Combined Searches of Chinese Language and English Language Databases Provide More Comprehensive Data on the Distribution of Five Pest Thrips Species in China for Use in Pest Risk Assessment

Abstract

Background: Globally, China and the USA are thought to present the greatest biosecurity threat from invasive species given the invasive species they already contain and their trade patterns. A proportion of Chinese scientific publications are published in Chinese language journals in Chinese characters, thus, they are not easily available to the international biosecurity community. Information in these journals may be important for invasive species biosecurity risk assessment. Methods: To assess the need for retrieving information from non-international databases, such as Chinese databases, we compared quantitative and qualitative information on the presence and distribution of five invasive pest thrips species (Frankliniella schultzei, Selenothrips rubrocinctus, Scirtothrips dorsalis, Thrips hawaiiensis, and Thrips palmi) in China, retrieved from an international English language database (Web of Science/WOS) and a Chinese language database (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure/CNKI). Such information is necessary for climate matching models which are used regularly for pest risk assessment. Results: Few publications on Frankliniella schultzei were found in either database. For the other species, more publications were sourced from CNKI than WOS. More publications on the provincial distribution of S. rubrocinctus and S. dorsalis in China were found in CNKI than the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC); the two sources had equivalent publications on T. palmi and T. hawaiiensis. The combined provincial distributional data from WOS, CNKI and CPC for the four species provided distribution records at a higher latitude than a recently published checklist—information that is important for optimised climate matching. Additionally, CNKI provided sub-provincial distributional data not available in CPC that will enable a more refined approach for climate matching. Data on the relative proportion of publications found in different databases were constant over time. Conclusions: This study, focusing on pest distributional data, illustrates the importance of searching in Chinese databases in combination with standard searches in international databases, to gain a comprehensive understanding of invasive species for biosecurity risk assessment.

1. Introduction

One consequence of globalization is the spread of invasive species [1,2,3,4]. The rate at which alien species invade new regions continues to grow [5] and for many of these invasive species, their establishment and geographical expansion is associated with a range of detrimental economic, environmental, and social consequences as they threaten native biodiversity, disrupt natural habitats, and cause significant economic loss [6,7,8,9]. Many jurisdictions (countries and states) have instigated a range of actions, often layered across the invasion continuum, to prevent the establishment of invasive species or to mitigate their impact if they do establish. These actions may incorporate aspects of risk assessment, import standards, pathway risk management, surveillance and eradication, and if establishment cannot be prevented, long term pest management (e.g., [10,11]). Knowledge of the potential risks associated with an invasive species provides the basis for these actions and is often based on the known impact of the given species in the geographical area where it is native or recently established.

China has been identified as one of two countries (the other being the USA) presenting a greater than average biosecurity threat to other countries because of the species found there, the ecosystem types, and the trade patterns [12,13]. This biosecurity threat may be exacerbated by the recently launched global trade alliance the ‘Belt and Road Initiative’ [14,15]. China is the world’s largest merchandise exporter and contributes to the most outbound tourists [16]. For example, China is particularly relevant to New Zealand as it is New Zealand’s largest trading partner and the source of many of its tourists. Understanding invasive species in China may be of great importance for ensuring biosecurity, stable trade relationships, and improving social-economic development between New Zealand and other trading countries and China.

In recent years, the increasing amount of published scientific literature from China has become more accessible to international researchers as it is published in English. For example, China was ranked as the top country for publications in the agriculture and biology research disciplines in 2020 by SCImargo. However, in the past many Chinese publications have not been easily accessible to international audiences because of the use of a non-Latin based language script and publication in local journals. Previous studies have demonstrated that Chinese databases containing Chinese language literature provided more quantitative (i.e., the number of publications on the subject in question) and qualitative (i.e., the quality of the information on that subject found therein) information than international English language databases for species in China which are of invasive concern to New Zealand [17,18]. A growing body of literature supports the need to access and interrogate non-English language data sources to obtain a more comprehensive collection of relevant publications and the information found within them at least in some disciplines [19,20,21,22].

In this study, we examine the importance of using non-English language databases for biosecurity risk analysis for improving data completeness. We provide a comparison of an international English language and a Chinese language database, with different language queries, by contrasting measures of quantity (i.e., number of publications) and quality (i.e., the extent of distribution information in those publications). Specifically, we investigated Chinese distributional data for five invasive thrips species in China (described below), data that are critical for the development of climate matching models that are used regularly in biosecurity pest risk assessment [23,24].

2. Methods

2.1. Databases

One international English language database (Web of Science (WOS)) and one Chinese language database (Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI)) were selected for the comparison (Figure 1). WOS has been used in many bibliometric analyses for studies on invasive species [25,26,27] and Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17] found more publications for two pest and two pathogen species in China in WOS compared with Scopus, another widely used international database. CNKI is the world’s largest Chinese database [22,28] and Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17] found more publications for two pest and two pathogen species in China compared with VIP and Wangfang, two other Chinese language databases. Results of searches in WOS and CNKI were further compared with the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC) [29], which has extensive information of many pests, pathogens, and weeds and provides a summary of their biology and pest status including lists of their geographical distribution. CPC was not used for the comparison of the number of publications (it is not a bibliographic database) but was used for the comparison of species distribution records (see below). Many of the records within CPC were sourced from EPPO and CABI sources (see Supplementary Information). Other databases, such as the Global Invasive Species Database (GISD) (http://www.iucngisd.org/gisd/, accessed on 1 November 2021) and the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF) (https://www.gbif.org/, accessed on 1 November 2021) had no or relatively little information, respectively, on the distribution of the five thrips species we targeted (BX, unpublished data), and were not considered for this analysis.

2.2. Thrips Species

Five pest thrips species (Frankliniella schultzei (Trybom), Selenothrips rubrocinctus (Giard), Scirtothrips dorsalis Hood, Thrips hawaiiensis (Morgan), and Thrips palmi Karny) (Figure 1), all thought to be present in China, were selected for study after discussion with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI) pest risk assessors. All five species belong to the Family Thripidae, are considered invasive, have substantial geographic distributions (and are continuing to invade new areas), are polyphagous, and are significant plant pests [30]. Because of the wide distribution of these thrips species, the exact origin of them is difficult to determine. Hoddle, et al. [31] listed the possible area of origin for the five species as South America or Africa for F. schultzei, Africa for S. rubrocinctus, South-East Asia for S. dorsalis, Southern Asia or the Pacific for T. hawaiiensis, and South-East Asia for T. palmi. Four of the five species have not been recorded in New Zealand or, in the case of T. hawaiiensis, are thought to have been recorded in New Zealand in error [32]. All are considered potential biosecurity risk species (most are regulated and/or unwanted organisms) for New Zealand [33].

2.3. Database Searches

WOS and CNKI were searched for publications on the five thrips species using their scientific (Latin) and Chinese (simplified Chinese characters) names between November 2016 and February 2017. Taiwan was excluded from this search as it uses traditional Chinese characters and because CNKI only started to collect information from Taiwan local journals in 2018 [34]. For each species, Chinese names were determined by an initial search for scientific names in CNKI, which were then matched to the appropriate Chinese name (i.e., the Chinese name that was frequently used in most recent Chinese research papers) (Figure 1). The Chinese names were then determined to be unique to the particular thrips species. For both WOS and CNKI, we chose the option that allowed us to search all the accessible sub-databases simultaneously to enable the greatest variety of journal articles possible in our search (i.e., applied to basic research publications) (Figure 1). In WOS, we used both scientific and Chinese names for searching. In addition, the searches in WOS were restricted to ‘China or Chinese’ to ensure the search results were related to China (Figure 1). In CNKI, search strategies were kept simple by using scientific and Chinese names without search restrictions (Figure 1). In this manuscript we use the term ‘script’ to mean a combination of Latin letters or Chinese characters.

2.4. Publication Screening

We reviewed the titles and abstracts of publications yielded from WOS and CNKI searches to ensure the publications were related to China. We then carefully examined these publications to exclude any that were related to laboratory experiments or greenhouse trials, as well as results from model predictions, as this information does not provide an accurate record of the natural distribution of a given thrips species. WOS only provided the citations (e.g., title and author) and abstracts of publications, the full-text publications were retrieved from other databases (e.g., Google Scholar and CNKI). Publications from our initial selection which did not provide valid occurrence data for China were then excluded.

Two categories of distributional information were collected in this study following the administrative divisions of the People’s Republic of China [35]. Taiwan was not included for the reasons stated above. Firstly, ‘provincial’ level (administered by the central government) information which includes provinces (23), autonomous regions (5), urban municipalities (4) (e.g., Beijing, Shanghai), and Special Administrative Regions (SARs) (2) (i.e., Hong Kong and Macau). Secondly, ‘sub-provincial’ level (administered by local governments) information including autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and/or other cities. This categorisation allows for the meaning of the Chinese word ‘city’, which is often used for prefectural level city or county level city due to the complexity of the administrative divisions in mainland China [36]. The sub-provincial level data provide more precise geographical information on the distribution of thrips species compared with the provincial level data. Georeferenced data were not collected because they were not found in most publications.

2.5. Number of Publications Comparison (Quantitative)

The quantity of publications sourced from WOS and CNKI that provided information on the five thrips species in China was established. This assessment was carried out at two levels: (1) a comparison of the number of publications from WOS and CNKI that provided information on the presence of the five thrips species in China, and (2) a comparison of the number of publications from WOS and CNKI that provided information on the presence of the five thrips species in China in terms of their provincial and/or sub-provincial distribution. Overlaps in publications found in WOS and CNKI were determined but only for publications with provincial/sub-provincial information.

The cumulative percentage of unique publications for five year periods with distributional data (provincial and non-provincial combined) retrieved from CNKI, WOS and CPC was graphed for four species of thrips (S. rubrocinctus, S. dorsalis, T. hawaiiensis, and T. palmi) (there was little data for F. schultzei) to examine publication patterns over time.

Thrips distribution in China (qualitative). The provincial and sub-provincial distributions of the five thrips species were established, collated, and compared to the publications sourced from WOS and CNKI. Provincial distributions were further compared with the lists found in CPC. Sub-provincial distributions were not listed in CPC. Overlaps in the number of provinces from which the five thrips species were reported were determined for WOS, CNKI, and CPC. The same was also determined for sub-provincial entities for WOS and CNKI.

No statistical comparisons were undertaken as the data were purely descriptive. DIVA-GIS v 7.5 [37] was used for mapping the thrips species distribution data.

3. Results

3.1. Frankliniella Schultzei

Only three publications, two in WOS (Latin script) and one in CNKI (found with both Latin script and Chinese script), on F. schultzei in China were identified from the database searches (Table 1 and Table S1). Neither publication from WOS provided distributional information on this species (Table 2). The one CNKI publication reported that F. schultzei was found in three sub-provincial entities of one province [38] (Table 2). F. schultzei was not listed as being in China by CPC (Figure 2a). As the only publication that provided distributional data for this species was from CNKI there was no overlap in data with WOS and CPC.

3.2. Selenothrips rubrocinctus

A total of three publications from WOS only available in Latin script, eight publications from CNKI in Latin script, and 18 publications from CNKI in Chinese script on S. rubrocinctus in China were identified (Table 1). Of the WOS publications, two provided distributional information. Of the CNKI Latin script and Chinese script publications, seven and 16, respectively provided distributional information (Table 1). For those publications providing distributional information, four were common to both CNKI Latin and CNKI Chinese script searches and only one was identified in both WOS and CNKI.

For the WOS publications providing distributional data, S. rubrocinctus was reported from two provinces, but only one sub-provincial entity (Table 2 and Table S2). For the CNKI publications providing distributional data, S. rubrocinctus was reported from three provinces and 18 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and 12 provinces and 16 sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2). CPC reported S. rubrocinctus from three provinces (Table 2). From all sources, S. rubrocinctus was reported from 12 provinces and 27 sub-provincial entities. Of the few provinces from which S. rubrocinctus was reported in publications found in WOS or listed in CPC, all were identified in publications found in CNKI. For provinces there was no overlap between WOS and CPC (Figure 2b). The one sub-provincial location reported in WOS was not reported in CNKI.

3.3. Scirtothrips dorsalis

For WOS, 17 Latin script and four Chinese script publications on S. dorsalis in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, 14 Latin script and four Chinese script publications provided distributional information (Table 1). For CNKI, 43 Latin script publications and 175 Chinese script publications on S. dorsalis in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, 34 Latin script and 93 Chinese script publications provided distributional information (Table 1). For those publications providing distributional information, three were common to WOS Latin and WOS Chinese, 27 were common to CNKI Latin and CNKI Chinese, and five were common between WOS and CNKI searches.

For the WOS publications providing distributional data, S. dorsalis was reported from 11 provinces and 10 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and four provinces and two sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2 and Table S3). For the CNKI publications providing distributional data, S. dorsalis was reported from 13 provinces and 56 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and 16 provinces and 70 sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2). CPC reported S. dorsalis from 13 provinces (Table 2). From all sources, S. dorsalis was reported from 19 provinces and 96 sub-provincial entities.

All provinces reported in publications from WOS or listed in CPC were found in publications in CNKI. Beijing was also listed from a publication in WOS. Provinces reported from publications in WOS that were not listed in CPC included Beijing and Guangxi, whereas provinces listed in CPC that were not reported from publications in WOS included Jiangsu and Hainan (Figure 2c). The sub-provincial entities reported in publications from WOS were all found in publications in CNKI.

3.4. Thrips palmi

For WOS, 22 Latin script publications and two Chinese script publications on T. palmi in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, 12 Latin script and two Chinese script publications provided distributional information. For CNKI, 63 Latin script publications and 188 Chinese script publications on T. palmi in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, 30 Latin script and 64 Chinese script publications provided distributional information. For those publications providing distributional information, two were common from WOS Latin and WOS Chinese searches, 21 were common from both CNKI Latin and CNKI Chinese searches, and four were common between WOS and CNKI searches.

For the WOS publications providing distributional data, T. palmi was reported from 10 provinces and six sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and one province and one sub-provincial entity (Chinese script) (Table 2 and Table S4). For the CNKI publications providing distributional data, T. palmi was reported from 16 provinces and 28 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and 18 provinces and 89 sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2). CPC reported T. palmi from 17 provinces. From all sources, T. palmi was reported from 22 provinces and 91 sub-provincial entities.

All provinces reported in publications from WOS were also identified in publications from CNKI. Most of the provinces listed in CPC were identified in publications from CNKI except for Hebei, Anhui, and Guizhou provinces (Figure 2d). Shandong and Liaoning were found in publications from CNKI but were not listed in CPC. Among the provinces reported in publications from WOS, two were not listed in CPC (Shandong and Shenzhen). Eight provinces (and Hong Kong) were listed in CPC but were not found in publications from WOS (Figure 2d). All the sub-provincial entities reported in publications from WOS were also found in publications from CNKI.

3.5. Thrips hawaiiensis

For WOS, 11 Latin script publications and four Chinese script publications on T. hawaiiensis in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, seven Latin script and four Chinese script publications provided distributional information. For CNKI, 28 Latin script publications and 55 Chinese script publications on T. hawaiiensis in China were identified (Table 1). Of these, 27 Latin script and 46 Chinese script publications provided distributional information. For those publications providing distributional information, four were common from WOS Latin and WOS Chinese searches, 20 were common from both CNKI Latin and CNKI Chinese searches, and six were common between WOS and CNKI searches.

For the WOS publications providing distributional data, T. hawaiiensis was reported from six provinces and 10 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and six provinces and eight sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2 and Table S5). For the CNKI publications providing distributional data, T. hawaiiensis was reported from eight provinces and 39 sub-provincial entities (Latin script) and 12 provinces and 64 sub-provincial entities (Chinese script) (Table 2). CPC reported T. hawaiiensis from 12 provinces (Table 2). From all sources, T. hawaiiensis was reported from 16 provinces and 69 sub-provincial entities.

The majority of provinces listed in CPC were found in publications from CNKI except for Tibet, Sichuan, and Jiangsu (Figure 2e). Provinces reported from publications in CNKI but not listed in CPC included Beijing, Jiangxi, Shandong, and Tianjin (Figure 2e). The provinces reported from publications in WOS for T. hawaiiensis were listed in CPC and reported in publications from CNKI. The sub-provincial entities reported in publications from WOS were found in publications from CNKI.

3.6. Publication Patterns over Time

The cumulative percentage of articles with distributional data (provincial and sub-provincial combined) retrieved from CNKI, WOS, and CPC for four thrips species (S. rubrocinctus, S. dorsalis, T. hawaiiensis, and T. palmi) is illustrated in Figure 3. This shows a similar trend of the relative proportion of publications over time between the various data sources, with considerably more relevant publications retrieved from CNKI compared with WOS and CPC.

4. Discussion

A review of published literature, including an examination of the data found therein, often provides the basis and first step in many areas of scientific endeavour [39,40,41]. While much of the scientific literature is published in English and can be traced through international databases, some is published in other languages and in journals that may not be readily available to the broader scientific community. This situation may be exacerbated for some science disciplines (such as invasive species biology) where new knowledge has a local focus, is published in the local language, and in local and hard to access journals including the ‘grey’ literature.

Our major objective was to compare the quantity of publications and the quality of information (i.e., the presence and distribution of five thrips species in China) found within those publications from an English language international database (WOS) and a Chinese language database (CNKI). This was contrasted further with an English language compilation, the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), which has distribution records for these thrips in China but uses different sources (mainly CABI and EPPO—see Supplementary Notes 1). The distributional data are used here as an exemplar to illustrate the contrast of searching in Chinese and English language databases.

4.1. Thrips Distribution in China

The collation of distribution records from publications identified in WOS and CNKI, and those listed in CPC, has provided a comprehensive understanding of the distribution for the five invasive thrips species at the provincial and sub-provincial level in China (Figure 1, Supplementary materials). This collation substantially expands on the reported distribution of these species compared with a recent checklist of the thrips of China [42]. Mirab-balou, Tong, Feng and Chen [42] also reported the presence of F. schultzei, S. rubrocinctus, S. dorsalis, T. hawaiiensis, and T. palmi in Taiwan. The number of provinces from which F. schultzei was reported increased from zero to one. Mirab-balou, Tong, Feng and Chen [42] reported the presence of S. rubrocinctus in the tropical regions of China. We found some additional records of S. rubrocinctus in sub-tropical regions including Shanghai, Hubei, and Hunan—an overall increase in provinces for Selenothrips rubrocinctus from 5 to 12. We found additional reports of Scirtothrips dorsalis in central China, including Hubei, Chongqing, Hunan, and Jiangxi—an increase in provinces from 9 to 19. We found additional reports of T. palmi from Northern China including Liaoning and Shandong provinces, increasing the known distribution from 12 to 22 provinces. We found additional records for Thrips hawaiiensis from Northern China including Beijing, Tianjin, and Shandong, increasing the known distribution from 10 to 16 provinces. As far as we can ascertain, there is no comparable collection of sub-provincial distribution data in mainland China for these five thrips species. Gao, et al. [43] recorded T. palmi from five sub-provincial entities compared with the 91 reported here (Figure 1). Of particular note was the record of F. schultzei from Guangxi province including several sub-provincial entities [38] in a publication found in CNKI, but there were no similar reports for this species in publications found in China in WOS and CPC. It was previously only reported in Taiwan [42]. Such extensions in distributional range would be very important in climate matching research for pest risk assessment. As few publications were found for F. schultzei from any source, this species is not further considered in this paper.

4.2. Number of Publications

Many more publications with records of the four thrips species in China were found in CNKI compared with WOS (S. rubrocinctus: >×6, S. dorsalis: >×8, T. palmi: >×10, T. hawaiiensis: >×5).

The number of publications with records of the presence of each of the four thrips species in the provinces and sub-provincial entities of China followed the same trend as the number of publication records, reflecting the substantial overlap in these two publication sets for most thrips species (data not shown). Many more publications with specific provincial and sub-provincial records for the thrips species were found in CNKI compared with WOS (S. rubrocinctus: >×8, S. dorsalis: >×7, T. palmi: >×14, T. hawaiiensis: >×6). These results are consistent with Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17], who found considerably more publications for each of the two Chinese pests and two Chinese pathogen species in searches of CNKI compared with searches of WOS and three other international English language databases. These findings are also consistent with the results of Teulon and Xu [18] who found considerably more publications on stink bugs on kiwifruit in CNKI compared with WOS.

4.3. Use of Chinese Script Made Up of Chinese Characters

Our results also highlight the importance of using Chinese script to search Chinese publications. In CNKI, more publications were found when searching with Chinese script compared with Latin script (>×2 for provinces and sub-provincial entities for all four species) (Table 1). Similarly, Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17] and Teulon and Xu [18] found more publications in CNKI when searching with Chinese script compared with searches in Latin script. English or Latin script searches could simply miss a large number of Chinese publications as little English or Latin script information is retrieved from these Chinese publications. We found more publications in WOS when searching with Latin script compared to searching with Chinese script; this was not always the case in Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17]. The targeted stink bug study of Teulon and Xu [18] illustrated both quantitative (more publications) and qualitative (useful information on stink bug pest status) benefits when searching in Chinese language databases compared to English language databases, largely because there were very few relevant publications in the English language databases.

More publications identified from CNKI were in Chinese than English (S. rubrocinctus: ×2, S. dorsalis: ×4, T. palmi: ×3, T. hawaiiensis: ×2) (Table 1). Although English titles and summaries were provided for these publications, the detailed information of geographical location was often not clearly stated: extracting data from the main Chinese text required fluency in the Chinese language. Increasingly, language translation tools are being used such as the highly ranked Google translate [44]. However, Google translate provides patchy accuracy when translating Chinese articles that can lead to a breakdown of clarity [45]; therefore, on-line translation remains problematic. Human reviewing of the full text helped to increase the accuracy of location information. For example, T. palmi is often reported from greenhouses in modified environments, but this information needs to be discounted for studies trying to understand a species’ natural distribution. A full-text review of Chinese publications by a fluent Chinese speaker helps to eliminate publications relating to greenhouses and only focuses on the natural distribution locations.

4.4. Extent of Distribution

Previous studies comparing English language and Chinese language databases such as Xu, Shaw, Gee and Teulon [17] have primarily been quantitative in focus, counting only the number of publications and not attempting to assess the quality of information within them. In an additional comparison focussing on the information found in the publications (i.e., a measure of quality), we collated and compared the number of provinces and sub-provincial entities in China where each of the four thrips species had been reported in publications sourced from WOS and CNKI. The four species of thrips were reported from more provinces and sub-provincial entities (especially) in publications reported from CNKI compared with WOS (S. rubrocinctus: ×6 provinces/×26 sub-provincial entities, S. dorsalis: ×1.5/×9.2, T. palmi: ×1.8/×15, T. hawaiiensis: ×2/×6.8) (Figure 1). Two species (S. rubrocinctus: ×4, S. dorsalis ×1.4) were reported from more provinces from publications reported in CNKI compared with those listed in CPC, but for the other two species (T. palmi, T. hawaiiensis) the number was similar (Figure 1).

At the sub-provincial level, the number of locations found for the four thrips species was substantially greater in CNKI compared with WOS but a small proportion of publications and records from provinces and sub-provincial entities, were only found in WOS. The overlap in records of the four thrips species from provinces in publications found in CNKI and provinces listed in CPC was large, but a sizable proportion of unique records were found from each source. No sub-provincial thrips distributional information was provided in CPC.

4.5. Chinese Databases

The results highlight that a number of publications, and therefore geographical locations, particularly those at the sub-provincial level, could be missed by not searching Chinese language databases. While some level of information on the distribution of the thrips species was available for Chinese provincial records in CPC and WOS, the provincial information in China can be too coarse for detailed spatial analysis. For example, one of the regions which frequently appeared in our results, Yunnan province, is around 394,100 square kilometres [46] and the elevations for Yunnan can vary by more than 5000 m [47]. A generalised location coordinate would not be representative of the varied topography and climate of a province like Yunnan. Additionally, when searching the geographical coordinates for a Chinese province, such as in Google Maps, the coordinates of the capital city may be used which may be quite different from the distributional record for the thrips species. This could lead to additional bias in the distributional analysis.

To date, most attempts to analyse the potential risks of invasive species have focused on searching information from international databases and English language publications [23,30,48,49]. However, across several disciplines (e.g., Zhou and Leydesdorff [19], Shu, Julien and Larivière [21], Zhang, Xu, Zhang, Wang, He and Zhou [22]) including studies on invasive species [20], there is growing awareness for the need to access and interrogate non-English language data sources to obtain a more comprehensive collection of relevant publications and the information found within them. China is a large country with a substantial scientific community [50]. Since 2009, it has become the second largest source country in terms of its share of international scientific production [51], but not all Chinese scientists publish in English language publications [21] and the visibility of some Chinese science journals is sometimes low [19]. We did not explore the rationale or motivation for Chinese researchers publishing in Chinese language or English language journals, but we did establish that the relative number of articles retrieved from in CNKI, WOS and CPC for the thrips dataset we examined was relatively constant over time (Figure 3), suggesting that our conclusions are not time constrained. However, after years of pushing Chinese researchers to publish in international journals, China is now taking dramatic steps to improve the quality and reputation of its home grown-science journals [52,53]. In future, this may increase the importance of Chinese language databases as more Chinese researchers target them, or conversely increase the number of Chinese journals found in international databases as their quality improves. English language databases, such as WOS, may not accurately represent Chinese research activities [21]. English and Chinese language databases may overlap, but each may have their separate and complementary emphases [22]. Yu, Akin-Fajiye, Thapa Magar, Ren and Gurevitch [20] concluded that WOS is not sufficient for generalizing about invasion biology literature, particularly if the goal is a comprehensive assessment that includes areas other than North America, Hawaii, Europe, Australia, South Africa, and New Zealand. Researchers should include authoritative literature from a local database in order to better understand global research frontiers and development trends [20].

5. Conclusions

China plays an important role in global trade, and information about pests and diseases in China provides an invaluable function to assess the risks of global invasive species [12,13]. Despite the importance of accessing invasive species information from China [13], there have been few studies that have evaluated the differences between international and Chinese databases in retrieving information related to biosecurity concerns. This study builds on others [17,18,20] which emphasize the need to search Chinese language databases for a comprehensive understanding of invasive species within China.

Our study indicated a large amount of higher quality information is missed when not searching Chinese databases or Chinese language publications. To gain a comprehensive understanding of the distribution of the five pest thrips species in China, this study indicates the importance of searching in a Chinese database (e.g., CNKI) in combination with the more usual searches in international scholarly databases.

Author Contributions

Conceptualization, D.A.J.T. and B.X.; Data curation, B.X.; Funding acquisition, D.A.J.T.; Investigation, B.X. and D.A.J.T.; Methodology, B.X.; Supervision, D.A.J.T.; Writing—original draft, B.X.; Writing—review & editing, D.A.J.T. and B.X. All authors have read and agreed to the published version of the manuscript.

Funding

This research was funded by the New Zealand Institute for Plant and Food Research Ltd. (https://www.plantandfood.com/en-nz/, accessed on 10 September 2021) as part of the Better Border Biosecurity (B3) (https://www.b3nz.org.nz/, accessed on 10 September 2021) research collaboration.

Institutional Review Board Statement

Not applicable.

Informed Consent Statement

Not applicable.

Data Availability Statement

See Supplementary Materials above.

Acknowledgments

We thank two internal referees: David Logan and Claudia Adams (both Plant & Food Research). We thank Robert Hijmans (owner DIVA-GIS) for use and permission to use DIVA-GIS.

Conflicts of Interest

The authors declare no conflict of interest.

Publisher’s Note: MDPI stays neutral with regard to jurisdictional claims in published maps and institutional affiliations.

Figures and Tables

Figure 1. Workflow for database searches for five thrips species with names in Latin letters and Chinese characters. * Sub-databases: WOS: CAB (1973->), WOS Core (1900->), KCI (1980->), Russian Science (2005->). CNKI: China Academic Journal Network Publishing Database (1951->).

Figure 2. Provinces (solid red) and sub-provincial entities (blue circles) where Frankliniella schultzei (a); Selenothrips rubrocinctus (b); Scirtothrips dorsalis (c); Thrips palmi (d); and Thrips hawaiiensis (e) were reported, sourced from Web of Science (WOS), Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The data of Taiwan (clear) was not included in the study for reasons outlined in the methods. No data were found from islands of the South China Sea, so these are not illustrated.

Figure 2. Provinces (solid red) and sub-provincial entities (blue circles) where Frankliniella schultzei (a); Selenothrips rubrocinctus (b); Scirtothrips dorsalis (c); Thrips palmi (d); and Thrips hawaiiensis (e) were reported, sourced from Web of Science (WOS), Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The data of Taiwan (clear) was not included in the study for reasons outlined in the methods. No data were found from islands of the South China Sea, so these are not illustrated.

Figure 2. Provinces (solid red) and sub-provincial entities (blue circles) where Frankliniella schultzei (a); Selenothrips rubrocinctus (b); Scirtothrips dorsalis (c); Thrips palmi (d); and Thrips hawaiiensis (e) were reported, sourced from Web of Science (WOS), Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The data of Taiwan (clear) was not included in the study for reasons outlined in the methods. No data were found from islands of the South China Sea, so these are not illustrated.

Figure 2. Provinces (solid red) and sub-provincial entities (blue circles) where Frankliniella schultzei (a); Selenothrips rubrocinctus (b); Scirtothrips dorsalis (c); Thrips palmi (d); and Thrips hawaiiensis (e) were reported, sourced from Web of Science (WOS), Crop Protection Compendium (CPC), and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI). The data of Taiwan (clear) was not included in the study for reasons outlined in the methods. No data were found from islands of the South China Sea, so these are not illustrated.

Figure 3. Cumulative percentage over time for the total number publications (unique publications containing provincial or sub-provincial distribution data) of four thrips species from data searches in CNKI [Image omitted. Please see PDF.], WOS [Image omitted. Please see PDF.] and listed in CPC [Image omitted. Please see PDF.].

Figure 3. Cumulative percentage over time for the total number publications (unique publications containing provincial or sub-provincial distribution data) of four thrips species from data searches in CNKI [Image omitted. Please see PDF.], WOS [Image omitted. Please see PDF.] and listed in CPC [Image omitted. Please see PDF.].

Table 1

Number of publications on five thrips species found in Web of Science (WOS) and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases using Latin script (genus species) and Chinese script (characters) searches for (1) presence in China and (2) presence at the provincial level (incl. provinces, autonomous regions, urban municipalities, and Special Administrative Regions) and the sub-provincial level (i.e., autonomous prefectures, counties, autonomous counties and/or other cities).

	WOS		CNKI
	Latin Script	Chinese Script	Latin Script	Chinese Script
Frankliniella schultzei
Presence in China	2	0	1	1
Presence in a Chinese province or sub-provincial entity	0	0	1	1
Selenothrips rubrocinctus
Presence in China	3	0	8	18
Presence in a Chinese province or sub-provincial entity	2	0	7	16
Scirtothrips dorsalis
Presence in China	17	4	43	175
Presence in a Chinese province or sub-provincial entity	14	4	34	93
Thrips palmi
Presence in China	22	2	63	188
Presence in a Chinese province or sub-provincial entity	12	2	30	64
Thrips hawaiiensis
Presence in China	11	4	28	55
Presence in a Chinese province or sub-provincial entity	7	4	27	46

Table 2

The number of locations found from searches of the Web of Science (WOS) and Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure (CNKI) databases and those listed in the Crop Protection Compendium (CPC) for five thrips species of biosecurity concern.

	Level of Distribution Data	WOS			CNKI			CPC
		Latin Script Search	Chinese Script Search	Combined Search	Latin Script Search	Chinese Script Search	Combined Search	Listed
Frankliniella schultzei	Province	0	0	0	1	1	1	0
	Sub-province	0	0	0	3	3	3	-
Selenothrips rubrocinctus	Province	2	0	2	3	11 + HK *	11 + HK	3
	Sub-province	1	0	1	18	16	26	-
Scirtothrips dorsalis	Province	11	4	11	13	16	17	12 + HK
	Sub-province	10	2	10	56	70	92	-
Thrips palmi	Province	10	1	10	16	18	18 + HK	16 + HK
	Sub-province	6	1	6	28	89	91	-
Thrips hawaiiensis	Province	6	6	6	8	12	12	11 + HK
	Sub-province	10	8	10	39	64	68	-

HK * = Hong Kong.

Supplementary Materials

The following supporting information can be downloaded at: https://www.mdpi.com/article/10.3390/su14052920/s1, Table S1: Sources of distribution data for Frankliniella schultzei; Table S2: Sources of distribution data for Selenothrips rubrocinctus; Table S3: Sources of distribution data for Scirtothrips dorsalis; Table S4: Sources of distribution data for Thrips palmi; Table S5: Sources of distribution data for Thrips hawaiiensis.

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