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I've seen several very interesting comments so far, one an inquiry in a personal letter about the "Gingerich factor" - can one extremely prolific author (and students) single-handedly generate enough publications to mess up my reference/year curve? Gingerich's first publication in my reference list is from 1972. I have a total of 42 references in his name - remember, in this analysis I merged multiple same-author publications in a year as one reference. In the 1972-1994 interval I have 1,162 references defined in this way - so Gingerich comes to 3.6% of the total, _counting_ jointly authored papers. Of course, you could argue that Phil didn't really get going until his thesis came out in 1976. Subtracting the '72 and '74 two-year bins leaves us with 1,011 references, with Phil accounting for 37 = 3.7%. So much for that argument. Don't get me wrong, Gingerich's contribution is huge. 3.6% of the entire mammal literature is amazing any way you look at it. The only comparable authors in the modern era are Hibbard and Simpson, although others such as Fox are also extremely prolific. Other issues: 1) Duplicate publications. I know this is common in much scientific literature, but mammal paleontologists are really very good about this. Most "duplicates" I see are in field trip guidebooks, and guidebooks in general don't figure greatly in my database. It's simply very unusual for the same author to publish a single faunal list more than once, or a single taxonomic discussion. Take my word for it, I've read close to 2,000 papers in this area. Additionally, remember that the analysis merges multiple publications by the same author in the same year - exactly the kind of situation where you are likely to encounter duplicate publications. 2) Backlogging/overpublication. I really don't think these are major factors. For example, look at the JVP over the last several years. Year Pages 1986 386 1987 482 1988 463 1989 483 1990 528 1991 535 1992 544 1993 547 An increasing trend, but not a striking one - only an 18% difference for the five years between '93 and '88, and the journal was only started in 1981, so it had an initial rapid growth period that I think was still going on in 1986. During this same interval, mammal paleo publications were flat or dropping. JVP is a major journal in my database, with 124 papers out of about 2000. 3) Nature of publications. Yes, absolutely, 20 or 50 or 100 years ago the literature was much more dominated by pure alpha taxonomy - "A new species of ___ from the ___ beds of ____" was the standard mammal paleo title for decades. I agree that we have reached a new stage in the evolution of the discipline (to paraphrase Heinz Hilbrecht), but I do _not_ see this as necessarily a great thing. Why? Because we are publishing only as many or maybe fewer papers _overall_ in the entire subdiscipline, which means that every mammal paleoecology or functional morphology or taphonomy or cladistics paper that comes out is taking the place of an alpha taxonomy paper that never got written and/or submitted and/or published. WE NEED ALPHA TAXONOMY (and biostratigraphy!). There _is no fossil record_ without good alpha taxonomy and biostratigraphy. Again, don't get me wrong. We also need paleoecology and biodiversity studies and so on - if we didn't I would be out of a job. 4) Number of journals. I agree that is sure _seems_ like there are more and more new paleo journals - PALAIOS, Historical Biology, JVP, and even Paleobiology are all relatively recent. However, we are also _losing_ serials, some going defunct entirely and many simply ceasing to publish paleo at all. Just look at the American Journal of Science - the single most important outlet for North American mammal paleo in the first three decades of the century, and it hasn't published any mammal paleo other than the odd "paleomag meets mammals" paper since WWII. Many organizations such as the Yale, Harvard, Cal Tech/Carnegie Institution, the University of Oregon, and the LA County Museum have given up on North American mammal paleo after carrying out major research programs in those areas for decades. Many other institutions that continue work in the area are simply carrying out 100 year-old traditions started by the founders of the field, e.g., the Carnegie Museum (Peterson/Douglass), the American Museum (Osborn/Matthew/etc.), UC Berkeley (Merriam), the Field Museum (Riggs/McGrew), the Smithsonian (Gidley), the University of Michigan (Hibbard), and the University of Nebraska (Barbour/Schultz/Cook). Modern research groups at these institutions account for a big chunk of the literature and can't be considered "growth" in the field.
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