A Checkup on Ecological Restoration’s New Initiatives and Article Types

Halfway through my second year serving as Editor of Ecological Restoration, this is an opportunity to reflect upon new initiatives and article types we have launched for the journal and to provide further opportunities for you as readers and contributors to provide feedback. Here, I will discuss enhancements to the applied science focus of the journal, early returns on new article types the journal is publishing, and planned Themed Sections bringing together related articles.

Since its inception in 1981, one of the defining features of Ecological Restoration has been its applied science focus including unique publication of a range of article types supporting the advancement and application of knowledge in ecological restoration. The flexible, unique blend of article types spanning traditional research articles to shorter notes and reviews and perspectives enables the journal to be a forum for publishing a variety of applied science content. We have sought to enhance Ecological Restoration’s focus on applied science, such as by, as just one example, encouraging submissions of natural history research linked with restoration (Abella 2025). Recent issues contain examples of these types of articles. For instance, Sundriyal et al. (2025) assessed tree regeneration in a restoration context in Himalayan forests. Mayinga and Ruwanza (2025) examined the ecological role of soil seed banks for supporting restoration in South Africa. Stillman et al. (2025) studied seed germination ecology to support restoration of rare plants. In the present issue in some of our own work, Thompson et al. (2025) studied the ecology of fruit production by shrubs to better understand wildlife habitat quality at restoration sites in the midwestern USA. We plan on continuing to encourage applied science submissions across the journal’s full range of article types centering on ecological science as well as analyses in social, regulatory and legal, and engineering and design fields as applied to restoration.

In addition to submission-specific, customized article types such as commentaries or book reviews, the main categories of articles that Ecological Restoration publishes include: Research Articles reporting original research; Restoration Notes conveying smaller studies or innovative technical developments and concepts; Case Studies presenting lessons learned from a particular project, location, or topical analysis; Perspectives that analyze and advance approaches or new ideas in restoration; Status of Knowledge Reviews which synthesize data on topics of broad interest in restoration or restoration efforts in particular regions; and Practitioner Highlights which showcase achievements of influential restorationists or groups. We newly added these last two article types—Status of Knowledge Reviews and Practitioner Highlights—to the journal in 2024 (Abella 2024). The first Status of Knowledge Review focused on comprehensively assessing restoration techniques for evergreen forests in Ethiopia (Asmelash and Rannestad 2024). Showcasing achievements of dedicated practitioners, the first Practitioner Highlight shared inspirational work of mangrove restoration in Africa (Tahiri 2024).

One of the items that we need to balance with the journal’s article types is ensuring that Ecological Restoration maintains a reasonable overall citation rate in the scientific literature, as this rate is used in calculating journal impact factors. A journal impact factor based on a citation rate is of course just one measure of a journal’s impact. Impact factors based on citation rate in the scientific literature may be particularly incomplete for a journal such as Ecological Restoration focusing on providing information for practitioners. Exclusively seeking to maximize a citation rate impact factor is not an appropriate goal for Ecological Restoration. However, maintaining reasonable citation rates for the journal as a whole is important to us to maintain or increase visibility of the journal in the broader scientific literature. It is also important to ensure the journal is attractive to scientists to publish in whose job performance is often partly evaluated based on their publications and how they are cited. To strike what we believe is an appropriate balance for Ecological Restoration, we plan to continue encouraging a mixture of articles anticipated to be more readily cited in the scientific literature and also applied in the field with those offering benefits for restoration practice not necessarily reflected by high citation rates in scientific journals. We welcome ideas and examples for showcasing how the journal is having a positive impact on restoration effectiveness.

In past decades, Ecological Restoration published full special issues entirely devoted to articles on a particular topic. The journal has moved away from that in recent years for several reasons. It can be difficult to recruit and receive sufficient numbers of properly timed manuscripts to review and publish in a single issue. If the particular topic of a special issue is not of prime interest to all readers, this is a concern because the issue would represent 25% of the journal issues for the entire year given Ecological Restoration’s quarterly publication schedule. Although the journal can still consider full special issues, our approach for balancing having collections of related articles on a topic, while still having each journal issue contain its usual diversity of articles, was to launch Themed Sections in 2024. These are intended to contain approximately 2–6 articles focused on a particular restoration topic or geographic region.

As of this writing, manuscripts are currently being received and reviewed for the first two planned themed sections: 1) Mojave Desert plant materials and restoration including work partly based on a 2024 symposium; and 2) restoration in fire-dependent habitats, fuel management, and post-wildfire restoration activities associated with the U.S. Fire Science Exchange Network. The journal staff and I welcome ideas for topics for consideration for future themed sections within the purview of the journal. Ideas accompanied by a willingness to serve as Guest Editor (who would recruit the manuscripts and participate in conducting the manuscript peer-review process) for a themed section are further invited. In addition to representing service to the restoration community, serving as Guest Editor can be a good addition to one’s resume/curriculum vitae including for early career professionals.

Although still new and in the early stages, examples of these new initiatives and opportunities are beginning to appear in the journal. As always, feedback and ideas for continuing to enhance and adapt Ecological Restoration’s content are welcomed.