Introducing ‘Environmental Research: Ecology’—a new journal devoted to addressing global challenges at the interface of environmental and ecological science, biodiversity and conservation

Environmental Research: Ecology is a new open-access journal focused on addressing important global challenges at the interface of environmental science, large scale ecology, biodiversity and conservation in a way that bridges scientific progress and assessment with efforts relating to impacts of global change, vulnerability, resilience, mitigation and adaptation in the broadest sense. While there are many journals addressing various aspects of ecology, those focused on macroscale changes across ecosystems, biomes and at continental to global scale geographies are far fewer. Because ecosystems across the globe are undergoing enormous changes brought about by human-induced transformations and associated feedbacks to and alteration of the climate system, it is more important than ever that a forum exists for addressing these issues in a fully Open Access publishing venue. Environmental Research: Ecology provides that platform and is supported by an Editorial Board of high profile ecologists covering a broad range of disciplines and geographies.

As a new addition to Institute of Physics (IOP) Publishing's open access Environmental Research series of journals, the mission of Environmental Research: Ecology is to publish innovative research articles, reviews and perspectives addressing ecological processes and dynamics incorporating fundamental and applied research across scales using a diversity of approaches.
Our hope is that Environmental Research: Ecology will provide a working platform to advance realistic science-based policy solutions that translate into practice, with management implications for conservation of habitat and biodiversity, particularly in ecosystems experiencing increasingly diminished functional integrity.There is no doubt this is a big challenge, but it is one that must be met.Ecologists today have access to a large and increasingly sophisticated toolbox, with vast resources and data provided by a suite of earth observation satellites, machine learning algorithms, high performance computing, and a steadily increasing database of in situ observations and well-organized databases maintained by various networks around the world.Rather than merely documenting the degradation of ecosystems, we have an opportunity to use these observations and capabilities to address the drivers of change and inform policy and practice to stem losses, learn from successes, and extend those to new locations around the world.Moreover, we increasingly have opportunities a reconnect 'the best of the last' ecosystems and restore ecosystem composition, structure and function.
Research published in Environmental Research: Ecology can help to inform ongoing international policy agreements, including the United Nations Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) which is in the process of negotiating on a new ('post 2020') global biodiversity framework for the next decade [1].The most recent Conference of Parties to the CBD agreed to the goal of protecting 30% of Earth's land area by 2030 (the '30 × 30 goal' of the 2021 Kunming Declaration).Large scale ecological research is urgently needed to meet this ambitious goal.Where are the most crucial places to conserve?Should we prioritize ecosystems that are under the most pressure and thus the most threatened, or should we focus on establishing protections for the most intact ecosystems that are currently less threatened?Do intact ecosystems harbor the greatest biological diversity and, if not, what other criteria should be established to protect those that do?What are the most effective ways to enforce protections such that they are less subject to changing political systems, and how can we most comprehensively yet efficiently monitor protected areas?Moreover, what attributes and conditions of ecosystems should we monitor?Is it sufficient to assess integrity based on vegetation cover or do we need more comprehensive metrics that incorporate structural condition as one aspect of assessing and tracking ecosystem integrity [2]?This is just a small sample of the many topical areas that research submitted to Environmental Research: Ecology might address and inform.While these examples are focused on terrestrial ecosystems, similar policy relevant research is needed in freshwater and marine ecosystems as well.
In addition to informing policy, there is need for research that addresses the backdrop of other changes underway that are less directly attributed to ecosystem degradation resulting from human pressure, pollution and overexploitation.Climate change is creating conditions that also challenge the effectiveness of protected areas.Even if 30% of the Earth's most biologically diverse and intact ecosystems are protected by 2030, how will they fare under a changing climate 30, 50 or 100 years from now? Related, how might the legacy of past change [3] portend what we might expect in future?More severe disturbance events including record temperatures, fire, severe storms, flooding, invasive pests and exotic species are increasingly becoming 'the new normal of extremes' .International policy agreements recognize these changes and the need to both mitigate and adapt to them, yet policies need to be better informed by ecological research that captures the changes underway and provides robust near-term predictions at management relevant scales, at the same time fine grained and spatially extensive.Environmental Research: Ecology provides a forum for that research.Environmental Research: Ecology will consider a number of different types of articles, including: Letters (concise research articles reporting important results whose novelty and timeliness warrant priority review); Papers (original research articles of unlimited length); Topical Reviews (review articles that synthesize the background knowledge and state-of-the-art of a particular sub-field, normally invited by the Editorial Board); Roadmaps (broad, multi-author reviews that chart future research directions); Special Collections (collections of articles centered around a critical or emerging research area or topic); Perspectives (commentaries on topics of interest to the climate research community, including research challenges, recently-published results, and future directions of the field); and Comments & Replies (comments arising from papers published in the journal, to which the authors of the original paper will be invited to reply).

The Environmental Research journal series
The Editorial Board is committed to fair, ethical, and transparent editorial practices.A number of key features of the journal support this commitment.The journal is society-owned by the IOP, and hence all financial surplus is invested into funding the society's charitable activities in support of research, education and outreach.In addition, the journal is fully Open Access, ensuring broad access for all readers, free of charge.(And, during this initial phase of the journal, IOP Publishing is covering all publication charges, making the journal free not only for readers but also for authors.)The journal is also committed to high-quality peer review by expert referees from around the world, including double-anonymous review and Transparent Peer Review.Finally, the journal offers a number of additional benefits to authors and readers, including the option to include citable datasets and programmable code; pre-print friendly policies that encourage authors to post on community pre-print platforms; posting of accepted manuscripts on the journal website with a citable DOI within 24 h of acceptance; and a journal-wide commitment to providing an editorial process that minimizes delay at each stage-within the context of rigorous, in-depth peer-review and substantive engagement from the Editorial Board.
The first content in the inaugural issue of Environmental Research: Ecology includes five papers [3][4][5][6][7] that touch on various aspects of ecosystem research.There are more manuscripts in the queue and we hope yours will be among them as we move forward.Two special issues (focus collections) of Environmental Research: Ecology have also been initiated, one is focused on Spatial analysis of ecological patterns and the other on Unravelling the role of vegetation structure in ecosystem functioning with LIDAR, field studies and modelling.Proposals for additional focus collections are welcome.Contact any member of the Environmental Research: Ecology Editorial Board or IOP Publishing for additional information or to contribute suggestions and share your ideas.
Building on the established reputation of Environmental Research Letters and sharing the same modern publishing principles, IOP Publishing's expanding Environmental Research series offers an evolving suite of fully open access titles covering the most critical areas of environmental science and sustainability.Environmental Research: Ecology represents one of three new interdisciplinary titles for 2022, extending the series to six open access journals providing a suite of universally accessible publishing options for the global environmental science community that combine outstanding levels of author service, inclusive editorial policies, strict quality assurance and open science principles at their core.