Biases in the production of knowledge 869 Researching the linkages between ecosystems, develop-


ment and poverty ideally requires an interdisciplinary approach, combining natural science with the insights of economics and other social sciences (Daw et al., 2011; Howe et al., 2014; Chaigneau et al., 2019). We, for example, have backgrounds in environmental science, geography, anthropology and zoology. Yet research on the values of nature can be dominated by particular disciplines, such as economics, at the expense of other forms of evaluation (Kallis et al., 2013; Hansjürgens et al., 2017). Disciplinary backgrounds shape and potentially limit the understanding of what poverty means (for example, with respect to gender; Agarwal, 2010), which dimensions of poverty count, which aspects of ecosystem services matter and the nature of the multiple relationships between poverty and ecosystem services (Howe et al., 2018). Understanding how knowledge about ecosystem services and poverty alleviation is gen- erated is therefore important. Here we apply social network analysis to the production


of scientific knowledge on ecosystem services and poverty alleviation. We investigate who wrote the most cited peer- reviewed publications during January 1990–May 2016 and where they have published; which collaborative networks have emerged and how these relate to the authors’ disciplin- ary backgrounds and country of employment; and which in- stitutions and funding sources have supported the reported research. We pay particular attention to the role played by the Natural Capital Project and the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme because of the breadth and size of their published outputs up to May 2016 (.700 papers).


Methods


To identify the most relevant producers of academic knowl- edge in the field of ecosystem services and poverty, we con- ducted a multi-stage data selection and screening process. We conducted a term-based search in Web of Science (Clarivate Analytics, Philadelphia, USA) of all published academic documents (peer reviewed journal articles, books, book chapters and conference proceedings) in En- glish, published during January 1990–May 2016 that con- tained at least one combination of key terms in the abstract and/or main text: (ecosystem service*, OR environment* service*, OR ecosystem* approach*, OR ecosystem good*, OR environment* good*, OR environment* benefit*, OR ecosystem benefit*) AND (poverty, OR poverty eradicat*, OR poverty alleviat*, OR poverty eliminat*, OR poverty reduc*, OR anti-poverty, OR pro-poor, OR well-being, OR wellbeing, OR prosperity, OR equality, OR inequality). Weselected this period to reflect the increase of literature


on ecosystem services and poverty, and the work of the Natural Capital Project and Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme before the rise of IPBES and its


development of new terminology based on the concept of nature’s contributions to people (Pascual et al., 2017). The search returned 1,430 publications. We recognize


that our search excluded papers published in languages other than English, and that alternative search terms could have been used. However, we are confident that our sample is sufficiently comprehensive to allow us to address our research questions. For each publication, we extracted the following information: author(s), title, outlet, number of citations received by each paper at the time of collection, year, volume, issue, pages, digital object identifier, funding and acknowledgements (Supplementary Material 1). Addi- tionally, we noted if the article had been funded by the Natural Capital Project and/or the Ecosystem Services for Poverty Alleviation programme by examining whether these programmes were mentioned in the articles’ funding or acknowledgements sections, as well as by comparing the titles from our primary search with the overall pub- lished outputs of both programmes, as available on the programmes’ websites in May 2016. The 1,430 publications involved 4,849 authors.We ranked


these authors by the total number of citations that their articles in the sample had received, distinguishing between authors who had published only one article and those who had published more than one (Supplementary Material 1, Supplementary Fig. 1).We then noted the point at which the curve of those who had written more than one publication started to decline steadily, which corresponded to the author with 24 citations and ranked in the 409th position. In doing so we aimed to exclude authors who, for example, had parti- cipated in only one highly cited publication or whose work had not been extensively cited. We thus consider these top 409 authors as those more relevant in the production of knowledge on ecosystem services and poverty. We read the abstracts of the articles written by these 409


authors to ensure that the articles dealt with both ecosystem services and poverty (or a similar concern or qualification, such as equality or inequality, and poverty alleviation). We found two articles focused on other topics, and thus excluded the authors of these articles. We then collected professional data for the remaining 407 authors, using their most recent curriculum vitae, accessed through the public webpage of their institution or other public webpages (ResearchGate, Google Scholar, Academia). If a curriculum vitae was not available, we extracted information from the author’s institutional webpage or from other sources referring to the researcher (e.g. professional biographies for conferences). If we could not locate all of the required information for an author, we corresponded with them, explaining our research and requesting their latest curricu- lum vitae. We could not obtain professional data for 6 authors, resulting in a final sample of 401 authors. For these 401 authors, we collected data on their gender based on photographs available online. We recognize the


Oryx, 2021, 55(6), 868–877 © The Author(s), 2021. Published by Cambridge University Press on behalf of Fauna & Flora International doi:10.1017/S0030605320000940


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