The submitted dataset contains the metadata collected from 500 articles in the field of ecology and evolution. This includes articles from the following journals: Ecology and Evolution, PLoS One, Proceedings of the Royal Society B, Ecology and the preprint server bioRxiv. Direct identifiers have been removed from the dataset. These included the first and last names of authors. No more than three indirect identifiers have been provided. Information found herein includes article titles, number of authors and ECR status, among others. A README file has been attached to provide greater details about the dataset.