Abstract:Marine biodiversity and its sustainable use are threatened by climate change and human activities, and research on this topic has drawn increasing interest worldwide. We used bibliometrics and knowledge mapping analysis to review information related to marine biodiversity indexed in the ISI Web of Science Core Collection database. We created descriptive statistics of the number of articles published annually, the journal frequency, and the country distributions. Then, the author, institution cooperation network, and keyword-based knowledge mapping and burst analysis were used to explore hotspots of marine biodiversity research. The descriptive statistics suggest that the number of studies has increased in recent decades, and scientific research influence and international attention are very high. Authors and institutions have formed frequent and stable cooperative networks. Author cooperation has formed core authorships, such as Miloslavich P., Danovaro R., and Mouillot D. Institutional cooperation has enabled extensive collaborations among James Cook University, the University of Tasmania, and the University of British Columbia. Ecology, biodiversity conservation, marine freshwater biology, and environmental sciences are the main disciplines of marine biodiversity. Burst analysis showed that current marine biodiversity research has five study frontiers: (1) the impacts of human activities and climate change on marine biodiversity, (2) the protection and sustainable utilization of marine biodiversity, (3) the establishment and management of marine protected areas beyond national jurisdictions, and the protection of ecologically or biologically significant marine areas, (4) the observation and evaluation of marine biodiversity and ecosystem change, and (5) marine genetic diversity and geographic variations in diversity.
