My field is life science/biology.
I am wondering if there is any difference between last author and corresponding author. For example, if one is the second last author and corresponding author, and another one is the last author but not corresponding author, who is actually leading the work?
And also would be viewed differently among university? Particularly for tenure applications?
Good question.
Typically, in life sciences/biology, the person who is last author (or senior author) is seen as leading the work. They may or may not be corresponding author. To my opinion, it's a good decision to also make them corresponding author, as they are likely the ones with a permanent position, and therefore able to answer questions from readers for years to come (which is the point of being the corresponding author on a paper). I know some people who would make their PhD students corresponding author and while it's both easy and potentially a nice gesture, if the PhD student leaves (the lab or academia) they will be less available in the future to answer questions.
Note that this corresponding authorship has nothing to do with the person who actually uploaded all the files to the journal in the submission stage. I typically did that as a PhD student in the place of my advisor, but they were still the official corresponding author.
Now this may be different if the first author is a postdoc who is on the tenure track job market and willing to set up their own lab while continuing with this line of research - in that case both the first and senior/last author might agreee to be listed as corresponding author.
In either case, the corresponding authorship as far as I am aware plays no role/is not a factor in judging contributions to a study. Also, most tenure applications would care about how and what you contributed specifically, rather than a corresponding author asterisk next to your name.
As BioBrains says, it is usually assumed that the last author is the author who has overall responsibility for the publication, usually the head of the research group, grant holder, or line manager. The research would usually have been their idea in the first place. They are the person with whom the buck stops if there is something wrong with the paper. (If my student or postdoc publishes fraudulent data, both they and I get in trouble, if the fraud is on my part, then only I get in trouble). This is sometimes known as the "senior author".
In theory, the corresponding author is the person who is mostly likely to be in a position to answer , or find the answer to any (and I mean any) question about the research. Even if its 10 years later.
Some people will use corresponding to try to indicate that either more than one person should be regarded as the senior author, or that the person last on the list is not the senior author (if, for example the first author should be regarded as both the first and senior author). We often use it very much like "* these authors contributed equally", but for joint last authorship, rather than joint first, particularly where multiple fields are involved, and there is unlikely to be one person who knows about everything, or has overall responsiblity. The extent to which people recognise/acknowledge/account for this is variable.
