Journal profile · Environmental Science-Nature and Landscape Conservation
Forest Ecosystems
ISSN 2095-6355 · eISSN 2197-5620 · KEAI PUBLISHING LTD · CHINA MAINLAND · Continuous publication · Founded 2014
Forest Ecosystems: CAS Zone 1 · Agricultural & Forestry Sciences (2025 upgraded edition, Top journal); impact factor 5.37; fully open access; APC about USD 2,000; review about 12 weeks (community reports); 124 articles in 2025; indexed in SCIE and Scopus.
Scope
Aims, scope and focus
Forest Ecosystems is published by KEAI PUBLISHING LTD and is in Zone 1 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences in the CAS Journal Ranking (2025 upgraded edition, Top journal). By OpenAlex counts of its recent articles, its largest topics are Forest ecology and management, Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics Studies and Plant Water Relations and Carbon Dynamics, together about 37% of its articles. Its main subfields are Global and Planetary Change. (generated from OpenAlex topic counts and CAS ranking data)
The contents of Volumes 1-8 of Forest Ecosystems published with Springer can be found here.(https://forestecosyst.springeropen.com/)Forest Ecosystems...
From the journal's Aims & Scope
Research area (LetPub): Environmental Science-Nature and Landscape Conservation
Editor-in-chief John A. KershawPublisher website
Editorial board by country: 24 in mainland China (about 36%); most named Mainland China 24, United States 8, Canada 5, Australia 4, Germany 3 (67 members with a country) Editorial board ↗Publisher website ·
Main research topics OpenAlex counts of recent articles; shares are approximate
- Forest ecology and managementEnvironmental Science15%
- Ecology and Vegetation Dynamics StudiesEnvironmental Science12.2%
- Plant Water Relations and Carbon DynamicsEnvironmental Science9.7%
- Forest Ecology and Biodiversity StudiesAgricultural and Biological Sciences8.2%
- Forest Management and PolicyEnvironmental Science7.7%
- Remote Sensing and LiDAR ApplicationsEnvironmental Science6.6%
- Tree-ring climate responsesEarth and Planetary Sciences6%
- Fire effects on ecosystemsEnvironmental Science5%
Rankings & indexing
CAS ranking and database indexing
CAS Journal Ranking
CAS Journal Ranking, upgraded edition (March 2025)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: no
CAS Xinrui Journal Ranking (March 2026)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 1 |
Top journal: yesReview journal: not marked
CAS Journal Ranking, previous upgraded edition (December 2023)Agricultural & Forestry Sciences Zone 1
| Level | Category | Zone |
|---|---|---|
| Major | Agricultural & Forestry Sciences | Zone 1 |
| Minor | Forestry | Zone 1 |
Top journal: noReview journal: no
Database indexing
SCIEScopusDOAJLetPub
International journal early-warning lists: not listed in any editionLetPub
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
- 5.37LetPub ·
- Impact factor (publisher)
- 5.4Publisher website ·
- CiteScore 2026-06
- 8.3LetPub ·
- CiteScore (publisher)
- 8.3Publisher website ·
- SJR 2026-06
- 1.37LetPub ·
- SNIP 2026-06
- 1.55LetPub ·
- h-index
- 60OpenAlex ·
- i10-index
- 477OpenAlex ·
- 2-year mean citedness
- 4.9OpenAlex ·
- Self-citation rate
- 5.6%LetPub ·
- Share of gold OA articles
- 100%LetPub ·
Volume
- Articles per year
- 117LetPub ·
Articles by year OpenAlex count · 905 in total · the current year is incomplete
| Year | Articles | Open access | Citations |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2026 | 104 | 104 | 47 |
| 2025 | 124 | 124 | 473 |
| 2024 | 125 | 125 | 1,210 |
| 2023 | 77 | 77 | 1,045 |
| 2022 | 81 | 81 | 1,833 |
| 2021 | 75 | 75 | 2,132 |
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
- Average review time (community reports)
- about 12 weeksLetPub ·
- Submission to publication (journal-reported)
- about 12 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 | USD 2,000 | Yes | CC BY, CC BY-NC-ND | |
| OpenAlex | USD 1,000 | — | — | |
| LetPub | USD 2,000 | Yes | — | |
| Publisher website | USD 2,000 / USD 1,000 | — | — |
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)
Open calls for papers2, by deadline
Publisher websiteWhat to prepare2 items from the author guidelines
- Keywords
- ≥ 3
- Reference style
- Author–date
Article types accepted11
- data articleContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- data articlesContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- discussionContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- editorialContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- original research paperContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- original research papersContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- perspectiveContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- perspectivesContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- reviewContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- reviewsContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
- short communicationContributions falling into the following categories will be considered for publication: Original research papers, reviews, discussion, perspectives and data art…Length not stated
Policy excerpts from the journal's websiteAuthorship, Conflicts of interest, Publication ethics, License & copyright, Open access, Peer review, Preprints
- Authorship Author contributions
CRediT author contributions required Model summary
For transparency, we require corresponding authors to provide co-author contributions to the manuscript using the relevant CRediT roles. The CRediT taxonomy includes 14 different roles describing each contributor’s specific contribution to the scholarly output. The roles are: Conceptualization; Data curation; Formal analysis; Funding acquisition; Investigation; Methodology; Project administration;…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Conflicts of interest Declaration of competing interest
Corresponding authors, on behalf of all the authors of a submission, must disclose any financial and personal relationships with other people or organizations that could inappropriately influence (bias) their work. Examples of potential conflicts of interest include employment, consultancies, stock ownership, honoraria, paid expert testimony, patent applications/registrations, and grants or other …
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Publication ethics
Plagiarism screening with iThenticate CrossCheck Model summary
Submissions to KeAi journals are automatically screened using iThenticate's CrossCheck within the editorial system to detect plagiarism issues including instances of overlapping and similar text in submitted manuscripts.
Source ↗Publisher website ·- License & copyright Copyright
Authors retain copyright Model summary
This journal is a peer-reviewed, fully open access journal owned by Beijing Forestry University, who retains copyright of the overall compiled journal and the compiled issues. For the single article, Authors will retain copyright alongside scholarly usage rights, and KeAi Communications Co., Ltd. and Editorial Office of Forest Ecosystems will be granted non-exclusive publishing and distribution ri…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Open access Open Access
APC waivers for invited papers Model summary
Forest Ecosystems is an open access journal, which means that all articles will be immediately and permanently free for everyone to read and download. Permitted third party (re)use is defined by the following Creative Commons user licenses. Creative Commons Attribution (CC BY): Allows users to copy, to create extracts, abstracts and new works from the Article, to alter and revise the Article and t…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Peer review Peer review
Double blind peer review Model summary
This journal adopts a double blind review process. Papers deemed suitable are sent to a minimum of two independent reviewers to assess the scientific quality of the paper. The Editor is responsible for the final decision regarding acceptance or rejection of articles. The Editor's decision is final. Submissions contributed by the editors themselves, their colleagues or friends will be handled by ot…
Source ↗Publisher website ·- Preprints Preprint references
Where a preprint has subsequently become available as a peer-reviewed publication, the formal publication should be used as the reference. If there are preprints that are central to your work or that cover crucial developments in the topic, but are not yet formally published, these may be referenced. Preprints should be clearly marked as such, for example by including the word preprint, or the nam…
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
- KEAI PUBLISHING LTD
- Country or region
- CHINA MAINLAND
- Language
- English
- Frequency
- Continuous publication
- Founded
- 2014
- ISSN
- 2095-6355
- Electronic ISSN
- 2197-5620
- Official links
- Journal homepage ↗DOAJ
- Submission system ↗LetPub
- Author guidelines ↗LetPub
- Aims & Scope ↗LetPub
- Special issues ↗Publisher website
- APC information ↗DOAJ
- Fee waivers ↗DOAJ
- Open access statement ↗DOAJ
- License & copyright ↗DOAJ
- Peer review process ↗LetPub
- Editorial board ↗LetPub
- Plagiarism policy ↗DOAJ
FAQ
Frequently asked questions about Forest Ecosystems
What CAS zone is Forest Ecosystems in?
In the 2025 upgraded edition of the CAS Journal Ranking, Forest Ecosystems is in Zone 1 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences, and in Zone 1 of the minor category Forestry; it is a Top journal. In the 2026 Xinrui edition it is in Zone 1 of Agricultural & Forestry Sciences. Zones from different editions, and from major and minor categories, are not interchangeable.
What is the impact factor of Forest Ecosystems?
The latest impact factor listed by LetPub is 5.37; CiteScore 8.3, h-index 60.
How long does peer review take at Forest Ecosystems?
Authors report an average review time of about 12 weeks. 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.
What are the manuscript requirements of Forest Ecosystems?
According to the journal's author guidelines: Keywords: ≥ 3; Reference style: Author–date. A model extracted these from the author guidelines and each was checked against the text; check the latest version on the journal's website before submitting.
Where are the editorial board members of Forest Ecosystems based?
Of the 67 board members whose country the journal's board page names, 24 (about 36%) are in mainland China; the countries named most often are Mainland China (24), United States (8) and Canada (5). Counted from the institutions listed on the board page; for reference only.
Which databases index Forest Ecosystems?
According to LetPub and DOAJ records, Forest Ecosystems is indexed in SCIE, Scopus and DOAJ.
Is Forest Ecosystems open access, and what is the APC?
Forest Ecosystems is a fully open-access journal. APC about USD 2,000.
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 2026-08-25). Last updated: .