About · Open Access Pub
About the Journal of Plant and Animal Ecology
ISSN 2637-6075 · Open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license · Published by Open Access Pub
The Journal of Plant and Animal Ecology (JPAE) is a peer-reviewed, open access journal for research on plants and animals in their habitats — how organisms live, how they interact, and how they respond to the environments that sustain them. It publishes work across terrestrial, freshwater and marine systems, at scales from the individual organism to the functioning of whole ecosystems.
The subject
Plant and animal ecology as one subject
Ecology is the study of relationships: among organisms, between organisms and the places they live, and between those places and the processes that shape them. JPAE treats plant and animal ecology as a single field rather than two adjacent ones, because the questions that matter most in it — herbivory, pollination, dispersal, habitat quality, nutrient flow — run between plants and animals rather than staying on one side.
Organisms and populations
- Ecophysiology and life history in natural settings
- Behavior, foraging and habitat use
- Demography, dispersal and population genetics
- Responses to environmental variation
Communities and interactions
- Species assemblages and community dynamics
- Herbivory, predation, pollination and dispersal
- Competition, facilitation and symbiosis
- Food webs and trophic structure
Ecosystems and landscapes
- Nutrient cycling, energy flow and ecosystem function
- Habitat structure, disturbance and succession
- Land use, climate and contaminants as drivers
- Conservation, restoration and managed harvest
The journal welcomes research that advances understanding of plants, animals, their interactions and ecological systems, using methods appropriate to the research question. Observational, experimental, comparative, theoretical, computational and synthesis work are all within its remit, as are fundamental questions and applied questions in conservation and management. The Aims and Scope page sets out the detailed scientific eligibility criteria.
Readership
Who the journal serves
- Researchers and academics in ecology, conservation biology and environmental science
- Practitioners and policymakers working in ecological and resource management
- Students and educators following current work in the field
- Readers outside the discipline with an interest in plants, animals and shared environments
Every article is freely available to all of these readers without subscription or registration. Authors retain copyright, and articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license, which permits redistribution and adaptation with attribution and allows authors to deposit the published version in an institutional repository.
The record
What the journal has published
- Published records
- 16
- Issues
- 5, across 2 volumes
- Current issue
- Volume 2, Issue 1
Published work has addressed forest soil respiration, the diet and genetic diversity of field mouse populations, phytoplankton community composition, environmental contaminants in surface water and plant tissue, mosquito biting behavior, and ecosystem-based management of an Antarctic krill fishery and the predators that depend on it. These subjects illustrate the range of the record; they do not mark the boundary of what the journal considers.
The complete record, including every issue and its published items, is listed in the archive. The most recent items appear in the current issue.
Editorial responsibility
How the journal handles a manuscript
A board of 14 members carries scholarly responsibility for the journal: assessing fit and quality, overseeing peer review, and upholding publication ethics. Their names and affiliations are listed on the Editorial Board page.
Before and during review
All submissions undergo initial editorial screening. Manuscripts that meet the journal's scope and minimum requirements proceed to independent peer review. Single-blind by default; double-blind review is available on request. Manuscripts that proceed to external peer review are normally evaluated by at least two independent subject-matter experts.
Reaching a decision
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships, and editorial or reviewer roles. Editors recuse themselves from decisions on their own submissions, which are handled independently. The full set of commitments is published in the Editorial Policies.
Where to go next
The rest of the journal
- Aims and Scope The detailed scientific eligibility criteria and the subject boundary
- Editorial Board The 14 members responsible for the journal's scholarly standards
- Current Issue Volume 2, Issue 1
- Archives All 16 published records, by volume and issue
- Editorial Policies Ethics, integrity, conflicts of interest and corrections
- Instructions for Authors Preparing and formatting a manuscript
- Indexing and preservation Identifier registration, discovery services and digital preservation
- Article processing charges The publisher's current charge and withdrawal terms
Submission
Sending a manuscript to JPAE
- Primary route: ManuscriptZone oap.manuscriptzone.net
- Alternative route: Simple manuscript submission form openaccesspub.org/manuscript-submission-form
- Assisted route: Editorial email [email protected]
Authors must use only one submission route for the same manuscript.