Conservation and ecology journal Impact Factors 2012

It’s the time of year that scientists love to hate – the latest (2012) journal ranking have been released by ISI Web of Knowledge. Many people despise this system, despite its major role in driving publishing trends.

I’ve previously listed the 2008, 2009, 2010 and 2011 IF for major conservation and ecology journals. As before, I’ve included the previous year’s IF alongside the latest values to see how journals have improved or worsened (but take note – journals increase their IF on average anyway merely by the fact that publication frequency is increasing, so small jumps aren’t necessarily meaningful; I suspect that declines are therefore more telling).

Principally ‘conservation’ journals:

• Animal Conservation: 2.692 (2012) versus 2.931 (2011) ↓ 8.2 %
• Aquatic Conservation: Marine and Freshwater Ecosystems: 1.917 (2012) versus 1.929 (2011) ↓ 0.6 %
• Biodiversity and Conservation: 2.264 (2012) versus 2.238 (2011) ↑ 1.2 %
• Biological Conservation: 3.794 (2012) versus 4.115 (2011) ↓ 7.8 %
• Bird Conservation International: 1.074 (2012) versus 1.25 (2011) ↓ 14.1 %
• Chelonian Conservation and Biology: 0.744 (2012) versus 0.913 (2011) ↓ 18.5 %
• Conservation Biology: 4.355 (2012) versus 4.692 (2011) ↓ 7.2 %
• Conservation Evidence: no Impact Factor yet
• Conservation Genetics: 2.183 (2012) versus 1.610 (2011) ↑ 35.6 %
• Conservation Letters: 4.356 (2012) versus 4.082 (2011) ↑ 6.7 %
• Diversity and Distributions: 6.122 (2012) versus 4.830 (2011) ↑ 26.7 %
• Environmental Conservation: 2.341 (2012) versus 1.927 (2011) ↑ 21.5 %
• Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment: 7.615 (2012) versus 9.113 (2011) ↓ 16.4 %
• Global Change Biology: 6.910 (2012) versus 6.862 (2011) ↑ 0.7 %
• Insect Conservation and Diversity: 1.937 (2012) versus 1.705 (2011) ↑ 13.6 %
• Journal for Nature Conservation: 1.535 (2012) versus 1.864 (2011) ↓ 17.7 %
• Oryx: 1.624 (2012) versus 1.826 (2011) ↓ 11.0 %
• Tropical Conservation Science: 1.092 (2012) versus 0.54 (2011) ↑ 102.2 %

Some ecology journals that frequently publish conservation-related material:

• Ambio: 2.295 (2012) versus 2.025 (2011) ↑
• Austral Ecology: 1.738 (2012) versus 1.824 (2011) ↓
• Biology Letters: 3.348 (2012) versus 3.762 (2011) ↓
• Biotropica: 2.351 (2012) versus 2.229 (2011) ↑
• Ecography: 5.124 (2012) versus 4.188 (2011) ↑
• Ecological Applications: 3.815 (2012) versus 5.102 (2011) ↓
• Ecology: 5.175 (2012) versus 4.849 (2011) ↑
• Ecology and Society: 2.831 (2012) versus 3.310 (2011) ↓
• Ecology Letters: 17.949 (2012) versus 17.557 (2011) ↑
• Journal of Animal Ecology: 4.841 (2012) versus 4.937 (2011) ↓
• Journal of Applied Ecology: 4.740 (2012) versus 5.045 (2011) ↓
• Journal of Biogeography: 4.863 (2012) versus 4.544 (2011) ↑
• Global Ecology and Biogeography: 7.223 (2012) versus 5.145 (2011) ↑
• Marine Ecology Progress Series: 2.546 (2012) versus 2.711 (2011) ↓
• Methods in Ecology and Evolution: 5.924 (2012) versus 5.093 (2011) ↑
• Molecular Ecology: 6.275 (2012) versus 5.522 (2011) ↑
• Oecologia: 3.011 (2012) versus 3.412 (2011) ↓
• Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society London B: 6.230 (2012) versus 6.401 (2011) ↓
• Wildlife Research: 1.381 (2012) versus 1.323 (2011) ↑

Some more general journals that occasionally publish conservation papers:

• BioScience: 4.739 (2012) versus 4.621 (2011) ↑
• Current Biology: 9.494 (2012) versus 9.647 (2011) ↓
• Nature: 38.597 (2012) versus 36.280 (2011) ↑
• Proceedings of the Royal Society London B: 5.683 (2012) versus 5.415 (2011) ↑
• PLoS Biology: 12.690 (2012) versus 11.452 (2011) ↑
• PLoS One: 3.730 (2012) versus 4.092 (2011) ↓
• Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences of the USA: 9.737 (2012) versus 9.681 (2011) ↑
• Science: 31.027 (2012) versus 31.201 (2011) ↓
• Trends in Ecology and Evolution: 15.389 (2012) versus 15.748 (2011) ↓

Based on percentage change, the biggest relative gains among the ‘conservation’ journals were made by Conservation Genetics, Diversity and Distributions, Environmental Conservation and Tropical Conservation Science.

On an absolute IF front, most journals haven’t made many huge gains or losses, although Ecography, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Molecular Ecology and PLoS Biology made bigger jumps.

CJA Bradshaw