While submissions are encouraged from all interested, prospective authors we especially encourage early career plant ecologists to submit one of these article types to the journal. Therefore, an article accepted with a student or ECR—as first author and no more than 2 years since award of their PhD degree—will receive:
 

1) a voucher for free access to any Springer publication in eBook form (up to a maximum value of 250 Euros/US dollars, and maximum one per year) in perpetuity
 

2) article made freely accessible for 8 weeks after online first publication
 

Please see our submission guidelines for details.

As a result of the significant disruption that is being caused by the COVID-19 pandemic we are very aware that many researchers will have difficulty in meeting the timelines associated with our peer review process during normal times.  Please do let us know if you need additional time. Our systems will continue to remind you of the original timelines but we intend to be highly flexible at this time.

Short review-style articles

The Editors of Plant Ecology invite prospective authors to propose and deliver short review-style articles (of up to 5,000 words) on a chosen field of research which identifies what they consider to be the ten most important/influential publications in that field over the past 20 years, and details why they believe this to be the case. These mini reviews will represent the views of the author(s) but should reflect well-considered investigations of the relevant literature, and must stand up to academic scrutiny through appropriate peer review.

Fast turnaround process

We believe that these contributions will provide a platform for fruitful debate among colleagues, and within research groups/laboratories, on recent trends in key areas of plant ecology. We propose to publish 12 reviews per year (one per issue). In order to achieve this we will adopt a fast turnaround process with reviewer evaluation of submissions within 4 weeks of receipt so that total time from initial submission to online publication might range from 6 weeks to 3 months, depending on revisions required. Accepted reviews will be featured on the journal’s homepage and made freely accessible for up to 8 weeks after online first publication.

We look forward to working with prospective authors to establish this mini reviews article type as one which will prove of interest and value to the international plant ecology research and teaching and learning communities.

Submission guidelines

Detailed submission guidelines for short review-style article type “Contemporary issues in plant ecology” can be found under the “Article Types” header.

--Neal Enright, William Rogers (Editors-in-Chief) and Scott Meiners (Reviews Editor)