Dear ecologgers, Yes, there is a referee crisis in Ecology and it has multiple causes, including those already pointed out in this thread. I would emphasize four: intensive specialization of research topics, no time for reviewing due to overwork, no appreciation of reviewing activities for career progression, and no rewards for reviewers.
The third and fourth causes play special roles. Reviewing is altruistic work, and it is really unfair that commercial academic publishers do not reward it, but instead make huge profits by charging unbelievable prices for papers that are based on research carried out by authors, funded mainly by the government (i.e. tax payers), and reviewed for free by colleagues. In most cases, reviewers do not even have direct access to the papers they help improve. Furthermore, when it comes to getting tenure or long-term funding, your experience as a reviewer does not count. Nowadays, what incentives are there to do review? People work by incentive (financial, personal, social, spiritual, etc.), and scientists are people too. Cheers, Marco Mello
