[Visual Analysis of the Current Status and Trends in Forensic Microbiology Research Based on Bibliometrics]

To understand the current status and trends in forensic microbiology research using bibliometric analysis methods.

A total of 533 papers related to forensic microbiology published in the Web of Science Core Collection from 2010 to 2022 were selected as research objects. Bibliometrix and VOSviewer were used to conduct a visual analysis of the annual publication volume, journals, countries (regions), institutions, authors, and keywords co-occurrence networks in this field.

The annual publication volume showed an overall upward trend, reaching a peak of 72 publications in 2021. The literature primarily appeared in journals focusing on forensics, microbiology and comprehensive journals. The top high-yield countries were the United States (231 papers), China (47 papers), and Australia (32 papers). Michigan State University in the United States contributed the highest publication volume (25 papers), and the author with the highest publication volume was BENBOW ME from the university. Keyword co-occurrence analysis revealed that forensic microbiology was initially mainly applied in the field of biosafety. With the advancement of sequencing technologies, new application areas, such as postmortem interval estimation, have emerged. Current research hotspots in this field primarily focused on biosafety, postmortem interval estimation, and genetic sequencing analysis, demonstrating a trend of multi-institutional collaboration and interdisciplinary integration.

In recent years, research in forensic microbiology has exhibited rapid growth. The cross-combination of high-throughput sequencing technologies and bioinformatics with forensic microbiology has driven the significant advancement of this field.