Journal rankings · indicator year 2024
Choose a field to open its ranking, or a journal to find its row in its subfield’s list.
Subfield ranking · 2024
Ecology journal rankings 2024
288 ranked journals · Subfield in Environmental Science
Ecology has 288 ranked journals in 2024. The median journal has an OJR of 0.65, below the world average of 1.00, up 0.01 on 2023; Q1 starts at OJR 0.98. The top three are Nature Food, Global Food Security, and ISPRS Journal of Photogrammetry and Remote Sensing.
Ranks and citation indicators: 2024. Journal access status and listed APC: source snapshot September 23, 2026.
Journals whose main subfield sits in this category and that published at least 30 citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) in 2021–2023, the window the 2024 score is computed on.
The OpenJournalRank Indicator (OJR) is a free, publicly available metric of a journal’s field-normalized citation impact, computed from open OpenAlex citation data. It compares citations to a journal’s papers from the previous three years with the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and values can be compared across fields. It is computed with the NCI3 method.
The middle OJR among ranked journals in this category: half score higher, half lower. 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type.
The dot is this category, the solid tick is the median of all ranked journals and the dashed line is the world average.
Share of ranked journals in this category that are fully open access, so every paper is free to read. Hybrid journals, which sell subscriptions and open single papers for a fee, are not counted.
Median list price of the article processing charge, in US dollars, among ranked journals in this category that list a price above zero. Journals with a listed APC of $0 and journals with no known price are left out of this median. The At a glance table below gives a second median that includes the $0 prices.
Subfields of Environmental Science (11)
288 ranked journals
Filters
Rank is the position by OJR within the list on screen; 1 is the highest. | OJR is field-normalized 3-year citation impact: 1.00 is the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so values compare across fields. The badge is the journal’s quartile in this list. | Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is not field-normalized, so compare it only between journals of the same field. ▲ or ▼ is the change from 2023. This is OpenJournalRank’s own count, not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. | Citable documents (articles, reviews and conference papers) published in 2021–2023, the window the 2024 OJR is computed on. A journal needs at least 30 to be ranked. | Share of the journal’s 2021–2023 papers that are free to read in any open-access form. The green OA tag next to a title marks a fully open-access journal. | List price of the article processing charge in US dollars. “$0 listed” means the listed price is zero; a dash means no price is listed. | The line is the journal’s OJR from 2015 to 2024. | Compare |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
1Nature FoodNature Portfolio · United Kingdom | 5.06Q1 | 10.49 2.50 down from 2023 | 630 | 41% | $12,690 | ||
2Global Food SecurityElsevier BV · Netherlands | 5.00Q1 | 11.43 2.51 down from 2023 | 235 | 74% | $5,240 | ||
| 4.41Q1 | 13.79 0.92 up from 2023 | 784 | 43% | $3,310 | |||
4Global Change BiologyWiley · United Kingdom | 4.12Q1 | 11.77 0.20 down from 2023 | 1,528 | 81% | $4,550 | ||
5The ISME JournalOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 3.89Q1 | 10.82 1.16 down from 2023 | 656 | 100% | $4,153 | ||
6npj BiodiversityOASpringer Science+Business Media | 3.24Q1 | 6.77 3.37 up from 2023 | 31 | 100% | $2,050 | ||
7Methods in Ecology and EvolutionOAWiley · United States | 2.86Q1 | 6.95 0.61 down from 2023 | 677 | 100% | $3,500 | ||
8Conservation LettersOAWiley · United States | 2.84Q1 | 6.12 1.57 down from 2023 | 189 | 100% | $3,550 | ||
9Journal of Remote SensingOAAmerican Association for the Advancement of Science · China | 2.63Q1 | 7.43 2.51 down from 2023 | 77 | 100% | — | ||
10GIScience & Remote SensingOATaylor & Francis · United States | 2.27Q1 | 7.85 0.59 up from 2023 | 296 | 100% | $2,390 | ||
11Ecological InformaticsOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 2.26Q1 | 8.64 1.60 up from 2023 | 1,072 | 100% | $2,770 | ||
12Journal of Applied EcologyWiley · United Kingdom | 2.24Q1 | 4.97 0.47 down from 2023 | 706 | 75% | $3,610 | ||
13Environmental MicrobiomeOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 2.23Q1 | 6.44 0.72 down from 2023 | 165 | 100% | $2,590 | ||
14ISME CommunicationsOASpringer Nature · United Kingdom | 2.16Q1 | 6.79 1.06 up from 2023 | 331 | 100% | $2,611 | ||
15Frontiers in Ecology and the EnvironmentWiley · United States | 2.03Q1 | 3.91 1.52 down from 2023 | 371 | 55% | $3,970 | ||
16Conservation BiologyWiley · United States | 1.98Q1 | 4.78 0.52 down from 2023 | 513 | 83% | $3,400 | ||
17Biological ConservationElsevier BV · United Kingdom | 1.97Q1 | 4.90 0.73 down from 2023 | 1,156 | 68% | $3,830 | ||
18Environmental DNAOAWiley · United States | 1.92Q1 | 5.25 1.12 down from 2023 | 300 | 100% | $2,880 | ||
19Molecular Ecology ResourcesWiley · United Kingdom | 1.89Q1 | 5.77 0.43 down from 2023 | 580 | 80% | $5,250 | ||
20Ecological ApplicationsWiley · United States | 1.86Q1 | 4.71 0.09 down from 2023 | 599 | 70% | $3,970 | ||
21Remote Sensing in Ecology and ConservationOAWiley · United Kingdom | 1.86Q1 | 4.73 0.13 down from 2023 | 166 | 100% | $3,590 | ||
22EcologyWiley · United States | 1.76Q1 | 4.10 0.14 down from 2023 | 846 | 68% | $3,970 | ||
23Mammal ReviewWiley · United Kingdom | 1.75Q1 | 4.65 0.11 down from 2023 | 98 | 61% | $4,100 | ||
24Movement EcologyOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 1.67Q1 | 4.30 0.10 up from 2023 | 187 | 100% | $2,790 | ||
25Journal of Animal EcologyWiley · United Kingdom | 1.62Q1 | 3.83 0.23 down from 2023 | 564 | 78% | $3,610 | ||
26Ecological EngineeringElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.47Q1 | 4.84 0.28 up from 2023 | 728 | 52% | $3,910 | ||
27NeoBiotaOAPensoft Publishers · Bulgaria | 1.46Q1 | 3.19 1.34 down from 2023 | 235 | 100% | $970 | ||
28Global Ecology and ConservationOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.45Q1 | 3.74 0.43 down from 2023 | 1,338 | 100% | $2,980 | ||
29BiogeochemistrySpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 1.42Q1 | 4.13 0.49 down from 2023 | 340 | 100% | $3,390 | ||
30Journal of Agricultural and Environmental EthicsSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 1.37Q1 | 3.07 0.23 down from 2023 | 77 | 88% | $3,090 | ||
31Biodiversity and ConservationSpringer Science+Business Media · Netherlands | 1.34Q1 | 3.41 0.01 down from 2023 | 639 | 47% | $3,990 | ||
32FACETSOACanadian Science Publishing · Canada | 1.33Q1 | 3.20 1.13 down from 2023 | 238 | 100% | $984 | ||
33EcosystemsSpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.29Q1 | 3.61 0.40 down from 2023 | 292 | 48% | $4,790 | ||
34Microbial EcologySpringer Science+Business Media · United States | 1.29Q1 | 4.26 0.60 up from 2023 | 666 | 95% | $4,590 | ||
35Water Biology and SecurityOAElsevier BV · China | 1.29Q1 | 4.57 0.36 down from 2023 | 97 | 100% | $0 listed | ||
36Environmental MicrobiologyWiley · United Kingdom | 1.27Q1 | 4.04 0.35 down from 2023 | 1,110 | 80% | $4,640 | ||
37Annals of MicrobiologyOABioMed Central · Germany | 1.26Q1 | 4.07 0.49 up from 2023 | 128 | 100% | $2,290 | ||
38Earth Surface DynamicsOACopernicus Publications · Germany | 1.25Q1 | 3.20 0.48 down from 2023 | 210 | 100% | $1,682 | ||
39Royal Society Open ScienceOARoyal Society · United Kingdom | 1.24Q1 | 3.38 0.18 down from 2023 | 1,815 | 100% | $1,471 | ||
40Conservation Science and PracticeOASociety for Conservation Biology · United States | 1.21Q1 | 2.94 0.45 down from 2023 | 681 | 100% | $2,240 | ||
41International Journal of Sediment ResearchOAElsevier BV · Netherlands | 1.21Q1 | 3.10 0.11 down from 2023 | 191 | 100% | $1,400 | ||
42Ecological Solutions and EvidenceOAWiley · United States | 1.19Q1 | 3.04 0.14 down from 2023 | 241 | 100% | $2,330 | ||
43Frontiers in Ecology and EvolutionOAFrontiers Media · Switzerland | 1.18Q1 | 2.91 0.14 down from 2023 | 3,180 | 100% | $3,077 | ||
44Metabarcoding and MetagenomicsOAPensoft Publishers · Bulgaria | 1.18Q1 | 3.45 1.46 down from 2023 | 64 | 100% | $701 | ||
45Endangered Species ResearchOAInter-Research · Germany | 1.17Q1 | 2.51 0.60 down from 2023 | 202 | 100% | $1,671 | ||
46EcosphereOAWiley · United States | 1.16Q1 | 3.19 0.07 up from 2023 | 1,296 | 100% | $2,430 | ||
47Integrative ZoologyWiley · Australia | 1.15Q1 | 3.35 0.02 down from 2023 | 261 | 65% | $3,760 | ||
48Restoration EcologyWiley · United States | 1.15Q1 | 3.01 0.25 down from 2023 | 696 | 74% | $3,300 | ||
49Biological reviews/Biological reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical SocietyWiley · United Kingdom | 1.15Q1 | 13.55 0.14 up from 2023 | 344 | 77% | $5,390 | ||
50Animal BiotelemetryOABioMed Central · United Kingdom | 1.13Q1 | 2.60 0.08 down from 2023 | 128 | 100% | $2,390 |
Subfields of Environmental Science, with Ecology highlighted.
- Ecology288
- Global and Planetary Change236
- Water Science and Technology103
- Health, Toxicology and Mutagenesis100
- Pollution69
- Nature and Landscape Conservation55
- Environmental Engineering53
- Management, Monitoring, Policy and Law45
- Waste Management and Disposal25
- Environmental Chemistry10
- Ecological Modeling8
Journals
Citations made in 2024. Corpus-wide, 87.1% of core-journal articles and reviews published that year have at least one matched reference; the share varies by journal and field.
56 additional Ecology journals with metrics are unranked under this release’s eligibility rules: a journal needs at least 30 citable documents in 2021–2023, at least 80% of them with a subfield, and a positive world-average expectation. Ranks are within the whole category; filters hide rows without re-ranking. OJR excludes self-citations.
At a glance
Indicator year: 2024. Publication window: 2021–2023. How these summaries are calculated
- Ranked journals
- 288
- Window papers (baseline)
- 140,427 +22.9% from indicator year 2021
- Median OJR
- 0.65 -4.6% from indicator year 2021
- Rising journals (2025)
- 18
Window papers are the baseline paper population: citable papers (articles, reviews and conference papers) from 2021–2023 in all journals of the world-average baseline, including non-core journals, counted by each paper’s own subfield. They are not the papers of the ranked journals alone.
| Measure | Year series | 2000 | 2001 | 2002 | 2003 | 2004 | 2005 | 2006 | 2007 | 2008 | 2009 | 2010 | 2011 | 2012 | 2013 | 2014 | 2015 | 2016 | 2017 | 2018 | 2019 | 2020 | 2021 | 2022 | 2023 | 2024 | 2025 |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| Ranked journals | 147 | 164 | 175 | 182 | 188 | 194 | 193 | 205 | 221 | 232 | 235 | 248 | 249 | 258 | 261 | 273 | 276 | 274 | 274 | 269 | 276 | 279 | 295 | 296 | 288 | 285 | |
| Window papers (baseline) | 34,254 | 41,682 | 44,762 | 49,088 | 47,455 | 50,630 | 54,383 | 60,221 | 66,252 | 72,124 | 77,093 | 82,207 | 86,067 | 90,052 | 94,017 | 98,126 | 99,678 | 101,371 | 102,738 | 106,059 | 108,848 | 114,234 | 123,053 | 131,302 | 140,427 | 146,313 | |
| Median OJR | 0.59 | 0.6292 | 0.638 | 0.6289 | 0.61 | 0.643 | 0.73 | 0.736 | 0.75 | 0.737 | 0.76 | 0.809 | 0.811 | 0.84 | 0.805 | 0.80 | 0.79 | 0.810 | 0.77 | 0.72 | 0.71 | 0.68 | 0.62 | 0.642 | 0.65 | 0.67 |
How to read these rankings
- OJR, the OpenJournalRank Indicator
- A field-normalized 3-year citation impact, computed from OpenAlex with the NCI3 method. It divides the citations a journal’s papers received by the world average for papers of the same subfield, year and type, so 1.00 is the world average and 2.00 means twice as many citations as expected. Because it is normalized, it can be compared across fields. Read the methodology
- Quartiles
- Q1 to Q4 split the ranked journals of the list you are viewing into four equal groups by OJR. A journal’s quartile depends on the list: the same journal can be Q1 in its subfield and Q2 among all journals.
- Impact factor (2-year)
- Citations per paper over a two-year window, counted from OpenAlex. It is easy to compare with familiar impact factors but is not field-normalized, so compare it only within a field. It is not Clarivate’s Journal Impact Factor. Why it differs from the Journal Impact Factor
- Rank ranges
- Each rank in the latest year carries a likely range from 1,000 resamples of the journal’s papers. Where two journals’ ranges overlap, the data cannot tell them apart, so treat neighbouring ranks as ties.