Paths towards greater consensus building in experimental biology

Area of Science:

• Experimental biology
• Climate change research
• Open science practices

Background:

• Climate change presents urgent scientific challenges requiring consensus building and interdisciplinary integration.
• Reproducible research is crucial for understanding climate change effects on organisms and informing conservation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To investigate reproducible research practices in experimental biology.
• To assess the availability of open data and analysis code in published studies.
• To evaluate the adoption of open science principles like FAIR data.

Main Methods:

• Reviewed empirical studies on debated climate change paradigms and unrelated studies in leading journals.
• Examined open data and analysis code availability over the past 10 years.
• Calculated percentages of studies with open data and code.

Main Results:

• Only 19% of studies on debated paradigms and 12.1% of general studies had open data.
• Open code availability was low (3.2% and 3.1% respectively).
• Usable open data may be available for fewer than 10% of studies, but open practices are increasing.

Conclusions:

• Increasing adoption of open science, particularly FAIR data and code, is vital for experimental biology.
• Enhanced transparency and cross-disciplinary integration improve consensus building in climate change research.
• Open science maximizes the contribution of experimental biologists to addressing environmental change impacts on organisms.