Journal of Ecology News: Data Archiving Compliance

Abstract

Who cares about scientific papers apart from scientists? Communicating science is increasingly important as journals strive to make their content accessible to a wide-ranging audience. To this end, at the Journal of Ecology, we have several initiatives that we hope allow our published work to move beyond the halls of academe. The Journal publishes Commentary papers (see below), puts out press releases, is active on social media (Facebook, Twitter) and continues to run the Journal of Ecology Blog. This year, we have appointed Pierre Mariotte to the Associate Editorial Board with the primary responsibility of managing and promoting the wide range of content on our blog. Editor’s choice summaries of papers regularly feature on the blog, as well as podcast interviews with leading ecologists, and a host of other articles on various ecological topics. For example, Executive Editor David Gibson recently interviewed Ecological Society of America (ESA) past-President Scott Collins, while at the annual ESA meeting in Baltimore, USA, and discussed, among other things, the potential for cross-society, cross-journal initiatives now that the five British Ecological Society journals and the ESA journals will all be published by Wiley. This interview along with an accompanying article by Collins is available through our blog. Additional interviews and accompanying blog posts were with Botanical Flora of the British Isles Editor Tony Davy associated with our Charismatic Orchids Virtual Issue and Associate Editor Carol Thornber associated with our Marine Ecology Virtual Issue. Associate Editor Caroline Brophy’s post ‘Should ecologists be banned from using P-values’ in 2015 was the most popular post we have ever had. Our Eminent Ecology series is another example of how we make ecological work more accessible. In 2015, we were pleased to honour Deborah Goldberg by publishing a Virtual Issue collection of 10 of her most influential Journal of Ecology papers, a podcast interview with her, and a fascinating post by her on our blog.