ArticleEcology and evolution2020
The role of replication studies in ecology.
Article in Ecology and evolution, 2020. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 19 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
19 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- The effect of herbivory on pollinators: a revisited meta-analysis.Annals of botany · 2026Pooled it
- Getting to the Core of the Matter-Assessing the Role of Replication in Metabarcoding-Based sedaDNA.Molecular ecology resources · 2026Article
- Predation affects the evolution of sex-specific longevity.Biology letters · 2024Article
- Overcoming the pitfalls of categorizing continuous variables in ecology, evolution and behaviour.Proceedings. Biological sciences · 2024Review
- A global test of MPA spillover benefits to recreational fisheries.Science advances · 2024Article
- Female behavior drives the formation of distinct social structures in C57BL/6J versus wild-derived outbred mice in field enclosures.BMC biology · 2024Article
- Compromise or choose: shared movement decisions in wild vulturine guineafowl.Communications biology · 2024Article
- Computationally reproducing results from meta-analyses in ecology and evolutionary biology using shared code and data.PloS one · 2024Article
- Empirical evidence of widespread exaggeration bias and selective reporting in ecology.Nature ecology & evolution · 2023Article
- Publication bias impacts on effect size, statistical power, and magnitude (Type M) and sign (Type S) errors in ecology and evolutionary biology.BMC biology · 2023Article
- Systematic reviewers' perspectives on replication of systematic reviews: A survey.Cochrane evidence synthesis and methods · 2023Article
- Exploring enablers and barriers to implementing the Transparency and Openness Promotion Guidelines: a theory-based survey of journal editors.Royal Society open science · 2023Article
- Article
- Low statistical power and overestimated anthropogenic impacts, exacerbated by publication bias, dominate field studies in global change biology.Global change biology · 2022Article
- Personality, density and habitat drive the dispersal of invasive crayfish.Scientific reports · 2022Article
- Replications, Comparisons, Sampling and the Problem of Representativeness in Animal Cognition Research.Animal behavior and cognition · 2021Article
- The REPRISE project: protocol for an evaluation of REProducibility and Replicability In Syntheses of Evidence.Systematic reviews · 2021Article
- The hidden side of animal cognition research: Scientists' attitudes toward bias, replicability and scientific practice.PloS one · 2021Article
- The role of replication studies in ecology.Ecology and evolution · 2020Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
4 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Recent large-scale projects in other disciplines have shown that results often fail to replicate when studies are repeated. The conditions contributing to this problem are also present in ecology, but there have not been any equivalent replication projects. Here, we survey ecologists' understanding of and opinions about replication studies. The majority of ecologists in our sample considered replication studies to be important (97%), not prevalent enough (91%), worth funding even given limited resources (61%), and suitable for publication in all journals (62%). However, there is a disconnect between this enthusiasm and the prevalence of direct replication studies in the literature which is much lower (0.023%: Kelly 2019) than our participants' median estimate of 10%. This may be explained by the obstacles our participants identified including the difficulty of conducting replication studies and of funding and publishing them. We conclude by offering suggestions for how replications could be better integrated into ecological research.
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What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.