Abstract:
Background: In this paper we review the conservation genetics of African savannah
elephants, aiming to understand the spatio-temporal research trends and their
underlying factors. As such, we explore three questions associated to the
conservation genetics and molecular ecology of these elephants: (1) what are the
research trends concerning the conservation genetics of Loxodonta africana?
(2) Do richer countries conduct more research on the genetics of African
elephants? (3) Which attributes influence where scholars conduct their
research?
Materials and Methods: We examined available peer-reviewed publications from
1993 to 2014 in complementary online databases, including the ISI/Web of
Science (WoS), Scopus and Google Scholar (GS), and searched for publications in
scientific journals as well as in the reference section of these publications. We
analyzed the annual trend of publications in this field of research, including the
number of authors, levels of collaboration among authors, year of publication,
publishing journal and the countries from where genetic samples were collected.
Additionally, we identified main research clusters, authors, and institutional
collaborations, based on co-citation and co-occurrence networks.
Results: We found that during the study period there was a positive trend in the
number of publications and a reduction in the number of authors per paper.
Twenty-five countries contributed, with the majority of publications authored by
researchers in the USA, Kenya and South Africa. The majority of samples were
collected in Kenya, Tanzania and South Africa. Research outputs are associated
with the existence of long-term conservation/research projects and research
potential as measured by the literacy rate and the number of higher education
institutions in a country. Five research clusters were identified, focusing on the
origin and evolution of the species, methodological issues and the relatedness
among elephant species.
Conclusions: Research in this field should be expanded to additional countries
harboring elephant populations to enable a more comprehensive understanding of
the population structure and genetic differentiation of the species, and to cope with
challenges associated with the conservation of the species such as illegal hunting,
habitat fragmentation, species reintroduction and climate change.
