PeerJ expands its scope to include five new subject areas related to climate change and the environment

Submit your manuscript today through PeerJ’s efficient, online submission system

Scholarly communication in the 21st century is about providing access to the latest findings and being as transparent as possible about the scientific process. We are particularly aware of how efficient and open scholarly communication can support the range of action needed to address society’s pressing challenges. As such, we are excited to announce that we are expanding the scope of our flagship journal PeerJ to include five new subject areas related to climate change and environmental sciences.

Climate change and its implications for biological responses and natural resource management are of vital importance, not just for the research community, but society at large. While many of these areas fit within existing PeerJ subjects, the multidisciplinary nature of climate and environmental research means that some work is not as clearly tagged as we would like. In order to better describe these submissions, and expand the scope of the journal to include research that addresses the interface of our core subject, biology, with the broader environment, we have added five new subject areas.

The five new subject areas are as follows:

Biosphere Interactions – a broad subject to describe the intersection of biology with the atmosphere, geosphere, hydrosphere, pedosphere, anthroposphere, etc.

Climate Change Biology – for work that addresses the responses and influences of organisms, populations and ecosystems under simulated, modeled or observed climate change.

Ecotoxicology – studies into the effects of, and responses to materials in organisms, populations and ecosystems. This could include resistance / tolerance / degradation mechanisms.

Freshwater Biology – the biology of streams, rivers, lakes, ponds, caves etc.

Natural Resource Management – the characterization and sustainable management of natural resources such as soil, water, land, plants and animals.

Since its launch over four years ago, PeerJ has grown considerably to become the leading low-cost, open-access publishing option for the biological and medical community. With this expansion of scope in these areas, PeerJ offers researchers working on these areas at the interface of biology and the broader environment a substantial outlet to disseminate their findings. We are currently expanding our editorial board to be able to broaden our scope to also include non-biological subject areas related to climate change.

Particularly given the pressing nature of this research, wide access, thorough review, and speedy publishing are all the more important. We encourage researchers in these subject areas to submit their manuscripts today through PeerJ’s efficient, online submission system.