Research in Natural Resources & the Environment: A Guide for Cornell NTRES Graduate Students: Journals

Here are the top 10 journals in Ecology, based on 2021's impact factor:

1. Trends in Ecology and Evolution 
2. Nature Ecology & Evolution
3. Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
4. Frontiers in Ecology and the Environment 
5. Global Change Biology
6. Ecology Letters
7. ​The ISME Journal
8. Ecological Monographs
9. Molecular Ecology Resources
10. Methods in Ecology and Evolution

Here are the top 10 journals in Biodiversity Conservation, based on 2021's impact factor:

1. Global Change Biology
2. Conservation Letters
3. Conservation Biology
4. People and Nature
5. Biological Conservation
6. Journal of Applied Ecology
7. Ecography
8. Diversity & Distributions
9. Plants, People, Planet
10. Perspectives in Ecology and Conservation

Suggested steps from Ramey, D. W. (1999). How to read a scientific paper. In AAEP Proc (Vol. 45, pp. 280-4).

• Step 1: Abstract. Ask "Is this article relevant enough to proceed to the full text, or should I move on to another article?"
• Step 2: Discussion. Ask "What are the researchers' findings?"
• Step 3: Introduction. Ask "Why did the researchers do this study?" and "Does the research question match up with the conclusions I read in Step 2?"
• Step 4: Results. Ask "Are the data collected appropriate to answer the research question?" and "Do the data support the conclusions?"
• Step 5: Methods (optional). Ask "How can I repeat this study?" and "Are these methods suitable to gather the results reported?"