Global research trends and innovation pathways in trap fisheries from 2000 to 2025: a bibliometric analysis
Abstract
This study examined global research trends and innovation pathways in trap fisheries using bibliometric indicators from Scopus-indexed publications between 2000 and 2025. A PRISMA-style selection workflow was applied through Scopus TITLE-ABS-KEY searching, duplicate removal, and Python-assisted screening of titles, abstracts, and keywords. From 1,798 initial records, 605 strongly relevant journal articles were retained for bibliometric analysis using Biblioshiny and VOSviewer. The results show that trap fisheries research has expanded steadily, with an annual growth rate of 4.93%, involving 2,090 authors across 205 publication sources. The field was predominantly collaborative, with an average of 4.2 co-authors per document and international co-authorship representing 21.98% of the corpus. Thematic analysis indicated that trap fisheries research was mainly concentrated on species composition and biodiversity, trap design and fishing technology, habitat and ecosystem impacts, monitoring and data analytics, and fisheries management. In contrast, more specific themes such as bycatch mitigation, gear selectivity, ghost fishing, and fyke-net or set-net fisheries were less represented, although they are increasingly relevant in recent studies. Overall, this study provides a structured overview of the intellectual development of trap fisheries research and highlights the need for stronger integration between passive fishing gear technology, ecological sustainability, and data-driven fisheries management.