Collaboration and term usage dynamics in agricultural buffer strip research: Research weaving

Abstract

Abstract Systematic maps are used to comprehensively gather and describe the literature on a topic, which is often defined by policy and practice relevance and stakeholder input, identifying trends and gaps in research. Bibliometric methods elucidate the connections between publications, for example, providing information about collaboration in research communities. Research weaving combines these approaches to produce a comprehensive view of research activity on a well‐defined research area. In this paper, we conduct and describe a bibliometric analysis on a previously published systematic map on the functional roles of buffer strips in agricultural fields. Among other findings, the original systematic map found a paucity of studies addressing multiple functional roles and a huge variation in terminology related to buffer strips. We used research weaving to deepen our understanding of these findings and shed light on collaboration within and among the research communities contributing knowledge to this field. Of the 1019 papers originally included in the systematic map, 930 were identified in Lens.org and used for subsequent analyses. Co‐authorship and bibliographic coupling networks identified distinct research communities, defined by geography, subdiscipline and characteristic usage of buffer strip terminology. Topic modelling provided further information about these subcommunities and aligned with manually extracted information about the studies' focus on functional roles, indicating potential utility for screening of records in large systematic maps. Practical Implication: We demonstrate that research weaving methods add insights in support of and in addition to the original systematic map. We provide a methodological approach and discuss limitations related to applying bibliometric analyses to a previously published systematic map. We demonstrate the feasibility of this approach and its ability to enhance and enrich the findings gained from conventional systematic mapping techniques.

Keywords

• bibliographic coupling
• bibliometrics
• buffer strips
• co‐authorship networks
• evidence synthesis
• research weaving