title: An overview of animal science research 1945-2011 through science mapping analysis.
abstract: The conceptual structure of the field of Animal Science (AS) research is examined by means of a longitudinal science mapping analysis. The whole of the AS research field is analysed, revealing its conceptual evolution. To this end, an automatic approach to detecting and visualizing hidden themes or topics and their evolution across a consecutive span of years was applied to AS publications of the JCR category 'Agriculture, Dairy & Animal Science' during the period 1945-2011. This automatic approach was based on a coword analysis and combines performance analysis and science mapping. To observe the conceptual evolution of AS, six consecutive periods were defined: 1945-1969, 1970-1979, 1980-1989, 1990-1999, 2000-2005 and 2006-2011. Research in AS was identified as having focused on ten main thematic areas: ANIMAL-FEEDING, SMALL-RUMINANTS, ANIMAL-REPRODUCTION, DAIRY-PRODUCTION, MEAT-QUALITY, SWINE-PRODUCTION, GENETICS-AND-ANIMAL-BREEDING, POULTRY, ANIMAL-WELFARE and GROWTH-FACTORS-AND-FATTY-ACIDS. The results show how genomic studies gain in weight and integrate with other thematic areas. The whole of AS research has become oriented towards an overall framework in which animal welfare, sustainable management and human health play a major role. All this would affect the future structure and management of livestock farming.
authors.affiliation: Department of Animal Production and Food Science, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain.
authors.forename: A
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Rodriguez-Ledesma
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science, University of Cádiz, Cádiz, Spain.
authors.forename: M J
authors.initials: MJ
authors.lastname: Cobo
authors.affiliation: Department of Information and Communication, University of Extremadura, Badajoz, Spain.
authors.forename: C
authors.initials: C
authors.lastname: Lopez-Pujalte
authors.affiliation: Department of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, CITIC-UGR (Research Center on Information and Communication Technology), University of Granada, Granada, Spain.
authors.forename: E
authors.initials: E
authors.lastname: Herrera-Viedma
mesh_terms: D000383:Agriculture / Q000706:statistics & numerical data / Q000639:trends*; D032761:Animal Experimentation; D000818:Animals; D016000:Cluster Analysis; D003612:Dairying / Q000639:trends; D057225:Data Mining / Q000379:methods; D023281:Genomics; D011643:Publishing / Q000706:statistics & numerical data; D012984:Software
keywords: Animal science; bibliometric network; coword analysis; h-index; knowledge visualisation; science mapping analysis