn sites) to demonstrate the timelines and processes associated with recovery of water quality following phosphorus reduction measures. The team reported recovery times ranging from years to centuries across terrestrial and aquatic ecosystems. Read more in the open access paper and more background in a CEH news story.

Paulette Burns, Media Coordinator

Additional information

If you'd like a fuller picture of new papers from CEH, just follow the CEH Paper Alerts Twitter feed, which lists CEH peer-reviewed papers newly published online. Full details of Centre for Ecology & Hydrology science publications, including those published in peer-reviewed science journals, are eventually catalogued on the NERC Open Research Archive (NORA).

Those of you who follow the scientific literature will know some journal websites require registration and some are subscription-only. CEH, as part of NERC, is working with publishers and funders to make more of our output open access, and we have indicated above where this is the case.

We also publish lots of our other outputs including biological records atlases and project reports. More details can be found in the publications section of the CEH website.

Peat, puffins and pollinators - Paperblog No 2

Our second paperblog covers wildlife and radionuclides, peatland chemistry, puffin survival, drugs and the environment, and pesticides and rats. For those who want to know more about the paperblog concept, take a look at paperblog #1 published on 21 June.

• Dr Nick Beresford and colleagues from Canada, Austria, Sweden and Finland have produced "A new approach to predicting environmental transfer of radionuclides to wildlife". Their new paper in Science of the Total Environment applies the method to freshwater fish and caesium.
• Dr Lucy Sheppard and colleagues from the Netherlands and Spain report on a nine-year experiment examining vegetation changes and chemistry in a Scottish peatland. The paper is published in Biogeochemistry.
• Prof Mike Harris and scientists from CEH's seabird ecology team working on the Isle of May NNR off the east coast of Scotland have used geolocators attached to Atlantic puffins to gain further insights into their survival rates over winter. The paper is published in Marine Biology.
• Prof Richard Shore, who studies the exposure and effects of pollutants, biocides and pesticides in wild birds and mammals, is a co-author on a new paper in Biology Letters. It reports the conclusions of a Royal Society-supported seminar involving experts from diverse scientific fields discussing the risks posed by pharmaceuticals to wildlife.
• Prof Shore, along with three CEH colleagues, also co-authors a new paper in Food and Chemical Toxicology which examines metabolic and physiological changes in rats following short-term oral dosing with pesticides commonly found in food.
• And finally a special mention for the new publication from the British Ecological Society, "100 Influential Papers", which were chosen from BES journals published in the society's first 100 years. Research by several current and former CEH scientists is included, as well as several papers published by staff at our predecessor institutes. One of the more recent papers included in the list is a study led by Dr Claire Carvell comparing the efficacy of agri-environment schemes to enhance bumblebee abundance and diversity on arable field margins. The study, published in 2006, "represents a quantum shift in our approach", in the words of Prof Jane Memmott, who recommended it for inclusion on the 100 influential papers list.

That's it for our second paperblog. More in a couple of weeks!

Barnaby Smith - CEH Media Relations Manager

Additional information

If you'd like a fuller picture of new papers from CEH, just follow the @CEHPaperAlerts Twitter feed, which lists CEH peer-reviewed papers newly published online. Full details of Centre for Ecology & Hydrology science publications, including those published in peer-reviewed science journals, are eventually catalogued on the NERC Open Research Archive (NORA).

Those of you who follow the scientific literature will know some journal websites require registration and some are subscription-only. CEH, as part of NERC, is working with publishers and funders to make more of our output open access, and we'll be indicating where this is the case.

We also publish lots of other outputs including biological record atlases and project reports. More details can be found in the publications section of the CEH website.

As always, we're very interested in your feedback, so please let us know what you think or suggest any improvements that could be made by commenting on the blog or emailing us via enquiries@ceh.ac.uk

Introducing the CEH 'paperblog'

CEH scientists lead or co-author more than 400 peer-reviewed papers every year in a wide variety of journals. We know that many of you are interested in regular updates on recent papers involving our scientists, so we’re introducing a new regular ‘paperblog’. The intention is to publish a short post every other Friday giving details and links to a selection of interesting research published in the last few weeks. I’ll try to include four or five recent papers, most of which will have a CEH scientist as lead author, although I’ve reserved the right to make exceptions for interesting material our staff have co-authored.

Paperblog No 1 - 21 June 2013

A bumper edition to launch the paperblog covering topics such as Scottish mountain ecology, ecosystem services, evaporation in Britain, health effects of drought, gannets, river pollution, ecological networks and nitrogen deposition.

• CEH scientists have published two interesting papers on ecosystems services in the Journal of Applied Ecology. Lindsay Maskell and colleagues used Countryside Survey data to explore the ecological constraints to multiple ecosystem service delivery and biodiversity within Great Britain. James Bullock and Danny Hooftman mapped ecosystem service and biodiversity changes over 70 years in Dorset (or, in their words, “a rural English county”).

• Another paper to use Countryside Survey data was published in Environmental Pollution reporting on a study led by Professor Ed Tipping. It looked at nitrogen deposition effects on plant species diversity in five habitats: woodland, heath, acid grassland, bog and calcareous grassland.

• Dr Alison Kay, working with CEH colleagues, wrote "A hydrological perspective on evaporation: historical trends and future projections in Britain". The paper is published in Journal of Water and Climate Change and the abstract can be read here.

• Dr Christel Prudhomme worked with staff at the Health Protection Agency (now Public Health England) on a systematic review of the health effects of drought. It’s Open Access and published in PLOS Currents.

• Dr Dan Chapman has a new paper in Global Change Biology reporting on his study using MODIS satellite data to look at temperature sensitivity of mountain vegetation activity on over 2700 Scottish mountain peaks.

• Seabird ecologist Professor Sarah Wanless was one of a large team of authors on a major paper published in the leading journal Science which demonstrated how gannets from different colonies feed in mutually exclusive areas. You can read more about the CEH contribution to the study here.

• Monika Jurgens and CEH colleagues worked with scientists from Lancaster University to publish a new paper in Science of the Total Environment looking at the presence of mercury and other substances in wild fish. The paper abstract is here and the paper has already been covered by the Chemical Watch news website (registration required).

That’s it for our first paperblog. More in a couple of weeks!

Barnaby Smith – CEH Media Relations Manager

Additional information

If you’d like a fuller picture of new papers from CEH, just follow the @CEHPaperAlerts twitter feed, which lists CEH peer-reviewed papers newly published online. Full details of Centre for Ecology & Hydrology science publications including those published in peer-reviewed science journals are eventually catalogued on the NERC Open Research Archive (NORA).

Those of you that follow the scientific literature will know some journal websites require registration and some are subscription-only. CEH, as part of NERC, is working with publishers and funders to make more of our output open access, and we’ll be indicating where this is the case.

We also publish lots of other outputs including biological records atlases and project reports. More details can be found on the publications page of our website.

As always we’re very interested in your feedback, so please let us know what you think and any improvements that could be made by commenting on the blog or emailing us via enquiries@ceh.ac.uk.