<![CDATA[University students no longer write research papers with a single source of support. They draw at once on formal resources such as courses, supervisors and feedback, informal resources such as peers, online tutorials and digital communities, and AI-based resources such as generative chatbots, paraphrasing tools and AI-assisted search. Yet research has mostly examined these resources in isolation, leaving unclear how students combine them. This article addresses that gap through an integrative review of 50 publications from 2022 to 2026, interpreted through the lens of learning ecology. The review was organised into seven thematic clusters and synthesised across the stages of research paper writing: planning, reading and sourcing, drafting, revising, and citing and submitting. Three findings emerged. First, formal resources remain the anchor of students' writing ecologies, setting standards and legitimising feedback, but they are often limited in time and access. Second, informal and AI-based resources increasingly fill these gaps, offering immediate, low-stakes and personalised support, with AI-based resources concentrated in drafting and revising. Third, students actively orchestrate these resources rather than simply consuming them, but this orchestration produces tensions concerning trust, authorship, academic integrity and equity. The article proposes an Academic Writing Ecology Model that positions the student writer as an orchestrator of three resource layers embedded in institutional and platform ecologies. It concludes with implications for writing pedagogy, institutional AI policy and future empirical research.]]>
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