Do peer-reviewed journal papers result from meeting abstracts of the biennial conference on the biology of marine mammals?

Peer-reviewed publication is at the core of scientific communication. However, with the exception of biomedicine, there has been little analysis of the rate of peer-reviewed publication resulting from conference abstracts. This study examined a random sample of abstracts from the 1989 and 1991 Biennial Conferences on the Biology of Marine Mammals to determine how many were published as peer-reviewed papers. Publication rates were 51.4% (+/-4.7%) and 51.2% (+/-4.6%) respectively. This low abstract-to-publication rate, coupled with editorial policies prohibiting citation of conference abstracts in some journals, limits access to recent research, and thus affects the vibrance of the discipline.