Fig. 1

Declines in reviewer recruitment success for standard research papers at six journals in the fields of ecology and evolution. The lines are the proportion of invited reviewers who responded to the invitation email (red line, filled circles), the proportion of respondees who agreed to review (blue line, triangles), the proportion of all invited reviewers who agreed to review (black line, open circles), and the proportion of all invitations that generated a submitted review (cyan line, squares). Standard papers include traditional research papers and excludes commentaries, perspectives, brief communications, and any other manuscript type not designated “original article” (Evolution), “research article” (Methods in Ecol Evol), or “standard paper” (the remaining journals). This also excludes revisions and, for Evolution, resubmissions of previously rejected papers. Analyses: Logistic regression, Response = Year + Journal + Year*Journal interaction, with Year as a continuous variable. (A) Proportion of invitees responding to invitation (red line, filled circles): Year: χ ² ₁ = 18.7, P < 0.001, Journal: χ ² ₁ = 109.2, P < 0.001, Interaction: χ ² ₁ = 109.2, P < 0.001; (B) proportion of respondees agreeing to review (blue line, triangles): Year: χ ² ₁ = 347.1, P < 0.001, Journal: χ ² ₁ = 150.7, P < 0.001, Interaction: χ ² ₁ = 151.1, P < 0.001; (C) proportion of invitees agreeing to review (black line, open circles), Year: χ ² ₁ = 352.6, P < 0.001, Journal: χ ² ₁ = 162.2, P < 0.001, Interaction: χ ² ₁ = 162.7, P < 0.001; (D) proportion of all invitations generating a review (cyan line, squares): Year: χ ² ₁ = 313.4, P < 0.001, Journal: χ ² ₁ = 171.0, P < 0.001, Interaction: χ ² ₁ = 171.5, P < 0.001