Experimental Ecology
- Submission status
- Open
- Submission deadline
Ecology—the study of the relationships between living organisms and their environment—is a wide-ranging area of research. Technological progress and data sharing are increasingly enabling ecologists to carry out observational studies at unprecedented large scales. Yet, experimental ecology remains needed to address questions in both basic and applied research. Manipulative experiments are key to testing ecological hypotheses and validating causal relationships, providing us with insights needed to tackle the growing environmental and biodiversity challenges that the world faces. Therefore, the editors of Nature Communications, Communications Biology, Communications Earth & Environment and Scientific Reports invite submissions of papers highlighting the contributions that can be made with experimental ecology.
To be considered for this Collection, the research can come from any branch of ecology, but should have a major focus on experimental findings. The variety of experiments in ecology matches that of the systems and questions to which they are applied, from laboratory microcosm studies to experimental forests the size of cities. Some experimentalists are capitalising on, and contributing to, technical advances that enable experimental manipulations and measurements at ever finer scales. Meanwhile, transnational collaborations have resulted in standardized distributed experiments across geographically distant sites. Experiments can also be designed to complement observational studies, or to bridge the gap between rigorous but artificial controlled experiments and realistic but “messy” quasi-experimental studies.
All participating journals except Scientific Reports also welcome Reviews, Perspectives, and Comments.
