Knowledge on Colombian insects and arachnids: a bibliometric approach.

Despite Arthropoda being a major animal taxon, it is underrepresented in South American scientific publications. Here, we present the results of a bibliometric analysis of published studies on insects and arachnids in Colombia to understand the general patterns of knowledge of both taxa across this megadiverse country. We compiled 3119 studies on insects and 353 on arachnids published between 1918 and 2019 in more than 600 journals. Research on both insects and arachnids reflects the effort done by researchers working in Colombian institutions, but because publications are mainly domestic, their international impact is limited. The studies included 19 taxonomic orders of insects and 72 families of arachnids with a bias toward a few well-studied taxa like Diptera, Lepidoptera, Hymenoptera, Araneidae, and Salticidae, while the majority of taxa are understudied. The geographic coverage of the studies was broad and includes Colombia's 32 departments, but their distribution was heterogeneous being the Andean region the most studied, while the Caribbean and Orinoquia regions could be considered knowledge gaps. Considering our analysis, we give recommendations to expand and advance the knowledge of Colombian insects and arachnids, a major scientific enterprise in which collaboration among researchers from different institutions is needed. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]