Authors
Pietro Pollo, April Robin Martinig, Ayumi Mizuno, Kyle Morrison, Patrice Pottier, Lorenzo Ricolfi, Jesse Tam, Coralie Williams, Yefeng Yang, Szymek Marian Drobniak, Malgorzata Lagisz, Shinichi Nakagawa
Published in
Royal Society open science. Volume 12. Issue 10. Pages 250759. Epub Oct 15, 2025.
Abstract
Meta-analyses are powerful tools to synthesize the literature in several fields of study, including ecology and evolution. However, it remains uncertain whether ecologists and evolutionary biologists fully comprehend meta-analyses' findings or effectively apply them when citing these studies in their own research. Here, we first discuss key meta-analytical concepts and provide a guide to researchers in ecology and evolution on how to harness meta-analyses' insights. For instance, we clarify the meaning of effect sizes and heterogeneity to improve understanding of meta-analyses' quantitative findings. In addition, we analysed articles published in 2023 in ecology and evolution to investigate how frequently and in what context meta-analyses were cited. We found that approximately 21% of articles cited at least one meta-analysis, and that the relative number of citations of meta-analyses (0.62% of all citations analysed) was greater than the publication frequency of meta-analytical articles (0.44% of all articles). Most importantly, we found that while the direction of mean effect sizes from cited meta-analyses was often mentioned, the magnitude of effect sizes and the limitations of the data analysed were frequently overlooked. These findings underscore the need for improved citation practices of meta-analyses in ecological and evolutionary research, which our recommendations seek to promote.
PMID:
41098817
Bibliographic data and abstract were imported from PubMed on 16 Oct 2025.
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