DOI: 10.5061/dryad.nk35d
title: Data from: On the missing link in ecology: improving communication between modellers and experimentalists

description: Collaboration between modellers and experimentalists is essential in
 ecological research, however, different obstacles linking both camps often
 hinder scientific progress. In this commentary, we discuss several issues
 of the current state of affairs in this research loop. Backed by an online
 survey amongst fellow ecologists, modellers and experimentalists alike, we
 identify two major areas that need to be mended. Firstly, differences in
 language and jargon lead to a lack of exchange of ideas and to unrealistic
 mutual expectations. And secondly, constraint data sharing, accessibility
 and quality limit the usage of empirical data and thereby the impact of
 ecological studies. We discuss ways to advance collaboration; how to
 improve communication and the design of experiments; and the sharing of
 data. We hope to start a much-needed conversation between modellers and
 experimentalists, to further future research collaboration and to increase
 the impact of single ecological studies alike.
description: Result of full
 bibliometric search for ecology articlesWe searched ISI web of
 knowledge (Core collection) for all ecology (Topic: Ecology) related
 papers published in leading journals for the time period 1990-2010. This
 was done on the 18th October 2016. We narrowed the dataset further down by
 restricting it to the following journals: ECOLOGY, FUNCTIONAL ECOLOGY,
 MARINE ECOLOGY PROGRESS SERIES, JOURNAL OF ECOLOGY, HYDROBIOLOGIA ,
 OECOLOGIA , OIKOS , ECOLOGICAL MODELLING , SCIENCE , BIOLOGICAL
 CONSERVATION , JOURNAL OF EXPERIMENTAL MARINE BIOLOGY AND ECOLOGY ,
 PROCEEDINGS OF THE ROYAL SOCIETY B BIOLOGICAL SCIENCES , ANIMAL BEHAVIOUR
 , PROCEEDINGS OF THE NATIONAL ACADEMY OF SCIENCES OF THE UNITED STATES OF
 AMERICA , NATURE , MARINE BIOLOGY , ECOLOGICAL APPLICATIONS , LANDSCAPE
 ECOLOGY , AMERICAN NATURALIST, ECOLOGY LETTERS, and for the document type:
 Article and the ‘Web of science category’: Ecology. This yielded a total
 of 7415 articles.ecologysearchPristineSearch.txtSubsetted bibliometric search for ecology articlesThis dataset is a subset of a bibliometric search (see data description of full dataset). We choose every 5th article and used the information in the abstract, keywords and the title to manually classify each of those articles into 3 categories: Modelling article (MO, SM, MOFI, PHY, FI) , experimental article and articles that combined an experimental (EX) and a modelling approach (MIX) . The individual classification is described for each entry in the field code GR. We pooled the different modeling types (statistical modeling, phylogenetic modeling, individual based modeling, etc) into one category for the bibliometric analysis.PristineSearchSubset5thAnnotatedNEW.txtList of highly cited ecologistsList of the top cited ecologists identified within the Clarivate analytics (formerly Thomson Reuters) list of “Highly cited researchers 2016 (http://hcr.stateofinnovation.thomsonreuters.com) in the category Environment/Ecology (n = 113) and sorted them into three groups: 1) researchers that only apply modelling approaches; 2) researchers that only apply experimental approaches in the laboratory or in the field; and 3) researchers that apply both modelling and experimental approaches. We further discriminated between researchers that collect their own observational data from non-manipulative descriptive studies (e.g. monitoring) and those that do not use observations or obtain them from other sources (e.g. databases). Information about research approaches was gathered by studying their publication lists and websites.highly_cited_ecologists.xlsxResponses to questionnaireThis datafile contains the answers to the questionnaire from all participants of the questionnaire. "Time" and "country" data was removed prior to submission. Free-form answers were altered when necessary to anonymize the data. The corresponding questionnaire can be found as a separate file in this submission.Finalreponses20150615Dryad.xlsxQuestionnaireThis pdf contains all the questions from the questionnaire used to gather data about opinions of modelers and experimentalists about the collaboration between the two approaches.Bibliometric analysisThis file is based on Rmarkdown and contains the steps of the bibliometric analyis of the bibliometric datafiles that are part of this submission.Biblio3.htmlStatistical analysis of questionnaireThis file is based on Rmarkdown and contains the statistical analysis and visualization code of the questionnaire answers.Onthemissinglink_20170126Dryad.html