The geographic bias of mammal studies: a comparison of a half a century of research on Palearctic and Neotropical mammals

Introduction: There are no studies that specifically compare research output of Palearctic and Neotropical mammalogy; such comparison would be useful for informed decisions in conservation management. Objective: To the scientific documents citations about mammals over half a century. Methods: We compared 50 years (1970-2019) on 60 medium large-sized (heavier than 1 kg) mammal species, Scopus Web Science (WoS) Core Collection, considering number four citation indicators at species level (h-index, rate, total citations, per year). Results: retrieved 13 274 12 913 WoS. found have 3.77 times more (3.91 WoS), recorded 5.95 (6.93 WoS). also record yearly higher h-index both articles (2 782 vs. 2 631 WoS) had (28 120 24 977 WoS); differences between regions were marker The greatly affected by how many published, i.e. region with production is one values. showed greater growth rate last decade, decreasing gap regions. Conclusion: regional bias WoS Scopus, which retrieve mammals; this worse means an urgent increase indexed needed to par research.