RT Journal Article
SR Electronic
T1 High impact journals in ecology cover proportionally more statistically significant findings
JF bioRxiv
FD Cold Spring Harbor Laboratory
SP 311068
DO 10.1101/311068
A1 Silvia Ceausu
A1 Luís Borda-de-Água
A1 Thomas Merckx
A1 Esther Sossai
A1 Manuel Sapage
A1 Murilo Miranda
A1 Henrique M. Pereira
YR 2018
UL http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/05/03/311068.abstract
AB Unbiased scientific reporting is crucial for data and research synthesis. Previous studies suggest that statistically significant results are more likely to be published and more likely to be submitted to high impact journals. However, the most recent research on statistical significance in relation to journal impact factors in ecological research was published more than two decades ago or addressed a small subset of the literature. Here, we extract p-values from all articles published in 11 journals in 2012 and 2014 across a wide range of impact factors with six journals sampled in both years. Our results indicate that the proportion of statistically significant results increases with rising impact factor. Such a trend can have important consequences for syntheses of ecological data and it highlights the importance of covering a wide range of impact factors when identifying published studies for data syntheses. This trend can also lead to a biased understanding of the probability of true effects in ecology and conservation. We caution against the possible downplaying of non-significant results by either journals or authors.