Bibliometric analysis in the field of cellulose-degrading bacteria in insect gut

Abstract:

[Background] Cellulose-degrading microbes in the insect gut have gradually garnered attention from scholars. Despite the increasing research papers, systematic reviews and visual analyses of these publications remain scarce. [Objective] To explore the research status and development direction and provide a basis for the subsequent research on cellulose-degrading microbes in the insect gut. [Methods] We conducted a bibliometric analysis of 193 papers about the cellulose-degrading microbes in the insect gut that were retrieved from the Web of Science Core Collection with the time interval of 1995 to 2023. The analysis encompassed various aspects, including publication counts, keywords, host insects, research methods, and microbial species. [Results] The annual publications of cellulose-degrading microbes in the insect gut generally showed an increasing trend. Frontiers in Microbiology had the largest publication count, and Microbial Ecology maintained the highest total cites and the highest average cited frequency per paper. China ranked second in the world in terms of publication count, whereas its average cited frequency per paper fell below that of six countries (regions), including Japan, the UK, and Germany. A total of 49 host insect species were counted, of which agricultural and forestry pests accounted for 77.97%, followed by property pests such as termites (11.86%), and Coleoptera had received increasing attention for many years. A total of 135 cellulose-degrading microbial species in the insect gut were involved, belonging to 63 bacterial genera (such as Bacillus, Pseudomonas, and Klebsiella) and 14 fungal genera (such as Cladosporium, Gliocephalotrichum, and Penicillium). Carboxymethyl cellulose was the most commonly used test cellulose, and the Congo red hydrolysis circle method was the most common method for verifying the function of cellulose degradation. The conventional isolation and culture method played a key role in this field, and 16S rRNA gene sequencing was increasingly introduced for the research on microbial diversity and molecular mechanism in recent years. [Conclusion] We conduct a bibliometric analysis of the publications about the cellulose-degrading microbes in the insect gut, which helps to deepen the understanding and provide a basis for subsequent research in this field.