Skip to main content

Thank you for visiting nature.com. You are using a browser version with limited support for CSS. To obtain the best experience, we recommend you use a more up to date browser (or turn off compatibility mode in Internet Explorer). In the meantime, to ensure continued support, we are displaying the site without styles and JavaScript.

  • Correspondence
  • Published:

The dilemma of self-citation in taxonomy

Nature Ecology & Evolution volume 5, page 2 (2021)Cite this article

Subjects

To the Editor — Almost three centuries since Linnaeus introduced the system of binomial classification1, thousands of species new to science are still described every year2. Any research dealing with living organisms is intrinsically dependent on taxonomy for reproducibility, since misidentifications may affect conclusions3. As such, published taxonomic results should not be seen as obscure specialized papers, but instead as primers for taxon recognition that allow researchers to correctly identify the organisms they study. Yet recent controversies around the low impact factors of taxonomic journals4 highlight the need for more accurate measurement of the intellectual contribution of taxonomy5. Journals that still publish taxonomic contributions are being downgraded or threatened with exclusion from current impact evaluation metrics due to their self-citation rates6,7. But inevitably, as the numbers of both active taxonomists and journals publishing taxonomy decline, self-citation becomes more frequent both for journals and authors, exacerbating the issue and devaluing taxonomic work to a point where it might become unsustainable as an academic line of research, losing out in the competition for funding and jobs. Setting aside this disciplinary concern, the decreasing number of journals publishing taxonomy and the long-standing practice of not citing taxonomic work correctly in other biological research result in worrying underestimation of the impact that taxonomy has in every field of biology — this is especially concerning in a current climate of biodiversity decline, mass extinction and a pollination crisis8,9,10. In non-taxonomic papers, although it is generally recommended that author and year be given at first mention of a species name, the reference is not usually included in the literature cited. But in some of the most high-profile non-taxonomic journals, the inclusion of full taxonomic references would increase the manuscript by no more than one and a half references per printed page3. For those papers in which vast numbers of taxonomic works require citation (for example, studies mentioning thousands of species), an alternative method for referencing the relevant papers would be to link either by DOI or as discrete metafiles that would be checked by citation tracking databases (for example, Scopus, SciELO and Web of Science) to ensure that the references are incorporated in impact metrics. This solution would require buy-in from both journals, by providing discrete references metafiles, and citation database developers and managers, by including these metafiles in the citation tracking process. We, and the 1,312 signatories, urge all researchers to consider these solutions and propose additional measures in order to ensure appropriate recognition of the science of taxonomy.

This is a preview of subscription content, access via your institution

Access options

Buy this article

  • Purchase on Springer Link
  • Instant access to full article PDF
Buy now

Prices may be subject to local taxes which are calculated during checkout

References

  1. Linnaeus, C. Systema Naturæ 1st edn, 1–12 (Holmiae, 1735).

  2. Zoological Records (Clarivate Analytics, 2020); https://go.nature.com/37TaGuL

  3. Vink, C. J., Paquin, P. & Cruickshank, R. H. BioScience 62, 451–452 (2012).

    Article  Google Scholar 

  4. Journal of Citations Report (Clarivate Analytics, 2020); https://go.nature.com/2HNF6nb

  5. Hoagland, K. E. Assoc. Syst. Coll. Newslett. 24, 61–62 (1996).

    Google Scholar 

  6. Title Suppressions (Clarivate Analytics, 2020); https://go.nature.com/3kDFtzy

  7. Major Indexing Service Reverses Decision to Suppress Two Journals from Closely Followed Metric (Retraction Watch, 2020); https://go.nature.com/2TCJ9FP

  8. UN Report: Nature’s Dangerous Decline ‘Unprecedented’; Species Extinction Rates ‘Accelerating’ (United Nations, 2019); https://go.nature.com/37O15pf

  9. Butchart, S. H. M. et al. Science 328, 1164–1168 (2010).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

  10. Martin, C. Curr. Biol. 25, R811–R815 (2015).

    Article  CAS  Google Scholar 

Download references

Acknowledgements

We thank all 1,312 signatories for supporting this article; a full list of signatories and their affiliations appears in the Supplementary Information.

Author information

Authors and Affiliations

  1. Departamento de Biologia, Universidade Estadual da Paraíba, João Pessoa, Brasil

    Douglas Zeppelini

  2. Departamento Microbiologia e Parasitologia, Centro de Biociências, Universidade Federal do Rio Grande do Norte, Natal, Brasil

    Ana Dal Molin

  3. Museu de Zoologia da Universidade de São Paulo, São Paulo, Brasil

    Carlos J. E. Lamas

  4. Laboratorio de Sistemática y Biología Comparada de Insectos, Instituto de Ciencias Naturales, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Bogotá, Colombia

    Carlos Sarmiento

  5. Laboratório de Coleções Zoológicas, Instituto Butantan, São Paulo, Brasil

    Cristina A. Rheims

  6. Instituto Nacional de Pesquisas da Amazônia, Manaus, Brasil

    Daniell R. R. Fernandes

  7. Universidade Federal do Piauí, Campus Amílcar Ferreira Sobral, Floriano, Brasil

    Elison F. B. Lima

  8. Departamento de Ciências Biológicas, Universidade Estadual de Feira de Santana, Feira de Santana, Brasil

    Evandro N. Silva

  9. Coordenação de Zoologia, Entomologia, Museu Paraense Emílio Goeldi, Belém, Brasil

    Fernando Carvalho-Filho

  10. Department of Zoology, Institute of Biology and Ecology, Faculty of Science, P.J. Šafárik University, Košice, Slovakia

    Ľubomír Kováč

  11. Universidad del Valle, Cali, Colombia

    James Montoya-Lerma

  12. Emil Racovitza Institute of Speleology, Cluj-Napoca, Romania

    Oana T. Moldovan

  13. Museu Nacional, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Rio de Janeiro, Brasil

    Pedro G. B. Souza-Dias

  14. Universidade Federal do Mato Grosso, Cuiabá, Brasil

    Peterson R. Demite

  15. Departamento de Zoologia, Universidade Federal do Paraná, Curitiba, Brasil

    Rodrigo M. Feitosa

  16. Biology Department, Macalester College, Saint Paul, MN, USA

    Sarah L. Boyer

  17. Institute of Systematics and Evolution of Animals, Polish Academy of Sciences, Kraków, Poland

    Wanda M. Weiner

  18. Entomologistas do Brasil, EntomoBrasilis, Vassouras, Brasil

    William C. Rodrigues

Authors
  1. Douglas Zeppelini
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  2. Ana Dal Molin
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  3. Carlos J. E. Lamas
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  4. Carlos Sarmiento
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  5. Cristina A. Rheims
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  6. Daniell R. R. Fernandes
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  7. Elison F. B. Lima
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  8. Evandro N. Silva
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  9. Fernando Carvalho-Filho
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  10. Ľubomír Kováč
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  11. James Montoya-Lerma
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  12. Oana T. Moldovan
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  13. Pedro G. B. Souza-Dias
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  14. Peterson R. Demite
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  15. Rodrigo M. Feitosa
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  16. Sarah L. Boyer
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  17. Wanda M. Weiner
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

  18. William C. Rodrigues
    View author publications

    You can also search for this author in PubMed Google Scholar

Corresponding author

Correspondence to Douglas Zeppelini.

Ethics declarations

Competing interests

The authors declare no competing interests.

Supplementary information

Supplementary Information

Supplementary Notes 1–3, including a list of the authors’ editorial roles and Tables 1 and 2.

Rights and permissions

Reprints and permissions

About this article

Check for updates. Verify currency and authenticity via CrossMark

Cite this article

Zeppelini, D., Dal Molin, A., Lamas, C.J.E. et al. The dilemma of self-citation in taxonomy. Nat Ecol Evol 5, 2 (2021). https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01359-y

Download citation

  • Published:

  • Issue Date:

  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1038/s41559-020-01359-y

This article is cited by

Search

Advanced search

Quick links

Nature Briefing

Sign up for the Nature Briefing newsletter — what matters in science, free to your inbox daily.

Get the most important science stories of the day, free in your inbox. Sign up for Nature Briefing