A bibliometric analysis of the development of Actinidia arguta research

【Objective】As a recently domesticated fruit crop, the scientific research and commercial industry of Actinidia arguta have developed rapidly both domestically and internationally. By 2024, the planting area in China had reached 6700 hectares. The wild resources of A. arguta are distributed in Northeast China, North China and the Yangtze River Basin, and are also distributed in Japan and the Far East of Russia. In order to assess the research status and industry development trend in this field, this paper analyzes the academic papers at home and abroad.【Methods】The bibliometric visualization software CiteSpace and VOSviewer were used to analyze the information about countries, institutions, authors, publications and research contents of A. arguta, taking the academic papers of A. arguta in the CNKI database from 1979 to 2024 and the Web of Science (WOS) database from 1966 to 2024 as the research materials. At the same time, the current status of A. arguta research at home and abroad is examined, and the academic impact of this research is analyzed and evaluated. Understanding the current state of scientific research and industrial development of A. arguta is important for promoting its development and utilization, as well as the healthy growth of the industry.【Results】A total of 1283 papers were published during this period, of which 823 were in Chinese (64.15% ) and 460 were in English (35.85%). The number of papers published each year showed an upward trend. The number of Chinese and English papers began to rise rapidly in 2010 and 2009, respectively, with the number of Chinese papers exceeding that of English papers from 2011 to 2024. The study revealed that a total of 48 countries once published papers related to soft date A. arguta, with the top five countries in terms of the number of articles being China, Republic of Korea, Poland, New Zealand, and Japan, with 147, 78, 67, 42, and 38 articles, respectively. The East Asian countries of China, the republic of Korea, and Japan accounted for 57.17% of the total number of articles of all the countries studied, demonstrating the East Asian region is of worldwide research advantage. China is the most important country for studying A. arguta. The number of papers in the CNKI and WOS databases accounts for 75.60% of all Chinese and English literature. A total of 473 and 483 research institutions are included in the CNKI and WOS databases, respectively. The main institutions publishing in CNKI are Shenyang Agricultural University, the Institute of Special Animals and Plants of the Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences, and Yanbian University, with 82, 71, and 54 papers, respectively. All three of these institutions are located in the northeast region. Of the top 20 institutions with the largest number of publications, 16 are located in this region, indicating that it is the most important area for the study of A. arguta. From the perspective of the Web of Science (WOS), the top countries for A. arguta research are China, Poland, and Republic of Korea. A total of 215 and 240 papers on A. arguta were published in the CNKI and WOS databases, respectively. The top five Chinese journals are Northern Horticulture, Liaoning Forestry Science and Technology, Forest By- products and Specialty in China, Special Wild Economic Animal and Plant Science, and Food Science, with 38, 36, 35, 31 and 23 papers, respectively. The top five English journals were Scientia Horticulturae, Food Chemistry, Molecules, Frontiers in Plant Science and International Journal of Molecular Sciences, with 19, 13, 12, 11 and 10 articles respectively. The authors of the research papers on A. arguta published in CNKI were ranked in order from highest to lowest: LIU Changjiang, QIN Hongyan, PIAO Yilong, AI Jun and FAN Shutian. The top 20 authors were based in the northeast China, 10 of whom were affiliated with the Institute of Specialty Animal and Plant Sciences of Chinese Academy of Agricultural Sciences. Nine of the top 20 authors in the Web of Science (WOS) were from China, eight of whom were from the institution of Zhengzhou Fruit Research Institute, CAAS (China). The remaining foreign authors were mainly from the Warsaw University of Life Sciences (Poland), Instituto Politecnico do Porto (Portugal) and the Korea Forest Research Institute (KFRI) (Republic of Korea). The literature was analysed for its‘burst words’. Except for‘kiwifruit’, the Chinese literature from CNKI only formed a hotspot for a period of time according to keywords such as‘polysaccharide’,‘total flavonoids’,‘cultivation techniques’,‘fruit’and‘tissue culture’. The keywords that continued into the recent period mainly included‘phenotype’and‘storage’. Except for‘Antinidia deliciosa’, only keywords such as‘expression’,‘Hayward’,‘quality’,‘cultivars’,‘fruit’and‘cold stress’ maintained a relatively high level of activity in chronological order in the WOS English literature, which also indicated the current focus of scientific research on A. arguta. In terms of the number of published papers and the average citation frequency, China has an absolute advantage in terms of research institutions, authors, and journals related to A. arguta. In terms of research content, China’s focus is primarily on resource investigation, cultivar, tissue culture, cultivation technique, fruit quality and antioxidant activity. In contrast, foreign countries tend to study the antioxidant activity, expression, storage, cultivar and tissue culture of A. arguta. However, few studies have been conducted on the protection of A. arguta plants in China and abroad, and this area requires further strengthening.【Conclusion】China has a leading position in the research of A. arguta, mainly in the following areas: resources and breeding, cultivation techniques, fruit quality and function. The focus of international research is on such areas as functionality, gene expression and storage performance. It is imperative that fundamental research must be reinforced in order to enhance the level of applied basic research and provide robust support for industrial development.