Who tweets climate change papers? investigating publics of research through users’ descriptions

paper having a proportion lower than 32% and the highest at 52.5% (Accelerating extinction risk from climate change). This indicate that communicators may use a large share of personal keywords and expressions to build their perceived identity on Twitter. Assignations to the Political category range from 8.2% (Oxygen isotope in archaeological bioapatites from India: Implications to climate change and decline of Bronze Age Harappan civi- lization) to 23.9%. (The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 degrees C). Papers focusing on sensitive topics (such as The geographical distribu- tion of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 degrees C and Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health) may engage more users with significant politi- cal motivations. Two papers have an elevated overlap between Academia and Political (Ecologi- cal networks are more sensitive to plant than to animal extinction under climate change; 36% and Assessing the Performance of EU Nature Legislation in Protecting Target Bird Species in an Era of Climate Change; 32.3%) (S3 Table in S1 File). This may indicate that a significant share of users from the research community also embrace political action when it comes to climate change. Users assigned to the Professional category range from 10.9% (Ecological networks are more sensitive to plant than to animal extinction under climate change) to 23.1%. (Health and climate Table 4. General results of the word detection analysis. Acad Perso Pro Pol Comm Org Pub Bots

Title Journal Year N of users % of users % of users % of users % of users % of users % of users % of users % of users % unnassigned Total 19 783 28.0% 25.0% 15.0% 13.0% 11.2% 21.2% 1.8% 0.5% 30.1% Climate change in the Fertile Crescent and implications of the recent Syrian drought [66] PNAS 2015 1 760 13.9% 34.7% 12.2% 19.1% 14.8% 10.5% 0.7% 0.2% 36.1% The geographical distribution of fossil fuels unused when limiting global warming to 2 degrees C [67] Nature 2015 1 265 23.1% 27.7% 19.4% 23.8% 13.0% 20.2% 0.6% 0.3% 25.1% Accelerating extinction risk from climate change [68] Science 2015 749 20.3% 31.5% 12.7% 18.4% 12.3% 13.5% 0.1% 0.3% 34.8% Health and climate change: policy responses to protect public health [69] Lancet 2015 481 26.2% 30.4% 23.1% 19.8% 11.4% 27.4% 1.2% 0.2% 21.8% Climate change impacts on bumblebees converge across continents [70] Science 2015 337 27.0% 30.0% 17.5% 11.0% 11.3% 24.0% 1.2% 0.0% 27.9% Analysis and valuation of the health and climate change cobenefits of dietary change [71] PNAS 2016 659 25.2% 30.3% 17.6% 20.2% 12.7% 16.4% 1.2% 0.0% 29.3% Oxygen isotope in archaeological bioapatites from India: Implications to climate change and decline of Bronze Age Harappan civilization [72] Scientific Reports 2016 537 10.4% 21.2% 15.6% 8.2% 9.3% 5.6% 0.4% 1.5% 53.4% Global and regional health effects of future food production under climate change: a modelling study [73] Lancet 2016 347 21.6% 28.8% 18.2% 16.1% 9.2% 22.2% 2.0% 0.0% 28.8% Ecological networks are more sensitive to plant than

to animal extinction under climate change [74] Nature Communications 2016 276 47.8% 21.4% 10.9% 9.1% 9.1% 26.1% 1.4% 0.0% 25.4% Assessing the Performance of EU Nature Legislation in Protecting Target Bird Species in an Era of Climate Change [75] Conservation Letters 2016 238 26.1% 32.4% 18.9% 13.0% 7.6% 22.3% 0.8% 0.0% 26.5% The above table presents a summary of the results of the word detection analysis on the whole dataset and the 5 most tweeted papers of 2015 and 2016. Columns ranging from Acad to Bots (Acad = Academia; Perso = Personal; Pro = Professional; Pol = Political; Comm = Communication; Org = Organization; Pub = Publishers) represent the percentage of Twitter bios assigned to each category according to the number of users (N of users). The last column indicate the percentage of Twitter bios not assigned to any category. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268999.t004 PLOS ONE Who tweets climate change research papers? PLOS ONE | https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0268999 June 3, 2022 10 / 17