The Invasive Red Swamp Crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) in the Scientific Literature Using a Text Mining and Topic Modelling Approach

The red swamp crayfish (Procambarus clarkii) is the most widely introduced crayfish species worldwide. Its spread causes massive environmental impacts on native species and ecosystems. Owing to its commercial value and impacts in introduced countries, the literature on P. clarkii has increased exponentially, making necessary studies for synthesising the collected information. In this study, a text mining and topic modelling approach was used to analyse the scientific literature on P. clarkii as an invasive species, to identify the interests and trends of research lines through time and space. A keyword-based search of research databases was performed, and the abstracts of 519 articles were analysed to identify the most characterising terms. These included both descriptive terms of the species and terms related to its invasiveness and impacts. The analysis of the scientific literature allowed us to identify 14 research topics focusing on the ecological impacts of P. clarkii and its geographical distribution, with a growing interest in invasion mechanisms and dispersal pathways. On the contrary, management studies are less abundant, despite their scientific value is highlighted by their increasing number of citations. This reflects the fact that most management-related studies are found in the grey literature and are therefore underrepresented in the scientific literature. The limited accessibility to data and the complexity of control strategies are obstacles to the effective management of this species. Improvement in information sharing through the creation of digital platforms that support distribution data suitable for modelling species spread, and the integration of knowledge from non-academic sources may help fill current knowledge gaps and provide new perspectives for the management of P. clarkii.