Abstract Conservation biology was founded on the idea that efforts to save nature depend on a scientific understanding of how it works. It sought to apply ecological principles to conservation problems. We investigated whether the relationship between these fields has changed over time through machine reading the full texts of 32,000 research articles published in 16 ecology and conservation biology journals. We examined changes in research topics in both fields and how the fields have evolved from 2000 to 2014. As conservation biology matured, its focus shifted from ecology to social and political aspects of conservation. The 2 fields diverged and now occupy distinct niches in modern science. We hypothesize this pattern resulted from increasing recognition that social, economic, and political factors are critical for successful conservation and possibly from rising skepticism about the relevance of contemporary ecological theory to practical conservation.

中文翻译：

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通过机器阅读 32,000 篇文章显示保护生物学与生态学的关系

摘要 保护生物学的基础是拯救自然的努力取决于对其运作方式的科学理解。它试图将生态原则应用于保护问题。我们通过机器阅读发表在 16 种生态学和保护生物学期刊上的 32,000 篇研究文章的全文，调查了这些领域之间的关系是否随时间发生了变化。我们研究了这两个领域研究主题的变化以及这些领域从 2000 年到 2014 年的演变。随着保护生物学的成熟，其重点从生态学转向保护的社会和政治方面。这两个领域出现分歧，现在在现代科学中占据不同的位置。我们假设这种模式是由于人们越来越认识到社会、经济、