Oxford University Press to publish new OA journal Conservation Physiology

Oxford University Press (OUP) is pleased to announce the launch of Conservation Physiology, an open access journal, edited by a prestigious team of experts headed up by Steven Cooke, from Carleton University, Canada. Conservation Physiology is published on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology(SEB) which is committed to promote and increase the influence of Experimental Biology within the scientific community. Both OUP and the SEB recognised the expanding reader demand for research in the developing area of conservation physiology and hope this journal will serve as a home and rallying point for this rapidly emerging discipline. Publication fees will be waived for the launch period.

Biodiversity across the globe faces a growing number of threats associated with human activities. In response to this, conservation physiology is rapidly emerging as an important discipline that combines and applies basic knowledge from the traditional fields of ecology and physiology, leading to better informed strategies for conservation, resource management and policy.

Conservation Physiology will publish research on all taxa (microbes, plants and animals) focused on understanding and predicting how organisms, populations, ecosystems and natural resources respond to environmental change and stressors. Physiology is considered in the broadest possible terms to include functional and mechanistic responses at all scales. The new journal also welcomes research towards developing and refining strategies to rebuild populations, restore ecosystems, inform conservation policy and manage living resources.

Steven Cooke, Editor-in-Chief said: ‘”The conservation community is desperate to not just document problems but to understand the mechanisms underlying population declines and opportunities for reversing such trends. Conservation physiology is about understanding mechanisms and establishing cause and effect relationships in an effort to inform policy and provide evidence to support improvements in conservation practice. This new journal is also well positioned to be the go-to source for those interested in predicting how organisms, populations and ecosystems will respond to environmental change and other human activities including restoration.”

Jennifer Boyd, Assistant Publisher at OUP said: ‘OUP is delighted to be working with the SEB on this new journal, and I am personally very excited to be part of this launch.Conservation Physiology is the first dedicated journal in this area which has previously been under-served by the existing publishing landscape. We look forward to the journal becoming the natural home for this important research.’

Professor Keith Lindsey, President of the SEB said “We are very excited about this journal which, for the first time, brings together all sections of the SEB’s scientific community. We are looking forward to extending our working relationship with OUP, which already publishes the Journal of Experimental Botany on our behalf, and to the success of our first foray into fully open access publishing.”

Visit the website for more information about the journal: www.conphys.oxfordjournals.org