The network of H5N8 publications.

Before I became obsessed with influenza phylogenetics I was interested in networks. I observed something interesting in the citations of flu papers.

My paper with Munir about H5N8 having a single origin has 5 cites. Verhagen et al. Science paper - How a virus travels the world has 17 cites but amazingly the paper with the riveting title Novel Eurasian highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5 viruses in wild birds Washington USA 2014 has 24 cites.

Looking at Google Scholar for all of the H5N8 citations you have:

Novel reassortant influenza A (H5N8) viruses, South Korea, 2014 EID 69.

Characterization of three H5N5 and one H5N8 highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses in China Veterinary Microbiology 60.

Novel reassortant influenza A (H5N8) viruses in domestic ducks, eastern China EID 44.

Highly pathogenic avian influenza virus (H5N8) in domestic poultry and its relationship with migratory birds in South Korea during 2014 Veterinary Microbiology 51

Highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N8) virus from waterfowl, South Korea, 2014 EID 25

Outbreaks of avian influenza A (H5N2),(H5N8), and (H5N1) among birds—United States, December 2014–January 2015 MMWR (CDC) 24

Pathobiological features of a novel, highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N8) virus Emerging Microbes and Infections 27

A novel highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza virus isolated from a wild duck in China Influenza and Other Respiratory Diseases 22

Novel reassortant influenza A (H5N8) viruses among inoculated domestic and wild ducks, South Korea, 2014 EID 23

Comparing introduction to Europe of highly pathogenic avian influenza viruses A (H5N8) in 2014 and A (H5N1) in 2005 Euro-surveillance 17

Novel Eurasian highly pathogenic avian influenza A H5 viruses in wild birds, Washington, USA, 2014 EID 25

Reassortant highly pathogenic influenza A H5N2 virus containing gene segments related to Eurasian H5N8 in British Columbia, Canada, 2014 Scientific Reports 17

Full-genome sequence of influenza A (H5N8) virus in poultry linked to sequences of strains from Asia, the Netherlands, 2014 EID 14

Intercontinental spread of Asian-origin H5N8 to North America through Beringia by migratory birds Journal of Virology 14

Genetic characterization of highly pathogenic avian influenza (H5N8) virus from domestic ducks, England, November 2014 EID 11

Influenza A (H5N8) virus similar to strain in Korea causing highly pathogenic avian influenza in Germany EID 8

 Pathologic changes in wild birds infected with highly pathogenic avian influenza A (H5N8) viruses, South Korea, 2014 EID 7

Genetic diversity of highly pathogenic H5N8 avian influenza viruses at a single overwintering site of migratory birds in Japan, 2014/15 Euro-surveillance 7

Characterization of an H5N8 influenza A virus isolated from chickens during an outbreak of severe avian influenza in Japan in April 2014 Archives of Virology (closed access) 6

The European and Japanese outbreaks of H5N8 derive from a single source population providing evidence for the dispersal along the long distance bird …  PeerJ 5

So my new research questions are:

How can there be this amount of publication on 120 viral sequences?

How can there be these amounts of citations in less than 18 months?

How can peer review not reject so many papers which cover virtually identical ground?

Why does my paper languish behind all of the others?

This to me looks like classic clique behaviour and also the rich get richer. It will be interesting to construct the network of citations and return citations.