Questionable research practices in ecology and evolution

TLDR

Questionable research practices are linked to low reproducibility rates in large-scale replication studies across disciplines. The authors surveyed 807 ecologists and evolutionary biologists about their use of QRPs and estimated how widespread these practices are among their peers. QRPs are common in ecology and evolution, with 64 % cherry‑picking, 42 % p‑hacking, and 51 % HARKing, rates similar to those found in psychology.

Abstract

We surveyed 807 researchers (494 ecologists and 313 evolutionary biologists) about their use of Questionable Research Practices (QRPs), including cherry picking statistically significant results, p hacking, and hypothesising after the results are known (HARKing). We also asked them to estimate the proportion of their colleagues that use each of these QRPs. Several of the QRPs were prevalent within the ecology and evolution research community. Across the two groups, we found 64% of surveyed researchers reported they had at least once failed to report results because they were not statistically significant (cherry picking); 42% had collected more data after inspecting whether results were statistically significant (a form of p hacking) and 51% had reported an unexpected finding as though it had been hypothesised from the start (HARKing). Such practices have been directly implicated in the low rates of reproducible results uncovered by recent large scale replication studies in psychology and other disciplines. The rates of QRPs found in this study are comparable with the rates seen in psychology, indicating that the reproducibility problems discovered in psychology are also likely to be present in ecology and evolution.