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On the benefits of systematic reviews for wildlife parasitology

Systematic reviews and meta-analyses are widely accepted as the best means to synthesise quantitative or qualitative scientific evidence. Many scientific fields have embraced these more rigorous review techniques as a means to bring together large and complex bodies of literature and their data. Unfortunately, due to perceived difficulties and unfamiliarity with processes, other fields are not using these options to review their literature. One way to provide guidance for a specific field is to examine critically recent reviews and meta-analyses and to explain the advantages and disadvantages of the various review techniques. In this paper, we examine review papers in the emerging field of wildlife parasitology and compare five different literature review types—configurative narrative review, aggregative scoping review, aggregative literature review, aggregative meta-analysis, and aggregative systematic review. We found that most literature reviews did not adequately explain the methodology used to find the literature under review. We also found that most literature reviews were not comprehensive nor did they critically appraise the literature under review. Such a lack severely reduces the reliability of the reviews. We encourage all authors to consider using systematic reviews in the future, and for authors and peer-reviewers to be aware of the limitations of non-systematic reviews.

treatments (i.e. via meta-analysis), and can also examine the impact of context (i.e. heterogeneity) (Koricheva et al., 2013). Systematic reviews are a specific subset of literature reviews that aim to employ strict methods when searching for, screening, critically appraising and synthesising studies to maximise reliability through transparency, repeatability and objectivity (Higgins and Green, 2011). While systematic reviews can be resource-intensive, traditional literature reviews (clinical reviews and vote-counting reviews) can adopt systematic approaches to improve their reliability with minimal additional effort . Traditional reviews that do not adopt such approaches are susceptible to a number of limitations, including selection bias and publication bias that can reduce the reliability of the review outputs. All literature reviews (including systematic reviews) vary in their reliability, but systematic approaches can help to reduce susceptibility to a number of different biases.
Here, we outline the limitations associated with traditional literature reviews and what can be done to mitigate them using systematic review methodology. We illustrate our argument using recently published reviews in the wildlife-parasitology literature to provide examples of reviews that are at risk of unreliability and those that have succeeded in their stated aims. Wildlife parasitology is an ideal field to examine the variety of literature review approaches because it combines two disparate fieldsdecology and parasitology. Ecologists have only recently abandoned the less formalised narrative review for systematic reviews and metaanalyses (Lortie, 2014), while parasitologists have a long tradition of following the Cochrane Collaboration methods of systematic reviews (Cook et al., 1997) because of the clinical nature of their work. Wildlife parasitology, with its roots both in ecology and veterinary medicine, has examples of all types of reviews in the recent literature and thus allows for a balanced examination of the pros and cons of each system.

Materials and methods
To identify review articles for this paper, we used systematic review methods to search for, screen and appraise reviews in the field of wildlife parasitology. We searched Web of Science Core Collections (Stockholm University subscription) on 18th April 2016 using the search string "wildlife AND parasit* AND (review OR "meta-analysis" OR metaanalysis)" in a Topic Words search. We restricted our search to the period from 2010 to 2015 due to resource limitations. We also selected a suite of academic parasitology journals that publish wildlife articles (Trends in Parasitology, International Journal for Parasitology e Parasites and Wildlife (IJP-PAW), Parasites and Vector, and Parasites and Vectors), and handsearched within these journals for review papers published during the same period. Each journal was searched using its own search engine using the keyword 'wildlife', then identifying those articles that were categorised as 'reviews'. The obtained search results from database and hand searches were then screened using the following inclusion criteria: i) they were a literature review; 2) their focus was on wildlife parasitology. We defined literature reviews as those that synthesise a data set for the specific purpose of detecting a pattern or trend. We have categorised reviews using an adapted version of the system set out by O' Connor and Sargeant (2015), as follows: 1) configurative narrative integrative reviews; 2) aggregative scoping reviews; 3) aggregative full literature review; 4) aggregative meta-analysis; and 5) aggregative systematic review (see Table 1). We have used two additional categories to the original system proposed by O'Connor and Sargeant (2015): configurative and aggregative, according to (Gough et al., 2015), with configurative reviews being model-forming, whilst aggregative reviews aim to collate and summarise study findings. In addition, we described five domains relating to the reliability and quality of the reviews, as follows: transparency, comprehensiveness, presence of vote-counting analysis, presence of critical appraisal of included studies, and confusion of no evidence of effect with evidence of no effect. These domains are described in detail below.

A lack of transparency
When reviewers do not describe how they searched for evidence, nor how they screened studies for inclusion, the review is then neither truly repeatable nor verifiable, as all science should be. By detailing searching and screening strategies, including the search strings and databases used, (making use of supplementary information) the work can be verified, repeated or updated (e.g. Bernes et al., 2015). In the fields of social science, human medicine and environmental management, systematic reviews are typically published with coordinating organisations that set standards in systematic review methods (such as the Collaboration for Environmental Evidence and the Cochrane Collaboration), which ensures that the review has been performed according to a high standard, typically involving a high level of transparency, but also ensuring the following risks to reliability are avoided.

A lack of comprehensiveness
Reviewers can (knowingly or unknowingly) introduce bias by selecting evidence to include in a review (selection bias), since it is impossible to ascertain whether the studies included are representative of the whole body of evidence. This can be particularly problematic if included studies originate from a research group with one school-of-thought (research bias, Gurevitch et al., 2000). A lack of comprehensiveness can also occur if publication bias (the tendency for significant research to be more frequently published than non-significant research) is not explicitly dealt with (i.e. by searching for grey literature) or discussed. Publication bias is a common problem with meta-analyses (Sutton et al., 2000), resulting in a potentially unreliable but precise result that can adversely affect decision-making. Reliable reviews should aim to collate all available evidence on a topic by using predefined search strategies in multiple academic databases and by searching for grey literature where appropriate (Haddaway and Bayliss, 2015).

Vote-counting
Meta-analysis combines results from multiple studies, increasing statistical power and allowing for investigation of sources of heterogeneity (Koricheva et al., 2013), and considers the magnitude and variability of effects rather than just the direction. Vote-counting (categorising studies as positive, negative or nonsignificant), however, ignores magnitude and variability. Votecounting makes it impossible to examine non-significant trends that are only seen to be significant when assessed at a sufficient level of replication across multiple studies, and it also treats all studies as having the same level of reliability. Vote-counting should, therefore, always be avoided. Instead, meta-analysis that includes critical appraisal (see below) should be performed where possible (but see Lafferty (1997) for an alternate method of effect size presentation). Alternatively, studies should be considered as a whole, without tallying results based on their individual statistical significance, for example through a narrative that describes overall trends using tables and figures without focusing on the frequency of significance.

A lack of critical appraisal
Critical appraisal, the careful assessment of individual studies based on their reliability or susceptibility to bias, is a vital step in reviewing evidence (Higgins and Green, 2011), since even academic, peer-reviewed literature can be unreliable or wrong (Bohannon, 2013), and since research will vary in its relevance to any review. Without appraisal of the reliability of included research, for example, an unreplicated study would be given the same weight as a highly replicated randomised control trial. Some studies are inherently more accurate (e.g. due to sample size), some are more valid (e.g. due to control matching), and some are more biologically relevant (e.g. truly different due to underlying genetics, taxonomy or ecology). All reviews should assess validity, and weight or exclude evidence accordingly when synthesising it (see, e.g. Higgins and Green, 2011). For example, in a systematic review on the effectiveness of biomanipulation as a means for reducing eutrophication in inland waters, Bernes et al. (2015) critically assess the internal validity (quality) and external validity (generalisability) of each included study in their review and meta-analysis, excluding studies that failed to report baseline conditions or the intensity of the intervention in sufficient detail.

No evidence of effect s evidence of no effect
A lack of evidence does not equate to evidence of no effect. A significant body of reliable evidence demonstrating non-significant effects does provide an evidence of no effect, but this conclusion should be based on a comprehensive search and reviewers should not confuse no evidence of effect with evidence of no effect. A trend towards more positive research is an expected result of publication bias that plagues academic publishing. For example, reviewers should perform critical appraisal, have a sufficient evidence base on which to base their conclusions, and be very cautious of interpreting a lack of studies as a lack of effect.
And finally, as an example of how a lack of transparency, comprehensiveness and critical appraisal and the use of votecounting can severely limit the usefulness of a review, one paper, Pedersen and Fenton (2015) is examined in depth.

Results
Our search of Web of Science Core Collections returned 76 results for the period of 2010e2015 (132 for the entire date range of the database). A total of 22 studies were included after screening of abstracts. These articles were combined with 15 studies identified through hand searching of selected journals, leaving 37 relevant reviews. These reviews are described in detail in Table 2.
According to our schema we identified 16 configurative narrative integrative reviews, 13 aggregative scoping reviews, 3 aggregative full literature reviews, 5 aggregative meta-analyses, and no aggregative systematic reviews. The number of reviews in total has increased over time as is expected given current trends in publishing (Fig. 1).
The configurative reviews typically lacked transparency that would make it impossible to repeat the searches, although two reviews provided some details of searches (Carmena and Cardona, 2013;Medlock et al., 2013). As a result, it is not possible to assess comprehensiveness for these reviews. However, the nature of configurative reviews does not necessarily require comprehensiveness, since information saturation when building conceptual models means that at a certain point the addition of further studies would not add information to the conceptual model (Gough et al., 2015). Typically these types of reviews do not set out to synthesise study findings, and so vote-counting only occurred in one review (Alasaad et al., 2013).
Of greater interest to an assessment of the quality of reviews in wildlife parasitology is a validity of aggregative reviews that aim to collate study findings. Of the 13 scoping reviews, 10 provided some details of the search strategy, although most lacked sufficient detail to repeat the searches. Three reviews included vote-counting (Brearley et al., 2013;Fagre et al., 2015;Pedersen and Fenton, 2015). These reviews weighted all included studies equally and failed to account for either the size of the studies or the magnitude of study effects.
The aggregative full literature reviews provided some details of search strings used, but typically failed to provide details or results regarding the screening process for inclusion/exclusion of studies. Only one review attempts some assessment of the reliability of included studies .
Of the aggregative meta-analyses, all provided details of the search that was conducted, although one study failed to state when the searches were undertaken (Young et al., 2013). All papers included at least a basic assessment of bias. In some cases (e.g. Becker et al., 2015) this extended only to a discussion of low sample Table 2 Description and coding of reviews identified in this study. See Table 1 for explanation of review types.

Citation
Type of review  size precluding inclusion in meta-analysis, whilst other studies performed comprehensive assessments of possible bias, such as trim and fill statistics (Poulin & Kamiya, 2015).
In the single paper that was chosen for an extended analysis, Pedersen and Fenton 2015, as no details of search strategy or inclusion criteria were provided, a systematic search resulted in an additional thirty-one papers missing from the published literature review (see Supplement file). Vote-counting is performed and the authors discuss an apparent lack of non-significant/negative evidence across insect-specific treatments where only a small number of single studies show positive effects. No weighting is given to studies based on their internal or external validity. The authors go as far as to describe the type of study that is needed in an ideal situation but make no attempt to appraise critically the included studies against this standard. A very small number of studies showing non-significant results is described as evidence of no effect rather than a lack of evidence: "not all drugs were efficacious for treating wildlife parasites". This may be a result of limitations in search method or of the studies (too small, poor methods, insufficient dose).

Discussion
We found that literature reviews in wildlife parasitology are mostly still using limited methodologies and techniques such as clinical and vote-counting reviews. Surprisingly we failed to find any reviews that would conform to the standards of the many systematic review coordinating bodies in the broad fields of social science, medicine and environmental management. Wildlife parasitology is a growing field emerging from a veterinary/medical basis into a more ecologically-minded discipline. We found that reliance on clinical and vote-counting reviews severely limits the reliability of a review. All forms of literature review are susceptible to biases that can affect their reliability, as discussed above.
Comparisons of various types of literature review show many differences in transparency, comprehensiveness, analysis type and evidence for no effect between traditional reviews and systematic reviews . The example papers used in this comparison of literature reviews come from different aspects of wildlife parasitology, but indicate how a move towards high quality reviews with systematic methodological approaches will benefit future research and decision-making. When writing a review, authors should remember that the readership may include those from other disciplines, and so clarity and transparency should be used as tools to maximise the review's utility. List-style or clinical reviews are the norm in many fields of medical parasitology, but as these reviews become more common in the field of ecology it is important to inform the reader about the methodology behind such reviews; including search terms, data bases searched, and previous reviews sourced. Reviewers must also understand the limitations of vote-counting and, most importantly, the possibility that unreliable or inaccurate conclusions may be reached if the literature search is not systematic. In summary, we urge authors and peer-reviewers to adopt systematic approaches to literature reviews, and to consider using formalised systematic review methodology (see www. environmentalevidence.org or www.cochrane.org) where possible. In addition, we urge editors and journals to facilitate the publication of high quality, reliable systematic reviews but accepting systematic reviews as specific article types and by adopting standards for conduct and reporting of systematic reviews from other disciplines such as Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) for reporting (Moher et al., 2009) and the Methodological Expectations of Cochrane Intervention Reviews (MECIR) for reporting and conduct (http:// editorial-unit.cochrane.org/mecir). Such standards are already adopted by other leading journals outside specialist fields, including PLOS ONE. Traditional reviews should particularly strive to be systematic where assessments of effectiveness are undertaken. Transparency, comprehensiveness and critical appraisal are central tenets of systematic review approaches and will yield the most reliable evidence. Lessons should be taken from systematic review guidance  to minimise bias and mitigate the limitations associated with non-systematic literature review methods.