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ViewAttendees 28

SysEB

Section Symposium

Myrmecology For All: Combining Morphology, Molecules, Ecology, and Behavior to Advance Ant Systematics

2: Myrmecology, gender, and geography: changing demographics of a research community over thirty years

On-Demand
On-Demand
Diversity is a driving force of innovation and creativity in scientific research. Therefore, supporting and maintaining diversity is a priority within academic communities. With the goal of documenting contemporary demographic patterns and highlighting generational change in the global myrmecological community, we examined author gender ratios and publication rates over the past three decades, globally and by country affiliation. Approximately one third of authors publishing about ants during 2008-2017 were women, which is similar to reported rates of representation in other scientific fields. Over the past three decades, the total number of researchers studying ants has increased and the proportion of women authors in myrmecology has risen from 17.6% in 1987 to 27.7% in 2017. Despite this increase in representation, women publish fewer papers than men, both cumulatively and annually, and the gender-specific publication gap has not diminished over the past ten years. Only five women rank among the 50 authors with the greatest number of publications during the past decade. Overall, these findings describe a myrmecological community that has grown significantly over thirty years, with an increasing proportion of women. Although this trend suggests a rising generation of myrmecologists with more gender diversity than ever before, continued lack of parity in representation of women and their productivity are areas of concern. Further examination of these issues will inform our understanding the composition of the myrmecologist community. This data-based approach is a first step toward dismantling barriers and ensuring equity for members of all genders in our next generation of researchers.