Abstract

Argentina shows a remarkable increase in the academic community, reaching the highest number of researchers per capita in Latin America, but the gender gap is still evident. The objective of this work was to identify and evaluate the evolution of the main research topics in ecology in Argentina during the last twenty years in order to analyze whether social gender stereotypes are reproduced in the selection of research topics. Four books of abstracts of the Reunione Argentinas de Ecologia from the last twenty years were analyzed and the gender of the first author and co-authors was identified. Natural Language Processing was used to analyze the gender associations with the 16,319 words appearing in the 2,208 abstract titles. The mean number of female co-authors was always higher in the abstracts of papers led by women, although the proportion of female co-authors to total authors increased more in the abstracts of papers led by men. Research topics evolved from those considered fundamental pillars of ecology (e.g., population studies) to contemporary topics defined by management and policy studies. Gender differences were present and changed over time. Currently, men work on research topics related to decision making, while women focus on environmental processes, so it is urgent to create more leadership spaces for women in order to reduce gender inequalities.