Systematic conservation planning: trends a nd patterns among highly-cited papers

Abstract Systematic conservation planning (SCP) is a field of conservation biology concerned with the effective allocation of conservation efforts and the implementation of actions aiming to guarantee biodiversity persistence in the long-term and the efficient use of conservation resources. Here, we evaluated the main spatial-temporal trends and patterns among highly-cited papers in SCP. We considered “highly-cited” articles as those papers with at least 100 citations according to Web of Science database. A total of 132 highly-cited articles were published between 1989 and 2014, with the highest frequency at 2006. Papers were published in 25 different scientific journals (with a highlight for Conservation Biology and Biological Conservation) by researchers from 208 institutions and 25 countries (most from Australia and USA). Most of the analytical and methodological studies were carried out in the terrestrial environment, by considering more than one taxonomic group, and at a regional scale. Eleven studies included information on costs (e.g., economic or land use) in the prioritization process, and only one article considered information on other biodiversity dimensions such as phylogenetic diversity. Among analytical papers, 41 included only biodiversity data in the prioritization process, while 16 papers considered data on other features such as ecosystem services, biophysical factors, and vegetation. Furthermore, a plethora of different algorithms and software were used to perform the analyses. By analyzing the top-cited papers, we could track through time the main advances and stages of the development in SCP.