Special Issues · Open Access Pub
Ongoing Special Issues
ISSN 2637-6075 · Open access under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license · Published by Open Access Pub
A special issue brings together work on one ecological question that is better read as a set than as scattered articles. The Journal of Plant and Animal Ecology welcomes proposals for such collections from researchers who are willing to guest-edit them.
Proposing a collection
What a proposal should set out
Propose a Special Issue. The Journal of Plant and Animal Ecology welcomes proposals for focused collections that address important questions in plant and animal ecology. Researchers with relevant expertise are invited to review the proposal requirements below and contact the editorial office.
How they are run
The standards a collection is held to
Special issues are reviewed like everything else
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.
Editorial decisions are based on scope, scientific quality, methodological rigor, ethical compliance, reporting quality, and relevance to the journal. Belonging to a collection changes none of this: there is no separate standard, no reserved space and no assurance of acceptance for a manuscript submitted to a special issue.
Guest editors and conflicts
A guest editor handles manuscripts in the collection under the same conflict rules as any editor, and recuses themselves from their own submissions and from those of close collaborators, which are handled independently by a member of the editorial board.
Decisions remain independent of fees, services, memberships, and editorial or reviewer roles.
Charges
An article processing charge applies to an accepted article in a special issue on the same terms as any other accepted article; see Article Processing Charges.
Getting in touch
Making a proposal
Proposals and questions should go to the editorial office at [email protected], with a short outline of the question, the proposed guest editors and the expected contributors. Regular submissions are accepted throughout the year and do not depend on a collection being open.