Selective world-building: Collaboration and regional specificities in the marine biodiversity field

Abstract Over the past two decades, the scientific study of marine biodiversity developed into one of the most dynamic research fields within environmental research in general and ocean science in particular. Marine biodiversity research spans a broad range of spatial and temporal scales, scientific disciplines, and infrastructures for assessing patterns of change in marine biodiversity with different topics and regions contributing to the abstract construction of the field. Yet, beneath the surface of these abstract constructions and attributions such as “big science” to assess the international, interdisciplinary and data-driven nature marine biodiversity research, patterns of scientific collaboration emerge that shape the contributions of different world regions to the field. Furthermore, legal, political and territorial orders shape scientific collaboration by determining access to the marine environment and the study thereof. To understand these dynamics, this study analyses scientific publications on marine biodiversity using topic modeling methodology. Our approach provides the opportunity not only to describe large clusters within the field of marine biodiversity, but also to show how these topical clusters differ in time and across regions. By looking at the temporal and regional level, we wish to contribute to a deeper understanding of collaboration and regional specificity in the emergence of new research fields and – what we call – “selective world-building” across time and space.