In ecology, I understand that first authorship is very important. That name becomes associated with the paper. Also, hiring committees, scholarships and impacts rankings weight first authorship as much more important than co-authorship.
However, if the paper only has two co-authors then the value of first authorship vs. co-authors seems at least somewhat less relevant For exampel, both names may become associated with the paper. I'm sure this question has come up, and would be happy to hear perspectives about it. I don't think that answers should be limited to ecologists, but it seems relevant if answers come from fields that similarly weight first-authorship as important.
Dear Ira, nowadays I see several papers where the role of each author was spelled out. For a research paper with 2 authors, we have 'A & B, Year', but if there were three or more authors, we have one occasion of 'A, B & C, Year', and more occasions of 'A et al., Year', but I'm sure that the authors have reached an understanding of the order to place the names. I attach a paper where you can see it clearly. The main researcher is clearly VNS.
"Author Contributions
Conceived and designed the experiments: VNS MB GL RZ. Performed
the experiments: VNS MB GL. Analyzed the data: VNS MB. Contributed
reagents/materials/analysis tools: VNS MB GL JRC RZ. Wrote the paper:
VNS MB."
Primack RB, Cigliano J, Parsons ECM. Editorial: Coauthors gone bad; how to avoid publishing conflict and a proposed agreement for co-author teams. Biological Conservation 2014;176:277–280. https://www.researchgate.net/publication/263665437_Editorial_Coauthors_gone_bad_how_to_avoid_publishing_conflict_and_a_proposed_agreement_for_co-author_teams
See the following Question on ResearchGate…
“Should the first author on a paper receive more credit than the co-authors?”
https://www.researchgate.net/post/Should_the_first_author_on_a_paper_receive_more_credit_than_the_co-authors
Article Editorial: Coauthors gone bad; how to avoid publishing confl...
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