Systems Ecology is an independent, Diamond Open Access journal. It is free to read and free to publish, with no subscription barriers for readers and no article processing charges for authors. The journal is run by researchers, for researchers, with the goal of advancing ecology through systems thinking.

Purpose

Systems Ecology publishes coherent, scholarly contributions to clearly defined systems-level ecological questions. Each article is anchored by a Central Question, evaluated by the clarity and soundness of its Contribution / Answer, and positioned within a living Field Map of ecological knowledge.

The journal is organized around questions rather than disciplinary boundaries. We are interested in work that helps explain how ecological systems are organized, how they change, how they persist, how they transform, and how they can be understood, modeled, inferred, or predicted.

Scope

Ecological systems are organized, multi-level entities whose behavior emerges from interactions, constraints, feedbacks, flows, history, and the movement of energy, matter, and information across levels of organization and scale.

The journal welcomes theoretical, empirical, computational, and integrative research on ecological organization, dynamics, persistence, transformation, recovery, scaling, inference, prediction, and systems-level explanation.

Systems Ecology aims to provide a home for work that is ecological in substance, systems-oriented in perspective, and ambitious in the questions it asks.

Editorial approach

Systems Ecology is a question-driven journal that seeks to publish work addressing important systems-level ecological questions and making meaningful contributions toward answering them. We do not evaluate manuscripts according to disciplinary fashion, journal prestige, predicted citation counts, or perceived novelty alone. Rather, our editorial process seeks to protect readers' attention, respect the time and effort of reviewers and editors, and maintain trust in the work we publish.

Manuscripts are evaluated according to the importance of the ecological systems question they address, the contribution they make toward answering that question, their scientific soundness, their transparency and reproducibility, and the clarity with which the science is communicated.

A contribution may take many forms: a theoretical insight, an empirical discovery, a model, a synthesis, a conceptual clarification, a methodological advance, or a new connection among previously separate ideas. What matters is that the work advances understanding of ecological systems.

Originality often accompanies meaningful scientific contributions, but Systems Ecology does not seek novelty for its own sake. We value advances that deepen understanding of ecological systems, whether through new theory, new evidence, new methods, or new synthesis.

We believe that transparency and reproducibility are fundamental components of good scientific practice. Whenever possible, data, code, and analytical workflows should be openly shared. When legitimate ethical, legal, privacy, or conservation constraints prevent full sharing, those limitations should be explicitly disclosed and justified.

Peer review at Systems Ecology is intended to be rigorous, constructive, and focused. Reviewers and editors evaluate the clarity of the science rather than the polish of the English, recognizing that important scientific contributions come from a global community of researchers. Reviewers are asked to distinguish essential issues from optional suggestions, and authors should not be asked to turn a manuscript into a different paper. Reviewer recommendations are advisory rather than determinative. Final editorial decisions are made by the Handling Editor, informed by reviewer reports, editorial consultation when appropriate, and the editor's own scientific judgment.

Field Map

Articles in Systems Ecology are placed within a living Field Map. The Field Map is not a fixed taxonomy of ecological research, but an evolving cartography of questions, concepts, and contributions across systems ecology.

Field Map Coordinates help readers navigate papers through recurring systems-level themes, including organization and emergence; energy, matter, and information; persistence and fragility; recovery and transformation; scaling and levels; inference, prediction, and models; and principles and theory.

Access

Systems Ecology is an independent diamond open access journal: free to read and free to publish, with no subscriptions and no article processing charges.

Authors retain copyright of their work. Articles are published under the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License (CC BY 4.0).

This publishing model is part of the journal's editorial philosophy. We believe that scholarly communication should not depend on a reader's ability to pay for access or an author's ability to pay publication charges.

Publisher

Publisher: Systems Ecology
Place of publication: Cambridge, Massachusetts, USA
eISSN: 3143-5769

Editorial collective

Systems Ecology is organized as a cooperative editorial collective rather than a traditional hierarchical editorial structure. Editors have equal editorial standing and help shape the intellectual direction, review culture, and development of the journal.

At present, the journal is coordinated by Serguei Saavedra and Sonia Kéfi, who serve as Coordinating Editors. As the journal grows, editorial responsibilities will continue to be distributed across the Editorial Collective. Administrative coordination is necessary for any journal, but major editorial and strategic questions should be informed by discussion within the collective. The role of the Coordinating Editors is to facilitate the editorial process, promote consistency across the journal, and support the Editorial Collective rather than to establish an editorial hierarchy.

Editors are encouraged to consult one another whenever doing so would strengthen editorial judgment, improve the handling of a manuscript, or help ensure that important systems-level contributions receive the most appropriate evaluation.

Systems Ecology is intended to be a shared scholarly project.

Status

Systems Ecology is currently in its public pre-launch phase. The founding Editorial Collective has been established, editorial workflows are being finalized, and the journal is preparing its inaugural volume.

General submissions are expected to open in September 2026.