Sixty years of Halffter’s Mexican Transition Zone: a systematic review using bibliometric tools

Abstract

The Mexican Transition Zone (MTZ) has become a key concept that has promoted the consolidation of an integrative field of research. We reviewed the scientific publications on the MTZ with bibliometric tools to detect trends through time and analyze the conceptual structure and historiographic citation. We also performed a content analysis considering the conceptualization of the MTZ, the application of Halffter’s patterns of distribution, and the different disciplines where the term has been used. The number of publications per year has not been constant, but since 2012 there has been a general increase, becoming the MTZ frequently cited in papers and in some cases constituting a research topic. We identified divergences in the conceptualization of the MTZ and discussed the implications for biogeographic studies. Halffter’s conceptualization of the Mexican Transition Zone has inspired other authors to produce research focused on this area and to set biogeographic hypotheses but also to redefine the concept and make it applicable through its incorporation in the biogeographical regionalization of the Americas.