Journal profile · Forestry
Annals of Forest Science
ISSN 1286-4560 · eISSN 1297-966X · Springer Paris · FRANCE · Bimonthly · Founded 2007
Annals of Forest Science: CAS Zone 3 · Agricultural & Forestry Sciences (2025 upgraded edition); impact factor 3.3; fully open access; APC about USD 2,470; median 182 days to acceptance (97 articles, last 24 months); community-reported acceptance: fairly easy; 50 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus; the journal's website says it has moved to a new publisher.
The journal's website says it has moved to a new publisher: From 2027, Annals of Forest Science will no longer be published by BMC, part of Springer Nature. Future papers will be published by Cambridge University Press. Source ↗Publisher website ·
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Annals of Forest Science is published by Springer Paris and is in Zone 3 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Forest ecology and management, Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics and Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies, together about 39.1% of its articles. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
Annals of Forest Science is an international research journal devoted to multidisciplinary research for forests and wood in a changing world. It is one of the journals of the French National Institute for Agriculture, Food and Environment (INRAE), a public non-profit research institution. The scope of Annals of Forest Science covers the following research areas: Biology of trees and associated organisms Forest dynamics and ecosystem processes under environmental or management drivers (ecology, genetics) Risks and disturbances affecting forest ecosystems (biology, ecology, economics) Forests as drivers of a sustainable, circular and inclusive bioeconomy (tree breeding, forest management and productivity, ecosystem services, silviculture) Wood sciences (relationships between wood structure and tree functioning, and between forest management or environment and wood properties) The Editorial Board encourages: New ideas or methods for measuring or monitoring any property of interest for tree biology, forest ecosystem dynamics, wood Model-based papers focused on the forestry wood chain, including carbon accounting investigations, ecosystem services, quantification of the relationships between forest management and the properties of end products Studies addressing economic and social issues of forest management under climate change and forest based bioeconomy Review articles on timely topics in the scope of the journal Data papers presenting databases made available to a wider community Opinion papers presenting arguments about open research questions The Editorial Board does not encourage: Local case studies based on single stand experiments or small samples under local conditions, unless the addressed questions are innovative and timely Purely technological papers presenting applications without a broader scientific perspective Wood science papers that address purely technological questions unless the topic is very innovative or in relation to tree biology, forest ecology, or forest management
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Forestry
Editor-in-chief Andreas BoltePublisher website
Editorial board by country: 3 in mainland China (about 12%); most named France 11, Mainland China 3, United States 2, Germany 2, Italy 2 (25 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Forest ecology and managementEnvironmental Science20%
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon DynamicsEnvironmental Science10.9%
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics StudiesEnvironmental Science8.2%
- Tree-ring climate responsesEarth and Planetary Sciences6.3%
- Forest Management and PolicyEnvironmental Science6.1%
- Forest Ecology and Biodiversity StudiesAgricultural and Biological Sciences5.8%
- Tree Root and Stability StudiesEngineering5.6%
- Wood Treatment and PropertiesEngineering3.8%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 2
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 2 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 3
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 3 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 2 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
Indexing the journal's website claims
CAB AbstractsCurrent ContentsPublisher website
Other: Google Scholar, ProQuest, Dimensions, CNKI, Baidu, AGRICOLA, Astrophysics Data System, Naver, OCLC, Portico, CLOCKSS
As the journal's website lists them, not checked against each database; for Web of Science editions the records above apply.
Editions, and major and minor categories, are shown separately and never merged into one zone; check which edition your institution uses before you submit or report.
Metrics
Impact metrics and publication volume
Impact
- Impact factor
- 3.3LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 3.3Publisher website ·
- 5-year impact factor (publisher) 2025
- 3.8Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 5.4LetPub ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 0.87LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.14LetPub ·
- h-index
- 69LetPub ·
- h-index
- 106OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 1,841OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 3.52OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 3%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 46LetPub ·
- Articles per year (publisher)
- 2,025Publisher website ·
- Downloads per year (publisher) 2025
- 822,900Publisher website ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 2,374 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 44 | 44 | 5 |
| 2025 | 50 | 50 | 128 |
| 2024 | 53 | 53 | 384 |
| 2023 | 48 | 48 | 486 |
| 2022 | 48 | 48 | 647 |
| 2021 | 106 | 104 | 1,700 |
Sources count differently and were observed at different times, so each source's own value is kept; "publisher" marks figures from the journal's website.
Review & acceptance
Review time and acceptance
Review time from article dates manuscript dates registered with Crossref · to
182 daysMedian, submission to acceptance · P25–P75 140 days – 252 days
- Acceptance to online
- median 28 days (97 articles)
- Submission to online
- median 216 days
- Sample
- 97 articles with submission and acceptance dates (108 in the window); the latest was accepted on
Only articles that were accepted and published are counted, not the time spent on rejected manuscripts, so this usually runs longer than a publisher's "time to first decision".
Other sources
- Average review time (community reports)
- 12–24 weeksLetPub ·
- Average acceptance (community reports)
- Fairly easyLetPub ·
- Submission to first decision
- 10 daysPublisher website ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 28 weeksDOAJ ·
- Peer review
- Double anonymous peer reviewDOAJ
Community reports come from authors' own submissions (confidence 0.5) and are not a promise from the journal; for publisher figures, the journal's own definitions apply.
Fees & open access
APC and open-access policy
Fully open accessDOAJ
Every article is open access; authors usually pay an article processing charge (APC).
| Source | APC | Fee waiver | License | Observed |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| DOAJ | EUR 1,940 / USD 2,470 / GBP 1,740 | Yes | CC BY | |
| OpenAlex | USD 2,390 / EUR 1,875 / GBP 1,690 | — | — | |
| Publisher website | GBP 174 / GBP 1,740 / USD 2,470 / EUR 1,940 | — | — |
The journal's website is authoritative for fees; sources were observed at different times and each keeps its own value, without averaging.
Submission
Article types and submission policies (journal website)
What to prepare1 items from the author guidelines
- Suggested reviewers
- Optional
Article types accepted7
- commentaryFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- data paperFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- first reportFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- letter to the editorFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- opinion paperFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- research paperFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
- review paperFormatting guidelines for specific article types can be found below. Research paper Review paper Data paper Opinion paper Commentary Letter to the Editor First …Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Data availability, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review
- Authorship
Submission: a manuscript can only be submitted by an author of the manuscript and may not be submitted by a third party. Model summary
Please note that a manuscript can only be submitted by an author of the manuscript and may not be submitted by a third party.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Data availability Formatting the 'Availability of data and materials' section of your manuscript
Data and materials: All BioMed Central journals strongly encourage or require authors to provide all datasets on which the conclusions of their manuscripts rely. You may either deposit datasets in publicly available repositories (where available and appropriate) or present them in the main paper or Model summary
The following format for the 'Availability of data and materials section of your manuscript should be used:
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Licensing and copyright
Creative Commons licences: Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. Model summary
Creative Commons licences Open access articles in Springer Nature journals are published under Creative Commons licences. These provide an industry-standard framework to support easy re-use of open access material. Under Creative Commons licences, authors retain copyright of their articles. Annals of Forest Science articles are published open access under a CC BY licence (Creative Commons Attribut…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Benefits of open access
Publishing open access (OA) offers a number of benefits, including greater reach and readership for your work: Cited more 1.6x more citations of OA articles than non-OA articles across all subjects Downloaded more 4x more downloads of OA articles than non-OA articles Greater impact 2.5x more Altmetric attention. OA articles attracted 1.9x more news mentions and 1.2x more policy mentions Open acces…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review policy
Peer reviewers: In your cover letter, you may suggest potential peer reviewers for your manuscript. If you wish to do so, please provide institutional email addresses where possible, or information which will help the Editor to verify the identity of the reviewer (for example an ORCID or Scopus ID). Model summary
Peer review is the process used to evaluate the quality of a manuscript before publication. Independent researchers in the relevant field assess submitted manuscripts to check their validity and robustness. Their feedback guides editors in making publication decisions.Typically, two or more experts evaluate each manuscript based on three main criteria: scientific robustness: is the research method…
Source ↗Publisher website ·
Excerpts are quoted from the journal's website; "model summary" lines are written by Workers AI and checked against the text. The journal's website is authoritative.
Profile
Publication details and official links
- Publisher
- Springer Paris
- Country or region
- FRANCE
- Language
- Multi-Language
- Frequency
- Bimonthly
- Founded
- 2007
- ISSN
- 1286-4560
- Electronic ISSN
- 1297-966X
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗Publisher website
- Author guidelines ↗DOAJ
- Aims & Scope ↗DOAJ
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗DOAJ
- Editorial board ↗DOAJ
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Annals of Forest Science
What CAS zone is Annals of Forest Science in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Annals of Forest Science is in Zone 3 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences, and in Zone 2 of the minor category Forestry. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 2 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Annals of Forest Science?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 3.3; CiteScore 5.4, h-index 106.
How long does peer review take at Annals of Forest Science?
Based on the dates recorded on 97 articles published between October 2024 and October 2026 (the last 24 months), the median time from submission to acceptance is 182 days (interquartile range 140–252 days); authors report an average review time of 12–24 weeks; the community-reported acceptance is “Fairly easy”. Article statistics cover accepted papers only, publisher figures follow the journal's own definitions, and community reports come from authors' own submissions; none is a promise from the journal.
Where are the editorial board members of Annals of Forest Science based?
Of the 25 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 3 (about 12%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are France (11), Mainland China (3) and United States (2). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Annals of Forest Science?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Annals of Forest Science is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ. The journal's website also lists CAB Abstracts and Current Contents; that list has not been checked against each database.
Is Annals of Forest Science open access, and what is the APC?
Annals of Forest Science is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,470.
Sources and updates
The facts on this page come from LetPub, OpenAlex, DOAJ, Publisher website; every figure is tagged with its source and the date it was observed, and conflicting values are kept per source. LetPub source page: view ↗ (archived 2026-08-26). Last updated: .