Emerging trends in Meta-Analysis with the increased availability of datasets – an example from Ecological sciences

Meta-analysis is traditionally conducted using the set of published (primary) studies. As such, it suffers from the publication bias and relies on the quality of primary studies. Open Science is increasing the number of datasets available to incorporate into meta-analysis, either to verify (or supplement) the results of primary studies, or to use the datasets as data-points in the analysis. I discuss the general case of the potential benefits of Open Science to Meta-analysis and the possible formal procedures to evaluate these benefits. I then specifically focus on the position of ecological sciences - I describe the current data landscape and highlight the main challenges that researcher face when navigating this landscape. Overcoming these challenges largely depends on the developments of infrastructure for storing, finding, and connecting scientific information, as well as on the transition to FAIR data.