Conbio Literature Positioning

---
name: conbio-literature-positioning
description: Use when positioning a Conservation Biology manuscript against the literature so it reads as a novel, transferable contribution to conservation science. Conservation Biology readers span ecology, social science, and practice, so the paper must engage the relevant conservation literatures and state the gap precisely. Stakes the contribution; it does not write the literature review.
---

# Literature Positioning (conbio-literature-positioning)

*Conservation Biology* rewards **novelty and transferability**, and reviewers screen hard for whether a
paper actually advances the field. Positioning is therefore not throat-clearing — it places the work
where a **conservation audience spanning ecology, the social sciences, and practice** can see the gap
and the advance.

## When to trigger

- Drafting or revising the introduction and the "contribution" paragraph
- A reviewer said you "missed key work" or "don't engage the relevant literature"
- Your taxon/system literature is solid but the paper doesn't connect to broader conservation science
- You need to distinguish your contribution from the closest prior papers

## How Conservation Biology wants the literature engaged

1. **Engage the conservation debate, not a citation pile.** Identify the live problem, disagreement, or
   evidence gap your paper speaks to, and cite the works that *define* it — including foundational
   conservation-biology theory where relevant.
2. **Two audiences at once.** Satisfy system specialists (you know the frontier) *and* the general
   conservation reader (why it matters for biodiversity). An ecologist and a practitioner should both
   see the stakes.
3. **Name the gap precisely.** Not "little is known" — say what is contested, unmeasured, untested, or
   not yet translated into practice, and why resolving it matters for conservation.
4. **Position as an advance.** "Prior work assumes/shows X; we show it fails / is conditional on C /
   generalizes / translates into decision D."
5. **Pre-empt the obvious objection.** Reviewers are expert; name the strongest alternative explanation
   and say how your design adjudicates it (hand off to `conbio-study-design`).

## Cross-disciplinary engagement (a distinctive demand)

| If your paper is… | also engage… |
|-------------------|--------------|
| an ecological field study | the conservation-decision or management literature it informs |
| a method/SDM/modeling advance | the substantive conservation problems that will use it |
| a human-dimensions / social study | the ecological stakes and the policy literature |
| a policy / practice analysis | the underlying evidence base on what works |

## Anti-patterns

- A "literature dump" with no organizing conservation problem
- Engaging only your taxon/system and ignoring conservation science broadly
- Strawmanning prior work, or hiding the closest competitor paper
- Self-citation that breaks anonymity (the journal is double-blind — see `conbio-submission`)
- Claiming "first to study" when the contribution is incremental

## Output format

```
【Problem】the live conservation gap / disagreement
【Key works】the 3-6 that define it (incl. cross-disciplinary)
【Gap】what is contested / unmeasured / untranslated
【Advance】how this paper moves the field
【Strongest rival】and how the design will adjudicate it
【Next】conbio-study-design
```

## Supplementary resources

- [`../../resources/external_tools.md`](../../resources/external_tools.md) — synthesis tooling and conservation data sources
- [`../../resources/official-source-map.md`](../../resources/official-source-map.md) — scope, novelty, and transferability expectations