Investigation of key spatio-temporal trends in research on scattered paddock trees and biodiversity in semi-cleared agricultural landscapes

Abstract Context Scattered old native trees found in semi-cleared agricultural landscapes (hereafter termed paddock trees) have a range of important ecological, ecosystem service, human cultural, and other roles. They have been the target of detailed study in many countries. Objectives We sought to quantify the temporal and spatial trends in the prevalence of research topics in the corpus of literature on paddock trees. Methods We used a combination of text-analysis techniques, including topic modelling, to complete a formal analysis of almost 1,300 peer-reviewed articles on paddock trees and biodiversity. Results We found that the literature can be represented by broad groups of topics. Increasingly popular (“hot”) topics were those that researched ecosystem services and agricultural production in relation to biodiversity. In contrast, topics declining in relative prevalence over time were typically those related to the direct research of biodiversity and paddock trees. Our analyses also revealed strong evidence of geographic bias in the literature with the corpus dominated by studies in the European Union and North America, and limited research from low-income nations in Africa. Conclusions The geographical bias in research highlights a need for more work in regions outside of high-income nations. This is important as strategies to manage paddock trees in high-income nations may not be appropriate for use in low-income nations characterized by different social-ecological environments. As paddock trees exist in often highly modified agricultural landscapes, their conservation (and the maintenance of biodiversity associated with them) will benefit from more interdisciplinary approaches to research that span a greater number of topics. These include stronger links between studies on livestock grazing regimes, ecosystem functions, and biodiversity management in relation to paddock trees and scattered paddock tree landscapes.