A Fairer Way to Rank Conservation and Ecology Journals in 2014

Normally I just report the Thomson-Reuters ISI Web of Knowledge Impact Factors for conservation-orientated journals each year, with some commentary on the rankings of other journals that also publish conservation-related material from time to time (see my lists of the 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011 and 2012 Impact Factor rankings).

This year, however, I’m doing something different given the growing negativity towards Thomson-Reuters’ secretive behaviour (which they’ve promised this year to rectify by being more transparent) and the generally poor indication of quality that the Impact Factor represents. Although the 2013 Impact Factors have just been released (very late this year, for some reason), I’m going to compare them to the increasingly reputable Google Scholar Journal Metrics, which intuitively make more sense to me, are transparent and turn a little of the rankings dogma on its ear.

In addition to providing both the Google metric as well as the Impact Factor rankings, I’ve come up with a composite (average) rank from the two systems. I think ranks are potentially more useful than raw corrected citation metrics because you must first explicitly set your set of journals to compare. I also go one step further and modify the average ranking with a penalty term that is essentially the addition of the coefficient of variation of rank disparity between the two systems.

Read on for the results.

Google Scholar Journal Metrics are to me a more intuitive and open way to categorise journal ‘quality’. They also seem to be more in keeping with my own subjective views of relative journal merit. While Google Journal Metrics have specific sub-categories (like Biodiversity & Conservation Biology, Ecology, and Marine Science & Fisheries), they rank only the top 20 journals in the sub-discipline and do not provide good cross-disciplinary comparisons. In other words, you have to search for specific journals manually.

I have therefore combed through various sub-categories and other generalist journals to provide a bit of a ranking guide for conservation ecologists. The first table lists 75 ecology/conservation journals along with a smattering of high-impact generalist journals that I personally think cover most of our discipline. I do not contend that the list is complete, and it is most certainly biased toward the journals in which I most regularly publish; however, I think if you’re in this business, the list represents the most common journals to which one would consider submitting.

Column 1 gives the Google Journal Metric (h5-index: the h-index for articles published in the last 5 complete years; it is the largest number h such that h articles published in 2009-2013 have at least h citations each), and Column 2 gives this year’s (and last year’s for comparison) ISI Impact Factor:

Google Journal Metric

ISI Impact Factor

1. Nature 355
2. Science 311
3. P Natl Acad Sci USA 217
4. PLoS One 148
5. PLoS Biology 96
6. Current Biology 96
7. Phil Trans R Soc B 95
8. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 86
9. Ecology Letters 83
10. Global Change Biology 83
11. P Roy Soc B 79
12. Science of the Total Environment 74
13. Molecular Ecology 71
14. Ecology 68
15. Biological Conservation 60
16. Conservation Biology 58
17. Ecological Applications 56
18. Journal of Applied Ecology 56
19. Frontiers Ecol Environ 56
20. Molecular Ecology Resources 55
21. Nature Climate Change 54
22. Forest Ecology & Management 53
23. BioScience 51
24. Functional Ecology 51
25. Journal of Ecology 51
26. Environ Model Software 51
27. Journal of Animal Ecology 50
28. Journal of Biogeography 49
29. Marine Ecology Progress Series 49
30. Ecological Indicators 48
31. Global Ecology and Biogeography 47
32. Biology Letters 47
33. Annu Rev Mar Sci 47
34. Freshwater Biology 46
35. Marine Pollution Bulletin 46
36. Oecologia 46
37. Diversity and Distributions 45
38. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst 45
39. Oikos 44
40. Ecography 43
41. Limnology & Oceanography 43
42. Biological Invasions 41
43. Global & Planetary Change 41
44. Hydrobiologia 39
45. Landscape Ecology 38
46. Biodiversity and Conservation 37
47. Ecological Monographs 37
48. Conservation Letters 36
49. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 36
50. Coral Reefs 36
51. Fish & Fisheries 35
52. Marine Biology 34
53. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 33
54. Journal of Vegetation Science 32
55. Journal of Wildlife Management 32
56. Ambio 32
57. Restoration Ecology 31
58. Basic and Applied Ecology 30
59. Biotropica 28
60. Plant Ecology 28
61. Animal Conservation 28
62. Conservation Genetics 28
63. Austral Ecology 24
64. Environmental Conservation 24
65. Aquat Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst 24
66. Oryx 24
67. Wildlife Research 22
68. Endangered Species Research 21
69. Ecosphere 21
70. Journal of Insect Conservation 21
71. Journal for Nature Conservation 18
72. Insect Conservation & Diversity 18
73. Bird Conservation International 14
74. Ecology & Evolution 14
75. Tropical Conservation Science 13

1. Nature 42.351 ↑ from 38.597
2. Science 31.477 ↑ from 31.027
3. Annu Rev Mar Sci 16.381 ↑ from 14.368
4. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 15.353 ↓ from 15.389
5. Nature Climate Change 15.295 ↑ from 14.472
6. Ecology Letters 13.042 ↓ from 17.949
7. PLoS Biology 11.771 ↓ from 12.690
8. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Cyst 10.977 ↑ from 10.375
9. Current Biology 9.916 ↑ from 9.494
10. P Natl Acad Sci USA 9.809 ↑ from 9.737
11. Fish & Fisheries 8.755 ↑ from 5.855
12. Frontiers Ecol Environ 8.412 ↑ from 7.615
13. Global Change Biology 8.224 ↑ from 6.910
14. Global Ecology and Biogeography 7.242 ↑ from 7.223
15. Ecological Monographs 7.107 ↓ from 8.085
16. Phil Trans R Soc B 6.314 ↑ from 6.230
17. Molecular Ecology 5.840 ↓ from 6.275
18. Journal of Ecology 5.694 ↑ from 5.431
19. Molecular Ecology Resources 5.626 ↓ from 7.432
20. Diversity and Distributions 5.469 ↓ from 6.122
21. BioScience 5.439 ↑ from 4.739
22. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 5.322 ↓ from 5.924
23. P Roy Soc B 5.292 ↓ from 5.683
24. Conservation Letters 5.032 ↑ from 4.356
25. Ecology 5.000 ↓ from 5.175
26. Journal of Biogeography 4.969 ↑ from 4.863
27. Functional Ecology 4.857 ↓ from 4.860
28. Journal of Applied Ecology 4.754 ↑ from 4.740
29. Journal of Animal Ecology 4.726 ↓ from 4.841
30. Environ Model Software 4.538 ↑ from 3.608
31. Conservation Biology 4.320 ↓ from 4.355
32. Ecography 4.207 ↓ from 5.124
33. Ecological Applications 4.126 ↑ from 3.815
34. Biological Conservation 4.036 ↑ from 3.794
35. Global & Planetary Change 3.707 ↑ from 3.155
36. Coral Reefs 3.623 ↓ from 3.662
37. Limnology & Oceanography 3.615 ↑ from 3.405
38. Landscape Ecology 3.574 ↑ from 2.897
39. Oikos 3.559 ↑ from 3.322
40. PLoS One 3.534 ↓ from 3.730
41. Biology Letters 3.425 ↑ from 3.348
42. Journal of Vegetation Science 3.372 ↑ from 2.818
43. Oecologia 3.248 ↑ from 3.011
44. Ecological Indicators 3.230 ↑ from 2.890
45. Science of the Total Environment 3.163 ↓ from 3.258
46. Ambio 2.973 ↑ from 2.295
47. Freshwater Biology 2.905 ↓ from 3.933
48. Marine Pollution Bulletin 2.793 ↑ from 2.531
49. Biological Invasions 2.716 ↑ from 2.509
50. Forest Ecology & Management 2.667 ↓ from 2.766
51. Marine Ecology Progress Series 2.640 ↑ from 2.546
52. Ecosphere 2.595 (1st IF)
53. Animal Conservation 2.524 ↓ from 2.692
54. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 2.475 ↑ from 2.263
55. Marine Biology 2.393 ↓ from 2.468
56. Basic and Applied Ecology 2.389 ↓ from 2.696
57. Environmental Conservation 2.320 ↓ from 2.341
58. Hydrobiologia 2.212 ↑ from 1.985
59. Biotropica 2.082 ↓ from 2.351
60. Biodiversity and Conservation 2.065 ↓ from 2.264
61. Restoration Ecology 1.991 ↑ from 1.934
62. Insect Conservation & Diversity 1.937 from 1.937
63. Oryx 1.914 ↑ from 1.624
64. Conservation Genetics 1.846 ↓ from 2.183
65. Journal for Nature Conservation 1.833 ↑ from 1.535
66. Journal of Insect Conservation 1.789 ↓ from 1.801
67. Aq Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst 1.756 ↓ from 1.917
68. Austral Ecology 1.724 ↓ from 1.738
69. Ecology & Evolution 1.658 ↑ from 1.184
70. Plant Ecology 1.640 ↑ from 1.534
71. Journal of Wildlife Management 1.611 ↓ from 1.640
72. Bird Conservation International 1.554 ↑ from 1.074
73. Tropical Conservation Science 1.329 ↑ from 1.092
74. Wildlife Research 1.194 ↓ from 1.381
75. Endangered Species Research (not listed)

Of course, a rank-only assessment here is a little false, for you wouldn’t submit a paper on animals to a plant journal, nor a plant conservation or ecology paper to an insect journal. But in general if you’re fishing for a good target journal, these rankings could help you decide.

A few things jump out here. The Google rankings are in places quite a bit different to the IF-based ones. For example, check out PLoS One – it has a respectable, if not somewhat mediocre IF = 3.534, but its Google h5-index is a whopping 148, placing it 4^th of all the 75 journals listed here (even higher than PLoS Biology, Current Biology, Trends in Ecology and Evolution and Ecology Letters). Maybe this open-access model is working after all.

Another ranking anomaly is Nature Climate Change: it has a good IF at 15.295, but it’s ranked 21^st in this list according to Google. For conservation journals, Biological Conservation beats Conservation Biology according to Google, but Conservation Letters wins according to Impact Factors (followed by Conservation Biology and Biological Conservation).

Overall, most journals in this list (57 %) increased their IF from last year, but this isn’t really meaningful considering that journals increase their IF over time on average. However, there was one noticeable big drop: Ecology Letters went from 17.949 (2012) to 13.042 (2013).

As mentioned above, the next thing I did was to calculate a simple rank average from the two systems (Column 1). I also penalised the rank if there was considerable disparity between the two ranking systems. Here, I just added the coefficient of variation of the rank (rank SD/mean rank) to the average rank (Column 2), such that journals with identical ranks in the two systems received a zero penalty, and those with widely divergent ranks slipped partially in their average rank.

Average Rank

Average Rank + CV

1. Nature 1
2. Science 2
3. PLoS Biology 6
4. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 6
5. P Natl Acad Sci USA 6.5
6. Current Biology 7.5
7. Ecology Letters 7.5
8. Phil Trans R Soc B 11.5
9. Global Change Biology 11.5
10. Nature Climate Change 13
11. Molecular Ecology 15
12. Frontiers Ecol Environ 15.5
13. P Roy Soc B 17
14. Annu Rev Mar Sci 18
15. Ecology 19.5
16. Molecular Ecology Resources 19.5
17. Journal of Ecology 21.5
18. PLoS One 22
19. BioScience 22
20. Global Ecology and Biogeography 22.5
21. Journal of Applied Ecology 23
22. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst 23
23. Conservation Biology 23.5
24. Biological Conservation 24.5
25. Ecological Applications 25
26. Functional Ecology 25.5
27. Journal of Biogeography 27
28. Environ Model Software 28
29. Journal of Animal Ecology 28
30. Science of the Total Environment 28.5
31. Diversity and Distributions 28.5
32. Ecological Monographs 31
33. Fish & Fisheries 31
34. Forest Ecology & Management 36
35. Ecography 36
36. Conservation Letters 36
37. Biology Letters 36.5
38. Ecological Indicators 37
39. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 37.5
40. Oikos 39
41. Limnology & Oceanography 39
42. Global & Planetary Change 39
43. Oecologia 39.5
44. Marine Ecology Progress Series 40
45. Freshwater Biology 40.5
46. Marine Pollution Bulletin 41.5
47. Landscape Ecology 41.5
48. Coral Reefs 43
49. Biological Invasions 45.5
50. Journal of Vegetation Science 48
51. Hydrobiologia 51
52. Ambio 51
53. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 51.5
54. Biodiversity and Conservation 53
55. Marine Biology 53.5
56. Basic and Applied Ecology 57
57. Animal Conservation 57
58. Restoration Ecology 59
59. Biotropica 59
60. Environmental Conservation 60.5
61. Ecosphere 60.5
62. Journal of Wildlife Management 63
63. Conservation Genetics 63
64. Oryx 64.5
65. Plant Ecology 65
66. Austral Ecology 65.5
67. Aquat Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst 66
68. Insect Conservation & Diversity 67
69. Journal of Insect Conservation 68
70. Journal for Nature Conservation 68
71. Wildlife Research 70.5
72. Ecology & Evolution 71.5
73. Bird Conservation International 72.5
74. Tropical Conservation Science 74
75. Endangered Species Research -

1. Nature 1.000
2. Science 2.000
3. PLoS Biology 6.236
4. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 6.471
5. P Natl Acad Sci USA 7.261
6. Current Biology 7.783
7. Ecology Letters 7.783
8. Global Change Biology 11.684
9. Phil Trans R Soc B 12.053
10. Nature Climate Change 13.870
11. Molecular Ecology 15.189
12. Frontiers Ecol Environ 15.819
13. P Roy Soc B 17.499
14. Annu Rev Mar Sci 19.179
15. Molecular Ecology Resources 19.536
16. Ecology 19.899
17. Journal of Ecology 21.730
18. BioScience 22.064
19. Global Ecology and Biogeography 23.034
20. PLoS One 23.157
21. Journal of Applied Ecology 23.307
22. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst 23.922
23. Conservation Biology 23.951
24. Biological Conservation 25.048
25. Ecological Applications 25.453
26. Functional Ecology 25.583
27. Journal of Biogeography 27.052
28. Journal of Animal Ecology 28.051
29. Environ Model Software 28.101
30. Diversity and Distributions 28.922
31. Science of the Total Environment 29.319
32. Ecological Monographs 31.730
33. Fish & Fisheries 31.912
34. Ecography 36.157
35. Conservation Letters 36.471
36. Forest Ecology & Management 36.550
37. Biology Letters 36.674
38. Ecological Indicators 37.268
39. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 38.085
40. Oikos 39.000
41. Limnology & Oceanography 39.073
42. Global & Planetary Change 39.145
43. Oecologia 39.625
44. Marine Ecology Progress Series 40.389
45. Freshwater Biology 40.727
46. Landscape Ecology 41.619
47. Marine Pollution Bulletin 41.722
48. Coral Reefs 43.230
49. Biological Invasions 45.609
50. Journal of Vegetation Science 48.177
51. Ambio 51.139
52. Hydrobiologia 51.194
53. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 51.569
54. Biodiversity and Conservation 53.187
55. Marine Biology 53.540
56. Basic and Applied Ecology 57.025
57. Animal Conservation 57.099
58. Biotropica 59.000
59. Restoration Ecology 59.048
60. Environmental Conservation 60.582
61. Ecosphere 60.699
62. Conservation Genetics 63.022
63. Journal of Wildlife Management 63.180
64. Oryx 64.533
65. Plant Ecology 65.109
66. Austral Ecology 65.554
67. Aquat Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst 66.021
68. Insect Conservation & Diversity 67.106
69. Journal of Insect Conservation 68.042
70. Journal for Nature Conservation 68.062
71. Wildlife Research 70.570
72. Ecology & Evolution 71.549
73. Bird Conservation International 72.510
74. Tropical Conservation Science 74.019
75. Endangered Species Research -

Note that I’ve boldfaced what I consider to be mainly ‘conservation’ journals in these two lists to help focus your decision if a conservation audience is your primary target. The take-home message here is that Conservation Biology and Biological Conservation are more or less equally ranked (above Conservation Letters), and Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment (if you consider that to be a ‘conservation’ journal) is the clear winner.

Finally, some argue that the 5-year Impact Factor is a better reflection of a journal’s citation quality than the 2-year Impact Factor. Just for shits & giggles then, I recalculated the average rank between Google and the 5-year Impact Factor. The results are only a little different:

Average Rank

(Google + 5-yr IF)

1. Nature 1
2. Science 2
3. P Natl Acad Sci USA 6
4. Trends in Ecology & Evolution 6
5. PLoS Biology 6.5
6. Ecology Letters 7
7. Current Biology 8.5
8. Phil Trans R Soc B 11
9. Global Change Biology 11.5
10. Nature Climate Change 14
11. Frontiers Ecol Environ 14.5
12. Molecular Ecology 16
13. P Roy Soc B 17
14. Ecology 17.5
15. Annu Rev Mar Sci 19.5
16. Journal of Applied Ecology 20
17. BioScience 20
18. Ann Rev Ecol Evol Syst 20.5
19. PLoS One 21.5
20. Conservation Biology 21.5
21. Journal of Ecology 22.5
22. Biological Conservation 23.5
23. Ecological Applications 23.5
24. Global Ecology and Biogeography 23.5
25. Science of the Total Environment 26.5
26. Functional Ecology 26.5
27. Journal of Animal Ecology 26.5
28. Molecular Ecology Resources 27
29. Journal of Biogeography 29.5
30. Ecological Monographs 29.5
31. Environ Model Software 31
32. Diversity and Distributions 31
33. Ecography 32
34. Fish & Fisheries 32.5
35. Methods in Ecology & Evolution 35.5
36. Forest Ecology & Management 36
37. Biology Letters 37
38. Ecological Indicators 38
39. Limnology & Oceanography 38
40. Global & Planetary Change 38
41. Conservation Letters 38
42. Marine Ecology Progress Series 38.5
43. Freshwater Biology 38.5
44. Oikos 39.5
45. Oecologia 40
46. Landscape Ecology 41.5
47. Marine Pollution Bulletin 42
48. Coral Reefs 43.5
49. Biological Invasions 46.5
50. Journal of Vegetation Science 49.5
51. Biodiversity and Conservation 51
52. Hydrobiologia 52
53. J Exp Mar Biol Ecol 53.5
54. Animal Conservation 54
55. Marine Biology 54.5
56. Ambio 54.5
57. Basic and Applied Ecology 55
58. Restoration Ecology 59
59. Biotropica 59
60. Environmental Conservation 59
61. Journal of Wildlife Management 61
62. Ecosphere 62
63. Plant Ecology 63
64. Aquat Conserv: Mar Freshw Ecosyst 63.5
65. Oryx 64.5
66. Conservation Genetics 66
67. Austral Ecology 66
68. Journal for Nature Conservation 67.5
69. Insect Conservation & Diversity 68.5
70. Journal of Insect Conservation 69
71. Wildlife Research 69.5
72. Ecology & Evolution 72.5
73. Bird Conservation International 73
74. Tropical Conservation Science 74.5
75. Endangered Species Research -

I’m sure I’ve missed some people’s favourite journals here, but I think my approach can be used for any sub-discipline or collection of journals you might choose to compare. I’m just glad we no longer have to rely solely on Impact Factors to make important decisions about where we submit our work. 

CJA Bradshaw