Mining for Species, Locations, Habitats, and Ecosystems from Scientific Papers in Invasion Biology: A Large-Scale Exploratory Study with Large Language Models

Abstract

This study explores the use of large language models (LLMs), specifically GPT-4o, to extract key ecological entities—species, locations, habitats, and ecosystems—from invasion biology literature. This information is critical for understanding species spread, predicting future invasions, and informing conservation efforts. Without domain-specific fine-tuning, we assess the potential and limitations of GPT-4o, out-of-the-box, for this task, highlighting the role of LLMs in advancing automated knowledge extraction for ecological research and management.