James Watson

63.3k total citations · 21 hit papers
530 papers, 35.7k citations indexed

About

James Watson is a scholar working on Ecology, Global and Planetary Change and Ecological Modeling. According to data from OpenAlex, James Watson has authored 530 papers receiving a total of 35.7k indexed citations (citations by other indexed papers that have themselves been cited), including 188 papers in Ecology, 171 papers in Global and Planetary Change and 117 papers in Ecological Modeling. Recurrent topics in James Watson's work include Species Distribution and Climate Change (117 papers), Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (113 papers) and Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (102 papers). James Watson is often cited by papers focused on Species Distribution and Climate Change (117 papers), Wildlife Ecology and Conservation (113 papers) and Conservation, Biodiversity, and Resource Management (102 papers). James Watson collaborates with scholars based in Australia, United States and United Kingdom. James Watson's co-authors include Oscar Venter, Hugh P. Possingham, Richard A. Fuller, Sean Maxwell, Daniel B. Segan, Nigel Dudley, James R. Allan, Marc Hockings, Thomas M. Brooks and Moreno Di Marco and has published in prestigious journals such as Nature, Science and Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

In The Last Decade

James Watson

517 papers receiving 34.5k citations

Hit Papers

The performance and potential of protected areas 2005 2026 2012 2019 2014 2014 2016 2016 2005 500 1000 1.5k
What are hit papers?

Hit papers significantly outperform the citation benchmark for their cohort. A paper qualifies if it has ≥500 total citations, achieves ≥1.5× the top-1% citation threshold for papers in the same subfield and year (this is the minimum needed to enter the top 1%, not the average within it), or reaches the top citation threshold in at least one of its specific research topics.

  1. The performance and potential of protected areas
    2014 1.6k citations James Watson, Nigel Dudley et al. profile →
  2. A meta-analysis of crop yield under climate change and adaptation
    2014 1.5k citations James Watson et al. profile →
  3. Biodiversity: The ravages of guns, nets and bulldozers
    2016 1.3k citations Sean Maxwell, Richard A. Fuller et al. profile →
  4. Sixteen years of change in the global terrestrial human footprint and implications for biodiversity conservation
    2016 1.2k citations Oscar Venter, James R. Allan et al. Nature Communications profile →
  5. Conservation Biogeography: assessment and prospect
    2005 942 citations James Watson et al. Diversity and Distributions profile →
  6. The broad footprint of climate change from genes to biomes to people
    2016 917 citations Stuart H. M. Butchart, Michela Pacifici et al. Science profile →
  7. A spatial overview of the global importance of Indigenous lands for conservation
    2018 784 citations Stephen T. Garnett, James Watson et al. profile →
  8. One-third of global protected land is under intense human pressure
    2018 652 citations Kendall R. Jones, Oscar Venter et al. Science profile →
  9. Area-based conservation in the twenty-first century
    2020 624 citations Sean Maxwell, Nigel Dudley et al. profile →
  10. Global terrestrial Human Footprint maps for 1993 and 2009
    2016 526 citations Oscar Venter, James R. Allan et al. profile →
  11. People have shaped most of terrestrial nature for at least 12,000 years
    2021 475 citations James Watson et al. profile →
  12. The impact of urbanization and climate change on urban temperatures: a systematic review
    2017 471 citations Sarah Chapman, James Watson et al. Landscape Ecology profile →
  13. Targeting Global Protected Area Expansion for Imperiled Biodiversity
    2014 431 citations Oscar Venter, Richard A. Fuller et al. profile →
  14. Climate change vulnerability assessment of species
    2018 343 citations Michela Pacifici, James Watson et al. profile →
  15. Catastrophic Declines in Wilderness Areas Undermine Global Environment Targets
    2016 325 citations James Watson, James R. Allan et al. profile →
  16. Species’ traits influenced their response to recent climate change
    2017 284 citations Michela Pacifici, Stuart H. M. Butchart et al. profile →
  17. Protected area targets post-2020
    2019 278 citations Stuart H. M. Butchart, Thomas M. Brooks et al. Science profile →
  18. Renewable energy production will exacerbate mining threats to biodiversity
    2020 266 citations James Watson et al. Nature Communications profile →
  19. Guidelines for conserving connectivity through ecological networks and corridors
    2020 258 citations James Watson et al. profile →
  20. Change in Terrestrial Human Footprint Drives Continued Loss of Intact Ecosystems
    2020 207 citations Brooke Williams, Oscar Venter et al. One Earth profile →
  21. The minimum land area requiring conservation attention to safeguard biodiversity
    2022 127 citations James R. Allan, Hugh P. Possingham et al. Science profile →

Peers — A (Enhanced Table)

Peers by citation overlap · career bar shows stage (early→late) cites · hero ref

Name h Career Trend Papers Cites
James Watson Australia 92 13.3k 13.1k 7.5k 7.2k 4.0k 530 35.7k
Georgina M. Mace United Kingdom 85 16.7k 1.2× 13.2k 1.0× 12.4k 1.7× 9.4k 1.3× 3.9k 1.0× 186 42.3k
Shahid Naeem United States 46 15.9k 1.2× 17.2k 1.3× 11.3k 1.5× 2.7k 0.4× 5.7k 1.4× 124 41.3k
Peter Kareiva United States 75 9.9k 0.7× 11.2k 0.9× 7.9k 1.1× 2.8k 0.4× 2.6k 0.6× 210 26.5k
Norman Myers United Kingdom 40 10.0k 0.8× 9.5k 0.7× 9.8k 1.3× 5.5k 0.8× 2.5k 0.6× 114 32.0k
Stuart L. Pimm United States 86 14.7k 1.1× 8.4k 0.6× 10.8k 1.4× 6.4k 0.9× 1.6k 0.4× 280 29.7k
Taylor H. Ricketts United States 57 8.1k 0.6× 12.6k 1.0× 7.4k 1.0× 3.9k 0.5× 2.6k 0.6× 126 27.6k
Nils Chr. Stenseth Norway 102 25.5k 1.9× 14.5k 1.1× 11.9k 1.6× 5.5k 0.8× 2.2k 0.5× 776 44.4k
Simon A. Levin United States 117 16.6k 1.2× 16.6k 1.3× 13.5k 1.8× 3.1k 0.4× 3.5k 0.9× 602 67.8k
Paul R. Ehrlich United States 100 12.4k 0.9× 10.6k 0.8× 11.3k 1.5× 6.0k 0.8× 4.9k 1.2× 485 43.8k
Jianguo Liu United States 83 8.7k 0.7× 13.8k 1.1× 3.6k 0.5× 3.1k 0.4× 4.3k 1.1× 525 32.5k

Countries citing papers authored by James Watson

Since Specialization
Citations

This map shows the geographic impact of James Watson's research. It shows the number of citations coming from papers published by authors working in each country. You can also color the map by specialization and compare the number of citations received by James Watson with the expected number of citations based on a country's size and research output (numbers larger than one mean the country cites James Watson more than expected).

Fields of papers citing papers by James Watson

Since Specialization
Physical SciencesHealth SciencesLife SciencesSocial Sciences

This network shows the impact of papers produced by James Watson. Nodes represent research fields, and links connect fields that are likely to share authors. Colored nodes show fields that tend to cite the papers produced by James Watson. The network helps show where James Watson may publish in the future.

Co-authorship network of co-authors of James Watson

This figure shows the co-authorship network connecting the top 25 collaborators of James Watson. A scholar is included among the top collaborators of James Watson based on the total number of citations received by their joint publications. Widths of edges represent the number of papers authors have co-authored together. Node borders signify the number of papers an author published with James Watson. James Watson is excluded from the visualization to improve readability, since they are connected to all nodes in the network.

All Works

20 of 20 papers shown
1.
Pillay, Rajeev, et al.. (2025). Role of protected areas in mitigating range loss and local extinctions of terrestrial mammals. Conservation Biology. 39(6). e70092–e70092. 1 indexed citations
2.
Schodde, Richard, Stephen Murphy, Leo Joseph, et al.. (2025). Uncovering the Calls of Data‐Deficient Masked Owls Using Morphology and Environmental Gradients. Journal of Biogeography. 52(12).
3.
Reside, April E., Josie Carwardine, Michelle Ward, et al.. (2024). The cost of recovering Australia’s threatened species. Nature Ecology & Evolution. 9(3). 425–435. 2 indexed citations
4.
Murphy, Stephen, et al.. (2024). Movements and habitat use of painted button-quail, Turnix varius, in tropical savanna of northern Queensland. Australian Journal of Zoology. 72(1). 1 indexed citations
5.
Dudley, Nigel, et al.. (2024). Effectively Incorporating Small Reserves into National Systems of Protected and Conserved Areas. Diversity. 16(4). 216–216. 4 indexed citations
6.
Garnett, Stephen T., John C. Z. Woinarski, G. Barry Baker, et al.. (2024). Monitoring threats to Australian threatened birds: climate change was the biggest threat in 2020 with minimal progress on its management. Emu - Austral Ornithology. 124(1). 37–54. 6 indexed citations
7.
Elsen, Paul R., Molly S. Cross, Alfred DeGemmis, et al.. (2023). Priorities for embedding ecological integrity in climate adaptation policy and practice. One Earth. 6(6). 632–644. 15 indexed citations
8.
Roberson, Leslie, Chris Wilcox, Germain Boussarie, et al.. (2022). Spatially explicit risk assessment of marine megafauna vulnerability to Indian Ocean tuna fisheries. Fish and Fisheries. 23(5). 1180–1201. 10 indexed citations
9.
Teo, Hoong Chen, et al.. (2022). Biodiversity risks and safeguards of China’s hydropower financing in Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) countries. One Earth. 5(9). 1019–1029. 15 indexed citations
10.
Elsen, Paul R., Earl C. Saxon, B. Alexander Simmons, et al.. (2021). Accelerated shifts in terrestrial life zones under rapid climate change. Global Change Biology. 28(3). 918–935. 41 indexed citations
11.
Ward, Michelle, Santiago Saura, Brooke Williams, et al.. (2020). Just ten percent of the global terrestrial protected area network is structurally connected via intact land. Nature Communications. 11(1). 4563–4563. 143 indexed citations
12.
13.
Minin, Enrico Di, Thomas M. Brooks, Tuuli Toivonen, et al.. (2019). Identifying global centers of unsustainable commercial harvesting of species. Science Advances. 5(4). eaau2879–eaau2879. 66 indexed citations
14.
Maxwell, Sean, Nathalie Butt, Martine Maron, et al.. (2018). Conservation implications of ecological responses to extreme weather and climate events. Diversity and Distributions. 25(4). 613–625. 212 indexed citations
15.
Chapman, Sarah, James Watson, Álvaro Salazar, Marcus Thatcher, & Clive McAlpine. (2017). The impact of urbanization and climate change on urban temperatures: a systematic review. Landscape Ecology. 32(10). 1921–1935. 471 indexed citations breakdown →
16.
Potgieter, Andries, Barbara George‐Jaeggli, Scott Chapman, et al.. (2017). Multi-Spectral Imaging from an Unmanned Aerial Vehicle Enables the Assessment of Seasonal Leaf Area Dynamics of Sorghum Breeding Lines. Frontiers in Plant Science. 8. 1532–1532. 132 indexed citations
17.
Maron, Martine, Clive McAlpine, James Watson, Sean Maxwell, & Phoebe Barnard. (2015). Climate‐induced resource bottlenecks exacerbate species vulnerability: a review. Diversity and Distributions. 21(7). 731–743. 76 indexed citations
18.
Rockman, Marcy, et al.. (2015). The role of World Heritage sites in a changing climate. Queensland's institutional digital repository (The University of Queensland). 77. 4–13. 3 indexed citations
19.
Runge, Claire A., James Watson, Stuart H. M. Butchart, et al.. (2015). Protected areas and global conservation of migratory birds. Science. 350(6265). 1255–1258. 254 indexed citations
20.
Ingram, Jane Carter, Kent H. Redford, & James Watson. (2012). Applying Ecosystem Services Approaches for Biodiversity Conservation: Benefits and Challenges. SHILAP Revista de lepidopterología. 42 indexed citations

Rankless uses publication and citation data sourced from OpenAlex, an open and comprehensive bibliographic database. While OpenAlex provides broad and valuable coverage of the global research landscape, it—like all bibliographic datasets—has inherent limitations. These include incomplete records, variations in author disambiguation, differences in journal indexing, and delays in data updates. As a result, some metrics and network relationships displayed in Rankless may not fully capture the entirety of a scholar's output or impact.

Explore authors with similar magnitude of impact

Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Georgina M. Mace Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Shahid Naeem Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Peter Kareiva Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Norman Myers Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Stuart L. Pimm Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Taylor H. Ricketts Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Nils Chr. Stenseth Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Simon A. Levin Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Paul R. Ehrlich Breakdown of academic impact, for papers by Jianguo Liu
Rankless by CCL
2026