2000-2009 Publication metrics reveal world trends of grain legume research
Résumé
Grain legumes grown in Europe produce protein-rich seeds of good nutritional value. They can partially replace imported soybean amounting to about 35 Mt in 2010. Legumes also fix N2 naturally with the help of rhizobiaceae bacteria, resulting in fossil energy saving and reduction of glasshouse gas emissions risks. Strength and weaknesses of grain legume research in Europe and other nations are not well known. Therefore we studied 2000-2009 worldwide publications on grain legumes using the CAB database. We built a world corpus of 16131 CAB references on temperate grain legumes grown for feeds in Europe (pea, faba bean, lupin, chickpea) and compared them to the world soyabean corpus of 20933 references. Using CABIcodes and CAB descriptors we built several disciplinary corpus such as physiology, genetic, economy, agronomy, uses, and topical corpus such as symbioses and soil microflora, and biotic or abiotic stresses. We studied research weight by species, discipline and topic. Our results reveal a larger investment on market and uses (feed, food, non-food non-feed) studies on soyabean and higher use of model legume species by research on european grain legumes. To conclude bibliometry now provide useful tools to evaluate and guide priority research.