F1000ResearchF1000Research2046-1402F1000 Research LimitedLondon, UK10.12688/f1000research.147108.1Research ArticleArticlesA bibliometric analysis of the literature on goat breeding
[version 1; peer review: 2 approved with reservations]
TyasiThobela LouisConceptualizationData CurationFormal AnalysisFunding AcquisitionInvestigationMethodologyResourcesSupervisionValidationVisualizationWriting – Original Draft Preparationhttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-3519-7806a1ErginMalikConceptualizationData CurationFormal AnalysisInvestigationSoftwareValidationVisualizationWriting – Original Draft PreparationWriting – Review & Editing2MathapoMadumetja CyrilConceptualizationInvestigationValidationVisualizationWriting – Original Draft PreparationWriting – Review & Editinghttps://orcid.org/0000-0001-5739-79913
Department of Agricultural Economics and Animal Production, University of Limpopo, Mankweng, Limpopo, 0727, South Africa
Department of Animal Science, Isparta University of Applied Sciences, Isparta, Isparta Province, 32000, Turkey
Department of Agricultural Economics and Animal Production, University of Limpopo, Mankweng, Limpopo, 0727, South Africalouis.tyasi@ul.ac.za
Bibliometric analysis plays an essential role in scientific research. However, some research areas still have several gaps. This is also the case in the animal sciences. Therefore, the status of current studies can be analyzed to provide guidance for future research through scientific studies that will be conducted. The aim of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of goat breeding to evaluate current trends, gaps in knowledge, and future perspectives.
Methods
A large dataset was extracted from the Web of Science (WoS), a popular database for scientific studies. According to the WoS, we used 1000 scientific papers (1991–2023) that contained articles, book chapters, data papers, proceedings papers, meeting abstracts, and notes. All bibliometric analyses were performed using the bibliometrix package.
Results and Conclusions
In 2023, there were 34 studies available. Average citations per year showed that the highest average citation count occurred in 2006 (31.35). In total, 265 scientific journals in the WoS database have published goat breeding studies. Small Ruminant Research led to the remaining 145 articles. In conclusion, scientific studies on goat breeding have become popular in recent years. The authors may gravitate towards popular journals in the future.
Goat breedingbibliometric analysisbiblioshinybibliometrixUniversity of Limpopo granted the Open Access fees for this publication.University of Limpopo granted the Open Access fees for this publication.The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.Introduction
Almost 55% of the world’s goat population are held by China and India (29 and 26%, respectively) (
Utaaker et al., 2021). The second largest continent in terms of goat numbers is Africa, with nearly 34.5% of the world’s goat population, with the largest goat numbers in Sudan, Nigeria, Kenya, Somalia, and Tanzania, while North, Central, and South America, together with Oceania, account for only 4.7%, and Europe accounts for only 2.2% (
Miller and Lu, 2019). Goats play a continuous role in modern agriculture, although they have varying purposes in various cultures; they are also a reliable source of meat, milk, skin, and fiber, but they are also reserved for their role in traditional and cultural ceremonies (
Mdladla et al., 2017). Goat farming involves the raising and breeding of domestic goats. Despite the high number of published studies on this topic, the evolution of goat breeding research remains largely unknown. According to
Colombino et al. (2021), bibliometric analysis is an interesting statistical approach that analyzes many articles and books in scientific content to identify future directions of a specific topic. The bibliometric analysis is generally used to identify the development of a certain field and analyzed scientific outputs (
Pritchard, 1969;
Zeleznik et al., 2017). In addition,
Meo et al. (2013) indicated that bibliometric analysis plays a key role in the strategic planning and development of research in a knowledge domain, which provides an understanding of the size and growth of scientific literature in the discipline of concern within a specified time frame. Therefore, bibliometric studies on goat breeding are vital, as it is becoming increasingly challenging to remain up-to-date with everything that is being published on the topic. To the best of our knowledge, no previous bibliometric analyses have been conducted on goat breeding. Therefore, the aim of this study was to perform a bibliometric analysis of goat breeding to evaluate current trends, gaps in knowledge, and future perspectives. This study will assist researchers in recognizing potential research gaps in goat breeding. Furthermore, the present study will help encourage and explore scientific findings on goat breeding and future research projections.
MethodsData collection
In this study, the Web of Science (WoS) database was used to extract scientific studies related to “goat breeding in animal science.” Goat-breeding studies performed between 1991 and 2023 were used in the literature review phase. The “goat breeding” was used as keyword to search results. Approximately 1000 scientific studies related to goat breeding have been conducted. Owing to the complex research data, all papers in a single dataset were gathered, and some papers with missing data were eliminated. All documents were categorized as articles, book chapters, data papers, early access articles, proceedings papers, meeting abstracts, and editorial notes.
Table 1 presents the detailed structures of the documents. Raw data were evaluated in terms of the number of studies per year, annual citations per year, most relevant sources, trend topic keywords of the studies, countries of the corresponding authors, most relevant authors, and core sources by Bradford’s Law (
Bradford, 1934).
Document types and numbers of the bibliometric data.
Document types
Number
Article
889
Article; book chapter
1
Article; data paper
1
Article; early access
7
Article; proceedings paper
40
Meeting abstract
5
Note
4
Data analysis
The R programming language (
R Core Team, 2023) is one of the most popular open-source languages for analyzing and visualizing bibliometric data from WoS (
Aria and Cuccurullo, 2017). The “bibliometrix” package involves a function identified as “biblioshiny” which opens a web-based graphical interface on the browser. On the other hand, there are several databases such as Google Scholar, Dimension, Scopus, PubMed, ERIC, IEEE Xplore, ScienceDirect, DOAJ, and JSTOR. The WoS database has high coverage of approximately 100 million items. Therefore, WoS was chosen because of this advantage.
The steps of analyses raw data can be described broadly as follows:
Data related to goat breeding studies were exported from the WoS database in bibtex format.
Gathering and editing the dataset
Analyze the studies conducted within a specific year period and represent their relationships through various visualization methods.
Interpretation of the results.
Results
Figure 1 presents the annual scientific production. Goat-breeding studies have been performed for the first time since 1991. After 2007, there was a significant increase in approximately 32 studies, but it decreased to 33 in 2014. Unfortunately, the number of studies conducted has shown an increasing trend in the recent past, specifically since 2018. In 2023, there were 34 studies available, considering that this year was not yet completed, it would be unnecessary to make a negative evaluation.
Annual scientific production of goat breeding studies.
Average citations per year
Figure 2 shows the average number of citations per year. The results showed that the highest average citation count occurred in 2006 (31.35). This result could be directly related to the increase in the number of studies conducted in 2006. After 2013, there was a significant decrease in the average number of citations.
Average citations per year in goat breeding studies.
Most relevant sources
The most Relevant Sources of goat breeding studies are shown in
Figure 3. The results indicated that several journals were popular in the scientific field. In total, 265 scientific journals in the WoS database have published goat breeding studies. Small Ruminant Research led to the remaining with 145 articles.
Most relevant sources in goat breeding studies.
Trend topic keywords
The trend topic keywords in goat breeding studies according to the years between 1991 and 2023 are presented in
Figure 4. According to the bibliometric results, “sheep” term was used 182 times and leads to the list. Following that, the “traits” and “diversity” terms were used 74 and 62 times respectively. The “sheep” term was used between 2009 and 2019. In addition, the second most used term named “traits” was used between 2010 and 2021 while the third most used term “diversity” was used between 2009 and 2018. Searching of the “sheep” term may be related to the small ruminants.
Trend topic keywords of the studies about goat breeding.
Country of the corresponding authors
The countries of the corresponding authors that have published scientific studies on goat breeding are illustrated in
Figure 5. In this result, single-country publications (SCP) and multiple-country publications (MCP) represent the number of publications by researchers from the same country and the number of publications by researchers from multiple countries, respectively. According to the corresponding authors, India is the first country with 114 scientific papers (SCP:110 and MCP:4). India is followed by China and Italy. The results showed that the second country China has produced 96 scientific studies (SCP:87; MCP:9). Italy ranked third and produced 95 scientific studies (SCP: 66 and MCP:29). The results also indicate that Italy was the most collaborative country with respect to studies on goat breeding.
The countries of the corresponding authors that publish scientific studies about goat breeding.
Most relevant authors
Figure 6 presents the most relevant authors in studies on goat breeding. The findings revealed that Dixit SP, Verma NK, and Aggarwal RAK were ranked as the top three authors, with 21, 17, and 14 scientific studies, respectively. These authors have been working on the biodiversity of goats.
Most relevant authors in the goat breeding studies.
Core sources by Bradford’s law
The core sources obtained by Bradford’s law are presented in
Figure 7. The results indicate that the sources were divided into three main zones according to Bradford’s law. In total, 338, 333, and 329 articles were found in Zones 1, 2, and 3, respectively. Zone 1, representing core sources and high levels of productivity, is shown with vertical and gray lines, respectively. Zone 1 had 338 articles and seven journals, while Zone 2 (moderate) had 333 articles and 40 journals, representing moderate productivity. Zone 3 (minor) has 329 articles and 218 journals, representing low productivity. In Zone 1, which exhibits high productivity, 338 articles were identified in seven of the world’s most popular journals, namely, Small Ruminant Research, Tropical Animal Health and Production, Indian Journal of Animal Sciences, Animals, Journal of Dairy Science, Italian Journal of Animal Science, and Journal of Animal Science.
Core sources by Bradford’s Law.
Discussion
Goats are adapted to various farming conditions and contribute to viable livestock production systems and food security, which makes many farmers interested in goat breeding (
Gautam et al. 2019). This study was conducted using bibliometric analysis to identify emerging trends in goat breeding. Bibliometric analysis provides a literature review of a specific area using computer technology (
Han et al., 2020). Bibliometric analysis enables the establishment of visual networks and associated structures to make general inferences regarding a specific topic in any discipline (
Thanuskodi, 2010;
Onder and Tirink, 2022). From the distribution of one thousand studies published between 1991-2023 on goat breeding, it was observed that the highest number of studies were conducted in 2020. The review of this study on average citations per year observed that most citations occurred in 2006. The current research on most relevant types of sources indicated sources such as tropical animal health and production, small ruminants research, Indian journal of animal science, animals, journal of dairy science, Italian journal of animal science, journal of animal science, scientific paper-series D-animals science, Asian Australasian journal of animal sciences and journal of applied animal research. Research on small ruminants was the most relevant source in the field of goat breeding, with one hundred and fifty four. The review observed the term “sheep” as the most top keyword used between the year 1991-2023. In terms of the country with the most corresponding authors, the researchers observed that India was the leading country with one-hundred and fourteen scientific papers. The review according to most relevant authors displayed various authors such as Dixit SP, Verma NK, Aggarwal RAK, Capote J, Chen H, Dalgado JV, Sharma A, Sharma R, Liu X and Ribeiro MN. The most relevant author was Dixit SP with twenty-one scientific studies in goat breeding. Bradford’s Law divides the core sources into three zones, one representing high, two moderate, and three minors. The researchers observed that zone one had high productivity with three-hundred and thirty-eight articles from the seven most popular journals. In a bibliometric study that speaks to the same matter but different animals of interest, publication data were collected from the Web of Science for the year 2013-2019. It was observed that 499 studies were published in the field of buffalo breeding, and the highest number of studies was published in 2013. The review showed that more information comes from the articles, and the most relevant sources were from the buffalo bulletin. The researchers indicated that India is the country where most publications were conducted and observed Hristov AN as the most relevant author with seventy-five articles in the field of water buffalo (
Celik, 2021). Bradford’s law was used to identify the most relevant sources of a particular topic. According to the law, journals are arranged in descending order based on the number of articles published on the topic. Consecutive zones of periodicals containing the same number of articles form a simple geometric series of 1: n:n
2:n
3 (
Biblioshiny, 2019;
Orăștean and Mărginean, 2023).
Ethical considerations
This study was based on a publicly available dataset from the Web of Science (WoS). Therefore, ethical considerations were not required. The dataset extracted from the WoS is stated in the data availability section.
Data availabilityUnderlying data
Figshare: Data obtained from Web of Science: A bibliometric analysis of the literature on goat breeding, DOI:
https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.25574451.v1 (
Tyasi et al., 2024).
This project contains the following underlying data:
Full list of included savedrecs.bib.
Data are available under the terms of the
Creative Commons Zero “No rights reserved” data waiver (CC0 1.0 Public domain dedication).
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2829553910.1111/jan.1329610.5256/f1000research.161258.r350714Reviewer response for version 1KichamuNelly1Referee
Centre for Agricultural Genomics and Biotechnology, University of Debrecen, Debrecen, Hungary
Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
The background is well written but too shallow ,authors should consider expanding it to incorporate some of the missing aspects for example
They can provide information on the consequences of the lack of bibliometric analysis on goat breeding
Elaborate on how the findings from the bibliometric analysis will be applied to improve goat breeding programs.
Modern tools in genetic analysis, disease prevention, and breeding techniques are transforming goat farming. They can mention how bibliometric analysis might reveal shifts or trends related to goat breeding advancement.
Search Strategy
The study relies only on the Web of Science (WoS) database. While WoS is comprehensive, they should consider including multiple databases to ensure comprehensive data collection.
Using only "goat breeding" as the search term might exclude relevant studies that use related terms, such as "goat genetics," "caprine reproduction or breeding," or "small ruminant breeding." Employing other alternative keywords could increase the depth of the search.
The description does not specify whether filters (e.g., language, document type, or subject area) were applied during the search. This omission could lead to ambiguity about the scope of the search.
The rationale for selecting studies published from 1991 to 2023 is not explained. Why was 1991 chosen as the starting point? If this is based on trends in goat breeding research or database availability, it should be stated. Excluding studies before 1991 might omit foundational research unless this is addressed in the justification.
Define Exclusion Criteria by specifying what constitutes "missing data" and quantify exclusions.
The process for eliminating papers with missing data is not detailed as to what specific types of missing data (e.g., incomplete citations, lack of author information, or missing abstracts). This could influence reproducibility.
What percentage of the dataset was removed due to missing data? If a significant portion was excluded, this could introduce bias.
Some categories, like meeting abstracts or editorial notes, might not provide substantial content for analysis. Consider explaining whether these categories were treated differently in subsequent analyses.
While the study mentions Bradford's Law, it does not explain why it was chosen or how it adds value to the analysis. This statistical principle could be briefly explained and linked to the study's objectives.
Data Analysis and Quality Assurance
There is no mention of how duplicate records were handled, as duplicate entries could skew results.
It is unclear whether the data extraction process was validated (e.g., by having multiple researchers independently verify the data).
If only English-language articles were included, this could lead to geographic bias, particularly given the global nature of goat breeding (e.g., significant research might be published in Chinese, French, or Spanish).
It would be helpful to discuss whether the WoS database adequately represents research outputs from regions with significant goat populations, such as Africa or Asia.
Elaboration on on Analytical Methods should be clear by breaking down the types of analyses conducted and specify statistical or computational tools used, if any.
List and justify the types of visualization methods applied and include examples of how visualizations helped in interpreting relationships or trends.
Interpretation should be enhanced by detailing on how results were contextualized within the broader research field also mention potential biases in the dataset and how they were accounted for.
Acknowledge any limitations in the study eg relying solely on WoS or the tools used.
Results and Conclusions
Under the Trend topic keywords its so confusing why authors used sheep ‘According to the bibliometric results, “sheep” term was used 182 times and leads to the list. Following that, the “traits” and “diversity” terms were used 74 and 62 times respectively. The “sheep” term was used between 2009 and 2019.while the paper is about goats. Can you please clarify on this
The discussion section is too shallow and needs to be strengthened by comparing and contrasting with other relevant studies
Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Partly
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Partly
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
Yes
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Partly
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Partly
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Partly
Reviewer Expertise:
NA
I confirm that I have read this submission and believe that I have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however I have significant reservations, as outlined above.
10.5256/f1000research.161258.r275730Reviewer response for version 1Torres-HernándezGlafiro1Refereehttps://orcid.org/0000-0002-0479-1191A. Maldonado-JáquezJorge2Co-referee
Colegio de Postgraduados, Montecillo, Mexico
INIFAP, Laguna, Torreon, Mexico
Competing interests: No competing interests were disclosed.
“A bibliometric analysis of the literature on goat breeding”
COMMENTS TO AUTHORS:
“Background and Methods” are not clear. Authors talk about using 1000 scientific documents, but we think they should break down the number of each document in a particular way. Also, they don’t mention the discrimination criteria utilized to select the 1000 documents, nor the number of journals consulted. Were there only 1000 documents when using only the keyword “goat breeding”? Clarify this point.
“Results and Conclusions” are too short and simple. Authors only mention 2023, and in fact 2023 is one of the years in which the smallest number of studies are observed. This contradicts the conclusion. Why do you make this differentiation? Do you also include what happened with the rest of the years? That is, point out where the greatest growth has been seen. How do you conclude that studies on goat farming have become popular? It is correct to point out that the number of studies of this type has increased significantly, but that does not necessarily make them popular.
It is recommended not to use keywords contained in the title.
The “Introduction” seems somewhat limited and contradictory. At the beginning, authors address the global inventory by continent, but immediately they talk about a large number of published studies related to goat breeding without prior context, and at the same time they indicate that the evolution of this topic remains unknown. It is suggested to expand more information regarding the increase in publications on this topic and, above all, to emphasize what this behavior is attributed to.
The information regarding bibliometric analysis seems sufficient.
The chapter on “Methods” needs to be improved. Authors mention that articles with missing data were eliminated, but what was the elimination criterion? How many articles were eliminated, or what was the rejection rate?. What other elimination criteria did you use?. The “data analysis section” can be improved, particularly giving a more detailed description of the 4 steps indicated here.
Results. Authors indicate that goat-breeding studies have been performed for the first time since 1991. This is true based on published studies in international journals, because there are goat-breeding studies in some latinamerican countries that were published before 1991 (early 80’s) in local journals; for example, Venezuela and Mexico. Authors say that 2023 is a year that is not complete, we think they should eliminate it, since the trend seen in Figure 1 suggests that the number of studies is decreasing.
Regarding the average number of citations per year, authors point out that 2006 was the year with the most citations, and they suggest that this may be due to the increase in the number of studies. If this statement were correct, an increase in the average number of citations would be observed, due to the positive trend in the number of studies published in subsequent years. However, this did not happen and it was not until 2018 that a new increase in the average number of citations was observed.
The result of the most relevant sources of information is not clear. Do authors mean that of the 1000 documents they analyzed, Small Ruminant published 145 (this data does not coincide with the data shown in Figure 3, with 154 articles: typographic error?) and the rest was published by 265 journals? Figure 3 shows other journals that make important contributions to this topic. Explain why they were not discussed in the results.
The trend topic keywords section indicate that the most used keyword is “SHEEP”. Why?, We don’t understand, weren’t you supposed to have done a bibliographical review on “GOAT BREEDING”? Explain why in a bibliometric analysis of “GOATS”, the most used keyword is “SHEEP”. Although both species are considered small ruminants, each one corresponds to a completely different genus from the other. Furthermore, it is striking that in Figure 4, keywords such as “goat”, “kids”, “small ruminants”, among others of importance in goat production, were not shown.
Author’s discussion of results is poor. What they did here is just make a summary of everything they showed in results. In addition, authors discuss and compare results with species such as Buffaloes, but they don’t discuss the observed trends at all and didn’t make an effort to explain why they found those results reported in the document. It is suggested to rewrite this section according to suggestions made here.
Is the work clearly and accurately presented and does it cite the current literature?
Partly
If applicable, is the statistical analysis and its interpretation appropriate?
Yes
Are all the source data underlying the results available to ensure full reproducibility?
No
Is the study design appropriate and is the work technically sound?
Yes
Are the conclusions drawn adequately supported by the results?
Partly
Are sufficient details of methods and analysis provided to allow replication by others?
Yes
Reviewer Expertise:
Genetic improvement of small ruminants
We confirm that we have read this submission and believe that we have an appropriate level of expertise to confirm that it is of an acceptable scientific standard, however we have significant reservations, as outlined above.