Science Maps of Global and Indian Wildlife Forensics: A Comparative Analysis

Science map is a useful tool to understand the structure of a discipline, research networks and collaborations. Wildlife forensics is an emerging field of Forensic Sciences, where science is applied to legal cases involving wildlife. This study is aimed at creating science maps of Wildlife Forensics, both at global level and regional (i.e. India) level using PubMed database. A total of 303 records pertaining to global and 29 records pertaining to India published between 2001 and 2015 are obtained from the PubMed. These bibliometric data are analysed and maps are constructed using MS-Excel spreadsheets, VOSviewer and Pajek software. The study shows the global Wildlife Forensics literature growth showed exponential trend while the contemporary Indian literature showed linear growth trend. Globally A.M. Linacre and N. Mukaida share the first rank while among the Indian authors S.P. Goyal receives the first place. The degree of collaboration is more than 0.9. The journal Forensic Science International is the top ranking journal both internationally and nationally. The research trends in Wildlife Forensics are also found from the study