B I O L O G I CA L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3

available at www.sciencedirect.com

journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/biocon

Are review articles a reliable source of evidence to

support conservation and environmental management?
A comparison with medicine

Philip D. Roberts*, Gavin B. Stewart, Andrew S. Pullin

Centre for Evidence-Based Conservation, School of Biosciences, University of Birmingham, Edgbaston, Birmingham, West Midlands B15
2TT, UK

A R T I C L E I N F O A B S T R A C T

Article history: Review articles are important sources of information and often the only source of evidence
Received 19 December 2005 used by decision makers in conservation and environmental management to assess effec-
Received in revised form tiveness and impact of interventions and other actions. Recent developments in the field of
21 April 2006 medicine and public health have established ‘systematic review’ guidelines to minimise
Accepted 27 April 2006 bias and explicitly document methodology, allowing replication and updating in light of
Available online 13 June 2006 further advances. The aim of this article was to assess the methodological and reporting
rigour of reviews from the disciplines of conservation, ecology and environmental manage-
Keywords: ment (referred to as ‘‘ecological reviews’’). This was achieved by comparing them to med-
Systematic review ical systematic reviews, using 27 detailed criteria well established in medicine. When
Evidence-based practice compared with medical systematic reviews, ecological reviews were more likely to be prone
Review methodology to bias, lacking details in the methods used to search for studies, and were less likely to
Decision-making assess the relevance of studies, quality of the original experiments and to quantitatively
Meta-analysis synthesise the evidence. Overall, ecological reviews show lower quality and greater varia-
tion in reporting style and review methods. To address this, reviewers could use a system-
atic review approach and journals could provide more explicit guidelines for the
preparation and production of review articles.
 2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.

1. Introduction sometimes very complex or controversial subjects and can

The literature review is an established feature of many scien-
tific journals, across a wide diversity of disciplines. Reviews
allow comparisons to be drawn between different sets of
studies, often enabling synthesis of independent data sets,
and are therefore a necessary part of the scientific process
(Arnquist and Wooster, 1995). As new facts are presented,
their relation to old ones should be pointed out (Chalmers
et al., 2002; Egger et al., 2003). For the majority of scientists
and practitioners a good review can be a valuable commodity.
They are often the first port of call for useful summaries of
provide connections between past and future research direc-
tions (Gates, 2002). They can act as efficient tools to assist in
knowledge transfer, raising awareness of research findings
and encouraging the possible adoption of management alter-
natives (CRD, 2001).
Studies often have conflicting findings and reviews are
necessary to investigate the biological or methodological rea-
sons for this variation. For example in medicine, assumptions
of the benefits of routine antiarrhythmic therapy based upon
human biological plausibility led to its widespread use to pre-
vent acute myocardial infarction. However, subsequent

* Corresponding author: Tel.: +44 121 4144090; fax: +44 121 4145925.
E-mail address: pdr387@bham.ac.uk (P.D. Roberts).
0006-3207/$ - see front matter  2006 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved.
doi:10.1016/j.biocon.2006.04.034
410 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N
empirical studies demonstrated that antiarrhythmic therapy
actually increased patient mortality (CAST, 1989; Woolf,
2000). Due to the mounting number of cases similar to that
above, Cochrane (1979) issued a challenge to organise critical
summaries of the best available evidence for each specialty
that would be readily available and regularly updated. This
challenge was gradually accepted by both practitioners and
policy makers, causing a ‘‘scientific revolution’’ within the
fields of medicine and public health, shifting both from a sub-
jective experience-based approach to a rigorous evidence-
based approach to practice (Sackett and Rosenberg, 1995).
Within this evidence-based approach new frameworks for
the reviewing of scientific data (evidence) have developed,
(see the UK’s National Health Service Centre for Research
and Dissemination (NHS CRD) report 4, 2001 and The Coch-
rane Collaboration Handbook – Higgins and Green, 2005)
and new independent organisations such as the Cochrane
Collaboration have been established. The Cochrane Collabo-
ration provides readily available, up-to-date, accurate infor-
mation about the effectiveness of different healthcare
interventions. This is achieved through the production and
dissemination of ‘‘systematic reviews’’, an explicit methodol-
ogy for the detailed exploration, critical evaluation and inter-
pretation of all available evidence that is relevant to a
particular subject (CRD, 2001). Systematic reviews are scien-
tific investigations in themselves; they have pre-planned
methodologies (protocols) and an assembly of original studies
as their ‘‘subjects/population’’. They are of particular value in
combining a number of separately conducted primary stud-
ies/investigations, sometimes with very conflicting findings,
and when possible synthesise their results quantitatively
using strategies that limit bias and random error (Egger
et al., 2003; Mulrow, 1994).
Within the disciplines of conservation and environmental
management the standard approach to reviewing literature is
still the traditional ‘‘narrative review’’ (Gates, 2002). Narrative
reviews normally provide only a qualitative assessment of the
published results and are primarily based on the experience
and subjective judgement of the author(s). This can lead to
biases towards a particular side of an issue, instead of being
based on the best evidence we have available to us. They also
frequently lack methodological transparency and therefore
cannot easily be repeated or updated on a regular basis (Egger
et al., 2003; Mulrow, 1994). Review articles have been identi-
fied as a leading source of information used by nature conser-
vation practitioners when producing management plans (this
includes site, species and habitat action plans) (Pullin et al.,
2004). However, the need for a more systematic use of evi-
dence in the production of conservation management plans
is still required. There are numerous examples of conserva-
tion advice and actions being undertaken without a traceable
source of evidence to show why the practitioner came to their
decision (Sutherland and Hill, 1995). In the absence of evi-
dence, managers rely on personal experiences or revert to
‘‘traditional’’ methods, especially in the cases such as grazing
regimes and coppicing (Pullin and Knight, 2001).
There has been a series of calls for the use of the rigour
inherent in systematic review methodology in conservation
and environmental management disciplines to provide deci-
sion-makers with the best available evidence (Pullin, 2003;
1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3
Pullin and Knight, 2001; Sutherland et al., 2004). Currently, it
is unclear how rigorous existing narrative reviews are and
to what extent systematic review methodologies are already
being utilised. For example, do authors carry out an explicit
and detailed search of all literature sources, or do they simply
grab a number of papers from their file-drawer (Mulrow, 1987;
Rosenthal, 1979)? In addition to the standard electronic
sources of published scientific literature (e.g. Web of Science,
Science Direct, Scopus), authors can carry out extensive grey
literature searches of non-governmental and governmental
organisations’ web based resources, contact external subject
experts for the identification of any non-published or internal
reports they may have contributed to and/or make arrange-
ments to search an organisation’s library. These additional
searches, although time consuming, are an integral part of
the systematic review process and can often lead to the iden-
tification of important unpublished datasets, theses and tech-
nical reports, which are generally overlooked as they are not
indexed in the standard electronic databases.
Over the past decade there have been a number of reviews
within the conservation and environmental management dis-
ciplines which have incorporated quantitative meta-analyti-
cal techniques to synthesise evidence (e.g. Levine et al.,
2004). However, these reviews are still open to the same
biases as narrative reviews if the evidence being synthesised
has been chosen subjectively, without an adequate search
strategy and inclusion/exclusion criteria to identify all rele-
vant studies (CRD, 2001).
In this paper we: (1) assess the methodological rigour of
current conservation, ecology and environmental manage-
ment reviews, hereafter referred to as ‘‘ecological reviews’’,
using the criteria recently adopted by medicine (see CRD,
2001; Higgins and Green, 2005); (2) quantitatively compare
these results against an assessment of recently published
medical ‘‘gold standard’’ Cochrane systematic reviews, to
establish if there are any deficiencies in the methodology
and reporting styles of the current ecological reviews; and
(3) conclude by outlining the ‘systematic review’ approach
for adoption within ecological and environmental disciplines.
2. Methods
2.1. Search strategy and inclusion criteria
To identify reviews applicable to this study, the ecological
journals section of the ISI Journal Citation Reports of Web of
Knowledge (http://wok.mimas.ac.uk/) was searched using
the impact factor sorting facility to identify the leading 40
ecological journals, accepting only those which stated within
their ‘aims and scope’ or ‘advice to authors’ that they pub-
lished ‘reviews’ (an article that provides a narrative synthesis
of a topic’s literature) or ‘syntheses’ (similar to a review arti-
cle, provides new quantitative syntheses, meta-analysis or
modelling of the data where applicable, and discusses new
directions for future research). Starting from the issue cur-
rently available online, we searched the last 12 issues of each
journal on 12th October 2005. To allow direct comparison with
the medical and public health disciplines that already utilise
systematic review methodology, only those review articles
or synthesis papers which had an applied conservation,
 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N
ecological or environmental management element, i.e. were
investigating the ‘‘effectiveness’’, ‘‘impact’’ or ‘‘effect’’ of an
intervention, management policy or natural process, were
considered for inclusion within the assessment of methodol-
ogies. In total, the selection criteria yielded 73 (26%) of 279 re-
view or synthesis articles identified within the leading 40
ecological journals.
Medical reviews were identified by searching the online
version of the Cochrane Collaboration Library for the most re-
cent review articles (searched on 17th October 2005). Using a
random number generator, 73 reviews were selected. The
Cochrane Collaboration style systematic review was chosen
as the ‘gold standard’ of medical review articles (Jadad
et al., 1998). The Cochrane Collaboration provides detailed
methodological guidelines (see Higgins and Green, 2005) that
authors are advised to follow giving Cochrane reviews a stan-
dardised format. The guidelines are intended to help authors
to be systematic and explicit in the way they approach ques-
tions they pose and how they can derive answers to those
questions. They provide guidance on: formulating a question;
locating and selecting studies; quality assessment of studies;
collecting, analysing and presenting results; and how to inter-
pret, draw conclusions and provide recommendations from
the output of the analyses. Each review also undergoes peer
review prior to being published online on the Collaboration’s
library website (http://www.cochrane.org/) and the authors
can publish their reviews in their appropriate subject
journals.
2.2. Assessment criteria and data extraction
Both sets of captured reviews were assessed against the fol-
lowing explicit criteria of 27 methodological and reporting as-
pects, adapted from published guidelines for the synthesis of
information (CRD, 2001; Higgins and Green, 2005; Mulrow,
1987; Rosenthal, 1991): Did the authors: (1) produce an explicit
a priori protocol, which could be available online (a standard
practice for Cochrane reviews and/or outlined within the re-
view article); (2) explain the background of the review; (3)
clearly state a question that the review was to address; (4)
clearly define the question elements (e.g. PICO – Population,
Intervention (or Management/Process of interest), Compara-
tors, Outcomes of interest); (5) define search terms used to
identify sources of evidence (this could be provided within re-
view, as supplementary material or at organisation’s website);
(6) document a detailed systematic literature search of
sources (e.g. use of specific databases and/or reference list);
(7) search for unpublished ‘grey’ literature which is held by
non-governmental organisations, governmental departments
and/or charities; (8) define inclusion/exclusion criteria for
identification of relevant evidence; (9) document reasons for
inclusion/exclusion for each study (again, this is standard
procedure for medical systematic reviews and provided with-
in appendices of online supplementary material); (10) use two
or more reviewers to undertake inclusion/exclusion and data
extraction to limit selection bias; (11) undertake an assess-
ment of each studies quality/validity (e.g. did the review as-
sess one or more of the following features – experimental
designs, sampling accuracy, timescales, baseline surveys,
scales, pseudo-replication); (12) provide standardised, docu-
1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3 411
mented and repeatable methods for how data was extracted
from each of the studies accepted within the review synthe-
sis; (13) provide a formal assessment and estimation of the
possible risk of publication bias of those studies accepted
within the final synthesis of the review, (e.g. using funnel
plots, or similar assessment, such as Egger tests to assess
the distribution of effect sizes according to sample size or in-
verse variance (CRD, 2001)); (14) provide a qualitative synthe-
sis of the evidence in the text of the review and/or tabulated
each accepted studies’ findings; (15) plan to undertake a
quantitative synthesis of the evidence according to the meth-
ods section of the review; (16) undertake a quantitative anal-
ysis of the evidence when possible; (17) performed a meta-
analysis (a statistical technique that combines the findings
of two or more studies for the purpose of drawing general
conclusions, developing support for hypotheses, and/or pro-
ducing an estimate of overall management effect); (18) inves-
tigate any sources of heterogeneity within the dataset; (19)
perform sensitivity analysis upon the data; (20) investigate
whether there was appropriate power within analyses, nor-
mally through post hoc power analysis; (21) report the key find-
ings of the review; (22) reference all studies used within the
review; (23) provide an appendix/list of those reviews ex-
cluded from the review but viewed at full text (this allows
readers to assess these studies for themselves if so desired
and provides a wider reference source, possibly identifying
unknown grey literature, which might be suitable for readers
studying a closely related subject); (24) identify an evidence
gap/lack of data to properly answer the main question of
the review; (25) identify other evidence-gaps or areas lacking
knowledge in light of the review’s findings; (26) provide rec-
ommendations for future topics/questions that still require
investigation; and (27) advise on the methodology of future
experiments (incl. appropriate sample sizes and experimental
designs).
2.3. Quantitative analysis
The methodological and reporting characteristics were re-
corded as being either present or absent for each of the 146 re-
views (73 ecological and 73 Cochrane, see Appendix A for
reference list of reviews). These characteristics were used to
classify the reviews into hierarchical groups using two way
indicator species analysis (TWINSPAN) (Hill, 1979). The analy-
sis was limited to three sequential divisions that could poten-
tially produce eight groupings, which show the level of
variation within the quality of the reviews. Complimentary
ordination using detrended correspondence analysis (DCA)
(Hill, 1974) was conducted, based upon the same methodolog-
ical and reporting characteristics to investigate the relation-
ship between the ecological and Cochrane reviews. The
TWINSPAN groupings were superimposed on the ordination
plot to allow each ecological and Cochrane review to be easily
identifiable. The median Eigenvalue scores for the ecological
and Cochrane reviews were calculated and compared using
Mann–Whitney U tests (Siegel, 1956) to investigate if either
groups’ methodological and reporting qualities significantly
differed from one another.
To test whether ecological and Cochrane reviews differed
significantly in each of the 27 methodological and reporting
412 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3

Table 1 – Results of the comparative assessment of ecological and Cochrane review articles against 27 methodology and
reporting characteristics, with the number of reviews fulfilling each characteristic and the results of v2 tests or Fishers
exact test presented
Characteristics of methodology Ecological Cochrane Probability

Planning and search (n = 73) (n = 73)

Production of an explicit repeatable documented a priori protocol 0 73 <0.0001
Explained background to the review 73 73
Defined question 65 73 0.0032
Question elements: population, intervention, comparator and outcome defined 14 70 <0.0001
Defined search terms to be used to identify sources of evidence 14 66 <0.0001
Documented detailed systematic literature search of all sources (incl. databases, ref lists, proceeds) 22 73 <0.0001
Searches for unpublished ‘grey’ literature 21 47 <0.0001

Identification of the evidence and potential biases

Defined inclusion/exclusion criteria for identification of relevant (evidence) studies 25 73 <0.0001
Reasons for inclusion/exclusion documented for each study 1 70 <0.0001
Inclusion/exclusion controlled (KAPPA) 0 70 <0.0001
Assessment of the each studies quality/validity
1. Experimental designs 23 69 <0.0001
2. Sampling accuracy
3. Appropriate timescales
4. Baseline survey
5. Scale
6. Pseudo-replication
Data extraction methodology documented and repeatable 15 51 <0.0001
Estimation of publication bias 6 17 0.0125

Data-synthesis and analysis

Descriptive qualitative synthesis 73 73
Planned quantitative synthesis of evidence 29 73 <0.0001
Undertook quantitative synthesis 27 59 <0.0001
Performed meta-analysis 8 49 <0.0001
Investigation of sources of heterogeneity
1. Sub-group 12 36 <0.0001
2. Meta-regression
Sensitivity analysis (excel of certain data, etc.) 0 23 <0.0001
Investigation to whether there was appropriate power to accept/reject H0 or H1 2 3 0.5000

Reporting
Reporting the key results of the review 73 73
Provides references of all studies within the review 73 73
Identification of evidence gap for the main question 49 46 0.6025
Identified other evidence gaps related to subgroup/sensitivity analyses 48 51 0.5951
Recommendations for future studies 64 70 0.0706
Advised on future experimental designs and/or sample sizes for future experiments 34 41 0.2464
Listed excluded studies in reference list or appendix/online material 0 70 <0.0001

For further details of the assessment procedures see Section 2.

characteristics, frequency counts for each characteristic of
both review groups were collated and compared using two-
way classification chi-squared tests (26 of 27 variables) or
Fisher’s exact test (when expected frequencies were less than
five, as for characteristic 3 (Table 1)). For all analyses values of
P < 0.05 were regarded as statistically significant. The analy-
ses were carried out using a combination of Excel (XP), Stats-
Direct (version 2.5) and PC-ORD (version 4.0).
3. Results
Cochrane reviews were more rigorous when planning and
searching for sources of evidence (Table 1). They followed
an explicit protocol of documented methods, which were
planned a priori to reduce bias, defined the question clearly,
and stated the components (subjects, intervention and out-
comes) of the question under review. Cochrane reviews de-
fined a detailed search strategy: including giving the search
terms used, sources searched (including computer databases,
conference proceedings and reference lists) and included
unpublished ‘grey’ literature. Ecological reviews were limited
in their recording of the search methods utilised for the cap-
ture of evidence, with only 30% (22/73) of authors reporting
any details of the sources they used to acquire evidence and
less than 20% (14/73) reporting the search terms used.
When identifying the relevant evidence and potential
biases from the original studies, all Cochrane reviews defined
the inclusion/exclusion criteria for the identification of rele-
vant studies and documented the reasons for inclusion/
exclusion of all studies viewed at full text, controlling the pro-
cedure by having two or more authors undertake study selec-
tion. However, only 34% (25/73) of ecological reviews provided
 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N 1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3 413

inclusion criteria and in only 1 of 73 reviews were details of
excluded studies provided. Over 90% (69/73) of Cochrane re-
views assessed the quality of the original studies and 70%
provided clear methodology of how evidence was to be ex-
tracted from the original studies, compared to just 32% (23/
73) of ecological reviews assessing quality and only 21% (15/
73) explaining data extraction methods.
All ecological and Cochrane reviews provided a descriptive
qualitative synthesis of the evidence; furthermore, all authors
of Cochrane reviews documented that they planned to under-
take quantitative synthesis, providing the methodology to ex-
tract and analyse the data, but only 40% (29/73) of ecological
review authors stated that they planned a quantitative syn-
thesis of the evidence. Cochrane reviewers undertook quanti-
tative synthesis of the evidence (involving meta-analysis) and
investigated potential sources of heterogeneity using sub-
group analysis or meta-regression, while ecological reviewers
either neglected to mention heterogeneity (75%, 55/73) or
used qualitative methods to explain potential sources, but
did not actually investigate these (8%, 6/73). In only 16% (12/
73) of ecological reviews were formal quantitative methods
used to explain any heterogeneity within the dataset and
the sources of heterogeneity were never demonstrably identi-
fied a priori. Finally, when reporting the findings of the review
there were no significant differences between the two types
(Table 1), with the exception that Cochrane reviews provided

77

34 14

20

122

12
125
9

38
58
100 127

1, 25, 30, 39, 52, 53 3 55 32

89 5
101 116
15, 46, 56,138 64
133 102
11 123 126
51, 65, 71 10
18 4 144 132 13 169 131
22 115 68 19 6 54 145 2, 103 23, 44
70 105 90, 104
80
40, 139 74 91 110 119 98 35 113 106 8 108
92 21 37 36, 75
47, 121 136 83 16 62 78, 109, 146 85 17, 93, 129
49, 118 67, 137 59 124
111 114 81, 140 73 76 142 88 26, 84
29 130 33 135
43 112 61, 143, 28, 94 50 41
31 7 134 66
63 57
99 96
60 97 82 117
128 27 ..87 42, 45
24 72 141
107 120 95

86
48
79

Fig. 1 – DCA ordination with TWINSPAN groups overlaid. Ecological reviews (open symbols) and Cochrane reviews (closed
symbols). The numbered labels refer to the individual reviews as listed in Appendix A. (d) Cochrane reviews including meta-
analysis. (j) Cochrane reviews without meta-analysis, (s) Ecological reviews containing meta-analysis, (·) Ecological reviews
which undertook quantitative synthesis, investigated heterogeneity and assessed the quality of the original studies, (h)
ecological reviews which undertook quantitative synthesis (not meta-analysis) and investigated heterogeneity, (e) ecological
reviews which clearly defined question and included some search details and included meta-analysis, (,) ecological reviews
which defined inclusion/exclusion but qualitatively synthesised evidence (n) ecological reviews which solely qualitatively
synthesised an unknown amount of the available evidence. Axis 1 eigen = 0.18 and axis 2 eigen = 0.06.
414 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N
a reference list of those articles which were viewed at full text
but rejected from the final review, while this was absent from
all ecological reviews.
The differences in methodological and reporting charac-
teristics were confirmed by classification (TWINSPAN) and
ordination (DCA). There is a distinct clustering of the Coch-
rane reviews separate from the ecological reviews, which
were more dispersed across both axes of the ordination
(Fig. 1). The separation of the two review groups was highly
significant on both axes (Axis 1: ecological reviews median
Eigen score = 59, Cochrane reviews mean Eigen score = 150,
U = 232, P < 0.0001; and Axis 2: ecological review median Eigen
score = 68, Cochrane review mean Eigen score = 39, U = 4875.5;
P < 0.0001). Overall, reviews that undertook or planned quan-
titative synthesis of the captured data had higher first axis
scores, as shown by the Cochrane reviews and ecological
meta-analyses (TWINSPAN group’s d, j and s, see Fig. 1).
Axis 2 relates to the searching and reporting characteristics
of the reviews. Those reviews which lacked enough detail to
be easily repeated (e.g. lacking detail of how the evidence
was identified and how it was extracted from the original pa-
per) all had low second axis scores (TWINSPAN group’s n and
e, see Fig. 1), whilst those which could be repeated and there-
fore easily updated in light of new research had high second
axis scores (TWINSPAN groups d, j, s, and h, see Fig. 1).
4. Discussion
Our results show that systematic methods of searching,
selecting and assessing the relevance and quality of data
along with quantitatively synthesising evidence (all consis-
tent with the Cochrane review methodology) are not routinely
nor rigorously used in applied ecological subjects such as con-
servation and environmental management. On a positive
note, the meta-analytical element is now becoming more
commonplace. All the assessed ecological reviews provided
an overview of the topic; however, they would benefit from
using systematic review guidelines, as followed by Cochrane
reviews, to increase the repeatability of their methodology,
allowing readers to evaluate whether all available evidence
had been captured.
Both narrative and systematic reviews are retrospective,
observational pieces of research, fully dependant on the ex-
tent to which review methods have been used to minimise
both bias and random error. This important feature is key
to distinguishing the traditional review from a systematic re-
view (Egger et al., 2003; Higgins and Green, 2005). Within the
last decade the traditional medical narrative review has been
identified as being of poor quality and rife with personal
biases from the reviewers’ own opinions, and as such repre-
sents an unreliable source of information (CRD, 2001; Glas-
ziou et al., 2001; Mulrow, 1994). Without the guidance of
formal rules, review author(s) inevitably disagree about is-
sues such as what types of studies are appropriate to in-
clude, and how to extract or summarise the evidence from
each of the individual studies. Cochrane reviewers follow
formal rules to minimise biases by documenting a detailed
a priori protocol of the search strategy, the selection criteria
to identify appropriate studies, assessment of their quality
(validity) and details of the extraction and synthesis meth-
1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3
odology to be used (Higgins and Green, 2005). All 73 Coch-
rane reviews assessed in this study produced protocols and
disseminated them to stakeholders (individuals, groups or
organisations that are affected by and/or have an interest
in a particular issue) to receive comments/amendments
prior to undertaking the full review. All report the literature
sources (e.g. databases, journals to be hand searched) and
90% (66/73) list the search terms used for each source, as
well as including this information in the methods section
of the review. This gives the reader confidence that the
authors have identified all available sources relevant to the
subject being reviewed and therefore confidence in the find-
ings of the review. In stark contrast, none of the ecological
reviews reported that they had undertaken the protocol pro-
cess, with only 30% (22/73) reporting the literature sources
searched and less than 20% (14/73) listing the search terms
used. This shortage in reported detail results in the reader
being unsure if a comprehensive synthesis of the evidence
was undertaken and to what extent the conclusions drawn
by the authors, can be relied upon.
The aim of the study inclusion/exclusion phase of the
Cochrane reviews is to identify those studies that help to an-
swer the question(s) being addressed by the review. In 100% of
Cochrane reviews, detailed inclusion/exclusion criteria were
documented, giving further transparency and repeatability
of the review methodology. In contrast, only 34% (25/73) of
the ecological reviews gave details of the inclusion/exclusion
criteria that they were using for the identification or applica-
ble studies. The study inclusion/exclusion phase of the sys-
tematic review follows logically from the defined review
question, as components of the question (the population,
intervention, comparator and outcome) are used to create cri-
teria against which each of the identified studies from the
searches are assessed.
Reviews that undertake quantitative, meta-analytical
techniques provide increased statistical power when com-
pared to individual studies, allowing for the assessment of
small effects and conditions of relatively low event rates
and, compared to traditional narrative reviews, allow for a
quantitative and objective analysis of the evidence (Arnquist
and Wooster, 1995; Egger et al., 2003). The consistency of rela-
tionships between included studies can be investigated,
allowing the assessment of their direction and magnitude;
data inconsistencies and conflicts can be investigated and ex-
plained (CRD, 2001). In addition, the diversity of multiple
studies analysed within a systematic review provides an
interpretive context that can be reliably generalised across
differing situations/sites, which would otherwise not have
been available from either a traditional review or a single
large study (Egger et al., 2003; Hedges and Olkin, 1985). How-
ever, although there are distinct advantages of the use of
meta-analytical techniques, the results derived are only as
good as the data being synthesised. If the review lacks a com-
prehensive search strategy, it is likely to suffer from a degree
of publication bias, when the publication of research depends
on the nature and direction of the study results, where stud-
ies in which an intervention is not found to be effective are
generally not published. Due to this, reviews which fail to in-
clude unpublished studies (‘grey literature’) may overestimate
the true effect of an intervention resulting in false positive
 B I O L O G I C A L C O N S E RVAT I O N
conclusions being drawn, which if acted upon could be more
resource intensive for the organisation than if they had ini-
tially commissioned a comprehensive, systematic review of
all the evidence (Glasziou et al., 2001; Higgins and Green,
2005; Scargle, 2000). Overall, those ecological reviews which
used meta-analytical techniques also contained more of the
27 methodology and reporting characteristics; however, they
still lacked consistency when reporting details of the search
criteria used to identify their sources of evidence and in gen-
eral failed to investigate both publication bias and any
sources of heterogeneity within the dataset. This is clearly
shown in the TWINSPAN classification and DCA ordination
as the majority of the quantitative reviews were grouped to-
gether with higher axis 1 and 2 scores than those reviews that
qualitatively summarised the available evidence. The close
grouping of the Cochrane reviews (TWINSPAN group’s d and
j) illustrates that all 73 reviews were prepared following the
same guidelines. The biggest difference among Cochrane re-
views is method of synthesis, with some reviews capturing
data clearly inappropriate for quantitative treatment. How-
ever, review quality was variable with minor omissions of
information (e.g. future experimental design details, investi-
gating heterogeneity of the data) by those reviews which ob-
tained a lower axis 2 score.
5. Recommendations
In our view, improving the impact and quality of ecological re-
views will be highly beneficial in the applied fields of conser-
vation and environmental management, but requires both
authors and publishers to follow several key stages of the sys-
tematic review process (Pullin and Stewart, in press). First, the
author(s) should define a question similar to formulating a
hypothesis for primary research. This allows the reader to
understand the scope of the review’s question and its aims
from the outset (Dennison and Kirk, 1990; Light and Pilemar,
1984), and guides the subsequent stages of study inclusion
and data synthesis.
Second, as the aim of the systematic review process is to
answer a question based on the best available evidence,
including both published and unpublished ‘grey literature’, a
comprehensive and documented search strategy is required.
This search strategy should be documented in the final article
to allow the review to be repeated/updated at regular inter-
vals (e.g. every five years) or in the light of new advances.
Third, the use of explicit inclusion/exclusion criteria for
identifying all relevant evidence to the question should be
stated (e.g. based on certain methodological criteria of the ori-
ginal studies or/and on population characteristics by includ-
ing wild and excluding captive based studies). By
documenting this process, preferably a priori, pre-formed
opinions will not bias the selection of relevant studies to
the review (Cooper and Ribble, 1989).
Fourth, readers need to know how good the reviewed evi-
dence is; therefore, where appropriate, a quality assessment
of all studies included within the review should be under-
taken. This normally involves the critical appraisal of the
internal validity of each included study by assessing the
experimental design, implementation and analysis, the re-
sults being tabulated to allow easy comparisons to be drawn
1 3 2 ( 2 0 0 6 ) 4 0 9 –4 2 3 415
between the various studies. By using standardised appraisal
forms, the uniformity of the assessment is achieved (for
examples of appraisal forms that can be adapted for use with
ecological studies see http://www.sign.ac.uk/methodology/
checklists.html) and, by having two or more reviewers per-
forming the appraisal, biases can be minimised and repeat-
ability demonstrated. The information gained from a good
quality assessment can be used to determine the strength
of inferences derived within the review (Glasziou et al., 2001).
Fifth, the synthesis of evidence should be undertaken in a
repeatable systematic manner. This can be achieved through
a qualitative synthesis complemented by the use of formal
statistical techniques for pooling and analysing data from
numerous sources (e.g. meta-analysis) when appropriate
(Arnquist and Wooster, 1995; Gates, 2002).
Sixth, faced with limited time to read the whole review,
many readers will go directly to the conclusion section.
Therefore this section should be clearly worded, based only
on the evidence reviewed, and should discuss the strength
of the evidence and applicability of the results.
Finally, we advocate that all scientific journals that publish
reviews should revise their guidelines to encourage the use of
systematic review methodology. The advantages of the sys-
tematic review process have already been demonstrated in
medicine and public health, allowing improvements in the
impact, quality and power of review articles (Glasziou et al.,
2001). Ecology is slow in its acceptance of this approach with
the first two systematic reviews having only recently been
published (Stewart et al., 2005; Tyler et al., 2006). In addition,
we also propose that in future, agencies that commission re-
views demand, when appropriate, the rigour provided by this
methodology. The use of this approach would allow for de-
tailed assessments of the effectiveness of conservation and
environmental management techniques undertaken by agen-
cies and provide important evidence on environmental
impacts.
Acknowledgements
The authors thank NERC (NE/C508734/1) and English Nature for
grant support for this project, our colleagues at the CEBC, Prof.
Khalid Khan for his advice, the four anonymous reviewers and
Tamara Kabat who proofed the manuscript and provided valu-
able statistical and editing recommendations.
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