Progress in permafrost vegetation research based on bibliometrics

In the current study, we used bibliometric methods to count permafrost vegetation studies at the global (2867) and Qinghai-Tibet Plateau scales (157) from the Web of Science core database from 1985 to 2021. Permafrost vegetation research has grown year by year, with increasing use of remote sensing technology and model algorithms. Those countries with permafrost showed the highest contribution to the literature. The number of cooperative studies among countries has increased year by year, higher than the number of independent studies. In general, global permafrost vegetation studies have focused on carbon emission estimations under permafrost melting and carbon sequestration by plants, while studies on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau have focused on the degradation of vegetation and ecosystems in permafrost regions. Given the high diversity of ecosystems on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau, it is more vulnerable to degradation caused by permafrost melting. Future studies will likely continue to explore the carbon cycle at a larger scale, as well as the degradation process on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau. The unique research direction on the Qinghai-Tibet Plateau should bring a different perspective to global permafrost vegetation research, with the region becoming one of the most important study areas for permafrost vegetation.