Achieving and communicating globally relevant applied ecological research

Abstract

The publication of scientific papers in peer--reviewed journals is arguably among the most important and time--consuming activities performed by academics.Articles are a key component of any researcher's CV, while metrics derived from citations and Altmetric scores are commonly used to assess the quality and impact of research.Publishing is perceived by many as a necessity ('Publish or Perish!'), and options for scientific publication are constantly on the rise (Larsen & von Ins 2010).To an inexperienced eye, many scientific journals potentially represent an appropriate outlet for a given study.In reality, journals differ in terms of niche and targeted audience; a failure to appreciate these subtle differences in scope can lead to the frustration of work being rejected without review.With >1000 submissions a year for c. 180 published articles, our criteria for acceptance have to be strictly tied to the Journal's scope.Many initial rejections are directly linked to a lack of adherence to the Journal's applied ethos, which we have decided to spell out more clearly.Journal of Applied Ecology aims to publish research that meets the twin challenges of being sufficiently applied to have immediate management implications, yet of broad enough interest that the inferences and insights are relevant far beyond the study system.Our focus covers all major themes in applied ecology, such as conservation biology, global change, ecosystem services, environmental pollution, wildlife and habitat management, land use and management, aquatic resources, restoration ecology, and the management of pests, weeds and disease.Articles that use concepts, models or data from any other scientific field (e.g.social science) are also welcomed, provided that their ecological relevance is clear.Likewise, the Journal accepts papers with a methodological focus, but only where there is a very high (and explicitly demonstrated) potential to contribute directly to management or to directly inform policy.

Cite this work

No public copy is stored for this record, so only the metadata is cited.

Stored only when both papers are in the corpus — 9 citations exist upstream.

Papers that cite the same references — the relational fallback while embeddings are still backfilling.