Open science

Reporting guidelines for terrestrial respirometry: Building openness, transparency of metabolic rate and evaporative water loss data

Respirometry is an important tool for understanding whole-animal energy and water balance in relation to the environment. Consequently, the growing number of studies using respirometry over the last decade warrants reliable reporting and data sharing for effective dissemination and research synthesis. We provide a checklist guideline on five key sections to facilitate the transparency, reproducibility, and replicability of respirometry studies: 1) materials, set up, plumbing, 2) subject conditions/maintenance, 3) measurement conditions, 4) data processing, and 5) data reporting and statistics, each with explanations and example studies. Transparency in reporting and data availability has benefits on multiple fronts. Authors can use this checklist to design and report on their study, and reviewers and editors can use the checklist to assess the reporting quality of the manuscripts they review. Improved standards for reporting will enhance the value of primary studies and will greatly facilitate the ability to carry out higher quality research syntheses to address ecological and evolutionary theories.

"Best Paper" awards lack transparency, inclusivity, and support for Open Science

Awards can propel academic careers. They also reflect the culture and values of the scientific community. But do awards incentivize greater transparency, inclusivity, and openness in science? Our cross-disciplinary survey of 222 awards for the "best" journal articles across all 27 SCImago subject areas revealed that journals and learned societies administering such awards generally publish little detail on their procedures and criteria. Award descriptions were brief, rarely including contact details or information on the nominations pool. Nominations of underrepresented groups were not explicitly encouraged, and concepts that align with Open Science were almost absent from the assessment criteria. At the same time, 10% of awards, especially the recently established ones, tended to use article-level impact metrics. USA-affiliated researchers dominated the winner's pool (48%), while researchers from the Global South were uncommon (11%). Sixty-one percent of individual winners were men. Overall, Best Paper awards miss the global calls for greater transparency and equitable access to academic recognition. We provide concrete and implementable recommendations for scientific awards to improve the scientific recognition system and incentives for better scientific practice.

Are Open Science instructions targeted to ecologists and evolutionary biologists sufficient? A literature review of guidelines and journal data policies

Open science (OS) awareness and skills are increasingly becoming an essential part of everyday scientific work as e.g., many journals require authors to share data. However, following an OS workflow can seem challenging at first. Thus, instructions by journals and other guidelines are important. But how comprehensive are they in the field of ecology and evolutionary biology (Ecol Evol)? To find this out, we reviewed 20 published OS guideline articles aimed for ecologists or evolutionary biologists, together with the data policies of 17 Ecol Evol journals to chart the current landscape of OS guidelines in the field, find potential gaps, identify field-specific barriers for OS and discuss solutions to overcome these challenges. We found that many of the guideline articles covered similar topics, despite being written for a narrow field or specific target audience. Likewise, many of the guideline articles mentioned similar obstacles that could hinder or postpone a transition to open data sharing. Thus, there could be a need for a more widely known, general OS guideline for Ecol Evol. Following the same guideline could also enhance the uniformity of the OS practices carried on in the field. However, some topics, like long-term experiments and physical samples, were mentioned surprisingly seldom, although they are typical issues in Ecol Evol. Of the journals, 15 out of 17 expected or at least encouraged data sharing either for all articles or under specific conditions, e.g. for registered reports and 10 of those required data sharing at the submission phase. The coverage of journal data policies varied greatly between journals, from practically non-existing to very extensive. As journals can contribute greatly by leading the way and making open data useful, we recommend that the publishers and journals would invest in clear and comprehensive data policies and instructions for authors.

Through the looking glass: attempting to predict future opportunities and challenges in experimental biology

To celebrate its centenary year, Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB) commissioned a collection of articles examining the past, present and future of experimental biology. This Commentary closes the collection by considering the important research opportunities and challenges that await us in the future. We expect that researchers will harness the power of technological advances, such as '-omics' and gene editing, to probe resistance and resilience to environmental change as well as other organismal responses. The capacity to handle large data sets will allow high-resolution data to be collected for individual animals and to understand population, species and community responses. The availability of large data sets will also place greater emphasis on approaches such as modeling and simulations. Finally, the increasing sophistication of biologgers will allow more comprehensive data to be collected for individual animals in the wild. Collectively, these approaches will provide an unprecedented understanding of 'how animals work' as well as keys to safeguarding animals at a time when anthropogenic activities are degrading the natural environment.