Coral reefs are shallow-water marine ecosystems. Built by coral
animals, members of the phylum Cnidaria, which incorporate calcium
carbonate into their exoskeletons, reefs are large, underwater
edifices that create habitats for thousands of species of marine
invertebrates, fish, algae, and bacteria. Reefs are among the most
biologically diverse environments in the world, and have the greatest
biodiversity of the shallow-water marine ecosystems. Many of the
species that dwell in and around coral reefs are endemic to a specific
reef. Coral animals themselves also have their own symbionts. Coral
reefs tend to be limited to 30 degrees north and south of the Equator.
Coral are prone to effects from environmental changes, and, because
thousands of marine species may be affected by such changes,
alteration of a reef’s environment threatens the entire coral
ecosystem.
Special Topics has analyzed the literature related to coral reefs
published within the last 10 years, with particular attention to the
literature published within the last two years. These papers examine a
range of topics, including the chemistry of the seawater environment
in which the coral grow to the behavior or ecology of individual
species that live on or within a coral reef, the age of the coral
reef, and how coral animals and the animals that reside within the
coralline ecosystem disperse. More than a quarter of the top papers
analyzed for this précis are about dispersal of larval forms and
population modeling of coral reefs and their resident organisms. These
papers cover how reefs are populated, how far larvae are dispersed,
whether dispersed larvae survive, and how predation affects reef
populations.
Because reefs are so environmentally tenuous, highly cited papers
written over the last 10 years tend to focus on the effects of
environmental changes and pressures on the coral reef. Among these
changes are human disturbances in the form of mining or agriculture on
adjacent landmasses, overfishing, global warming, and industry and its
pollutants. In the last two years, some of the highly cited papers are
on means of conserving the reefs. Papers on marine reserves, which are
managed areas within the ocean, and other conservation efforts to
preserve reefs and their biodiversity now comprise about 30% of the
frequently cited papers on this topic.
Nearly half of the highly cited papers are reviews, most focusing
on reef populations, threats, and conservation. However, among the
highly cited papers are studies on the physiology of individual coral
species, the evolution of reef-dwellers, remote sensing technologies
to assess reef habitats, and means of dating reef ages.
Methodology
To construct this database,
papers were extracted based on a topic search for coral reef. The keywords used were as follows:
coral reef*
The baseline time span for this database
is 1994-2004 (third bimonthly). The resulting database contained 3,401 (10 years)
and 940 (2 years) papers; 5,060 authors; 103 countries; 486 journals; and
1,644 institutions.
Rankings
Once the database was in place,
it was used to generate the lists of top 20 papers (two, and ten years
periods), authors, journals,
institutions, and nations, covering a time span of 1994-2004 (third
bimonthly).
The top 20 papers are ranked
according to total cites. Rankings for author, journal, institution,
and country are listed in three ways: according to total cites, total
papers, and total cites/paper. The paper thresholds used to determine
scientist, institution, country, and journal rankings according to
total cites/paper were as follows: 12, 14, 4, and 12, respectively. These
thresholds correspond to the top 1% of authors, 5% of institutions, 50% of countries and
10% of journals by total papers.
