About this journal

Aims and scope

Journal of Natural History is an international zoological journal publishing original research and reviews in evolutionary biology and ecology. It maintains its historical niche by publishing a broad range of systematics papers on all animal phyla from Porifera to Chordata, encompassing traditional taxonomic revisions and descriptions, cladistic analyses and molecular phylogenetics and phylogenomics. The journal has recognized strengths in entomology and marine invertebrates, but also welcomes papers on the natural history of all animal species and on the interactions of species with their environment. Preference is given to in-depth papers and extensive taxonomic reviews: single species descriptions and checklists are not normally considered. Authors wishing to suggest a review paper should contact the relevant editor.

Peer Review Statement

All manuscript submissions are subject to initial appraisal by the Editors, and, if found suitable for further consideration, to peer review by independent, anonymous expert referees. All peer review is single anonymized and submission is online via ScholarOne manuscripts.

Journal metrics

Usage

  • 85K annual downloads/views

Citation metrics

  • 0.8 (2023) Impact Factor
  • 0.9 (2023) 5 year IF
  • 1.6 (2023) CiteScore (Scopus)
  • 0.672 (2023) SNIP
  • 0.431 (2023) SJR

Speed/acceptance

  • 64 days avg. from submission to first decision
  • 80 days avg. from submission to first post-review decision
  • 46 days avg. from acceptance to online publication
  • 53% acceptance rate

Editorial board

Editor-in-Chief

Andrew Polaszek - Natural History Museum, London, UK

Andrew is currently a Researcher in Entomology at NHM, and former Head of Department. He has published more than 200 scientific papers, including 2 books (as editor), and has received major research grants from the Netherlands, UK and USA governments. The main priority of his research is the systematics and biology of “Microhymenoptera”, especially those of economic importance. More recently, molecular characterisation of new species has become an integral part of these studies, including the use of these markers to elucidate phylogenies. Much of his work has been collaborative and of an applied nature, with successful classical biological control projects, and input into the development of integrated pest management programmes, especially in the tropics. He is committed to public outreach, science education, and the facilitation of descriptive taxonomy using modern techniques. A current priority is the use of high-quality images to inform society at all levels about the importance of parasitoids and other wasps, as well as bees and ants, as ecosystem service providers.

Associate Editors

Anna Phillips - National Museum of Natural History, Smithsonian Institution, USA

Anna is a Research Zoologist and curator of clitellate annelids and parasitic worms at the NMNH. Her research focuses on alpha-taxonomy, systematics, evolutionary history, and host associations of parasitic worms, particularly leeches and tapeworms. She has curatorial responsibility for the US National Parasite Collection.

Jann Vendetti - Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, USA

Jann is the Twila Bratcher Chair in Malacological Research at NHMLA. Jann studies land and sea snails and their phylogenetic relationships and systematics. She oversees NHMLA's Snails and slugs Living in Metropolitan Environments (SLIME) citizen science initiative and was a founding member of the Museum's Urban Nature Research Institute in 2016. Along with a staff of collections managers, Jann supervises NHMLA's malacology collection of nearly 5 million specimens and its invertebrate paleontological collection of 7-9 million specimens. She is an advisor to the Nature Conservancy’s Biodiversity Analysis in Los Angeles (BAILA) project and served as the president of the Western Society of Malacologists in 2017.

Bill Ludt - Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County, USA

Bill is the Assistant Curator of Ichthyology at the NHMLA. His research aims to determine the factors that have influenced the biodiversity of fishes on our planet. Specifically, Bill’s research applies principles from systematics, molecular phylogenomics, phylogeography and biogeography to understand how geology and climate have interacted and influenced the distribution and diversity of both marine and freshwater fishes. At the NHMLA he oversees the Robert J. Lavenberg ichthyology collection, which contains over three million specimens from all over the world.

J. Antonio Baeza - Associate Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, Clemson University, South Carolina, USA

In my laboratory, we are interested in various topics in the fields of Evolutionary Biology, Molecular Phylogenetics & Phylogeography, and Fisheries Biology. I use marine invertebrates, some of them economically valuable, as model systems. My research is both hypothesis and curiosity driven and I use a combination of molecular phylogenies, natural history observations, basic modeling approaches, and manipulative experiments to accomplish my research goals. Currently, my research programs have three main foci (1) biodiversity discovery and diversification, (2) evolutionary biology: adaptive value of mating systems and sex allocation (3) conservation and sustainable management of exploited resources. The model systems we use include various groups of marine crustaceans, including crabs, shrimps, and spiny lobsters.

Alessandro CatenazziAssociate Professor, Florida International University in Miami, USA

Alessandro Canetazzi is Associate Professor at Florida International University in Miami, USA, and a Research Associate of the Centro de Ornitologia y Biodiversidad (CORBIDI) and the Instituto Peruano de Herpetologia in Lima, Peru. His research interests are the systematics, natural history and conservation of Neotropical amphibians and reptiles and the ecological dimensions of biodiversity. For the first line of research, he works primarily in the Andes and the Amazon. He collaborates with colleagues in museums and other research institutions in describing new species and developing phylogenies of frogs from the mega-diverse eastern slopes of the Andes. He is interested in using phylogenies as a road map to compare physiological and functional traits among species. He is also studying thermal preferences, tolerance to heat, and the influence of temperature on physiological functions, to understand how climate warming will affect these animals. Finally, a major theme of his current research is exploring fungal disease's effects on amphibians' ecology, a group experiencing staggering biodiversity losses worldwide. After documenting the collapse of a species-rich amphibian assemblage, he is interested in developing strategies to mitigate the impact of the fungal disease chytridiomycosis on surviving species. 

Editorial Board

Acari: Anne Baker (Scientific Associate, Dept of Life Sciences, Natural History Museum, London)

Amphibia and Reptilia:
Jeff Streicher (Senior Curator, Natural History Museum, London, UK) and Jonathan Fong (Assistant Professor, Lingnan University, Hong Kong)

Annelida/Nematodes: Anya Schulze (Associate Professor, Texas A&M University Galveston Campus, USA)

Aves: Alison Beresford (Conservation Scientist, RSPB, UK)

Bryozoa: Judith Winston (Curator of Marine Biology, Virginia Museum of National History, USA)

Cephalopoda : Louise Allcock (Zoology Lecturer, NUI Galway, Ireland)

Coleoptera: Caroline Chaboo (Insect Research and Conservation Institute, University of Kansas, USA)

Crustacea: Darren Yeo Chong Jinn (Assistant Professor, Department of Biological Sciences, National University of Singapore)

Entomology and Molecular Biology: Amr A. Mohamed (Associate Professor, Department of Entomology, Faculty of Science, Cairo University, Giza, Egypt)

Hymenoptera: Formicidae: Mostafa Sharaf (Associate Professor, King Saud University, Saudi Arabia)

Lepidoptera: Scott Miller (Curator, Smithsonian, Washington DC)

Mammalia: Roberto Portela Miguez (Senior Curator, Natural History Museum London, UK)

Marine biodiversity: Julia Sigwart (Research Sabbatical, University of California Berkley, USA)

Marine invertebrates: Martin Thiel (Principal Investigator, Universidad Catolica del Norte, Chile)

Polychaeta, Nemertea, Porifera: Sergio Taboada Moreno (Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain)

Porifera: Ana Riesgo Gil (Department of Biodiversity and Evolutionary Biology, Museo Nacional de Ciencias Naturales, Madrid, Spain)

Abstracting and indexing

Journal of Natural History is abstracted and indexed in the following locations (taken via www.ulrichsweb.com):

CABI

  • AgBiotechNet
  • Agroforestry Abstracts (Online)
  • Animal Breeding Abstracts
  • Animal Science Database
  • Biocontrol News and Information
  • CAB Abstracts
  • Crop Physiology Abstracts
  • Crop Science Database
  • Environmental Impact
  • Field Crop Abstracts
  • Forest Science Database
  • Forestry Abstracts
  • Global Health
  • Grasslands and Forage Abstracts (Online)
  • Helminthological Abstracts (Online)
  • Horticultural Science Database
  • Irrigation and Drainage Abstracts (Online)
  • Maize Abstracts (Online)
  • Nematological Abstracts (Online)
  • Organic Research Database
  • Ornamental Horticulture (Online)
  • Parasitology Database
  • Plant Breeding Abstracts (Online)
  • Plant Genetics and Breeding Database
  • Poultry Abstracts (Online)
  • Protozoological Abstracts (Online)
  • Review of Medical and Veterinary Entomology
  • Review of Plant Pathology (Online)
  • Rice Abstracts
  • Seed Abstracts
  • Soil Science Database
  • TropAg & Rural
  • Tropical Diseases Bulletin
  • Veterinary Science Database
  • Weed Abstracts

CSA

  • Biological Sciences, Priority
  • Ecology Abstracts (Online), Selective
  • Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management, Selective

De Gruyter Saur

  • IBZ - Internationale Bibliographie der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlichen Zeitschriftenliteratur
  • Internationale Bibliographie der Rezensionen Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaftlicher Literatur

EBSCOhost

  • Academic Search Alumni Edition, 1/1/1998-
  • Academic Search Complete, 1/1/1998-
  • Academic Search Elite, 1/1/1998-
  • Academic Search Premier, 1/1/1998-
  • Arctic & Antarctic Regions (AAR), 1/1/1878-
  • Biological Abstracts (Online)
  • Current Abstracts, 1/1/2000-
  • Environment Complete, 1/1/1991-
  • Environment Index, 1/1/1991-
  • GeoRef
  • TOC Premier (Table of Contents), 1/1/1995-
  • Wildlife & Ecology Studies Worldwide, 1/1/1967-

Elsevier BV

  • BIOBASE
  • GEOBASE
  • Scopus, 1985-ongoing

OCLC

  • ArticleFirst, vol.1, no.1, 1967-vol.45, no.31-32, 2011
  • Electronic Collections Online, v.1, n.1, 1967-v.45, n.41/42, 2011
  • Environmental Sciences and Pollution Management, Selective
  • GEOBASE
  • GeoRef

Ovid

  • GeoRef

Thomson Reuters

  • Biological Abstracts (Online)
  • BIOSIS Previews
  • Current Contents
  • Science Citation Index Expanded
  • Web of Science
  • Zoological Record Online
  • Wildlife Review Abstracts

Open access

Journal of Natural History is a hybrid open access journal that is part of our Open Select publishing program, giving you the option to publish open access. Publishing open access means that your article will be free to access online immediately on publication, increasing the visibility, readership, and impact of your research.

Why choose open access?

  1. Increase the discoverability and readership of your article
  2. Make an impact and reach new readers, not just those with easy access to a research library
  3. Freely share your work with anyone, anywhere
  4. Comply with funding mandates and meet the requirements of your institution, employer or funder
  5. Rigorous peer review for every open access article

Article Publishing Charges (APC)

If you choose to publish open access in this journal you may be asked to pay an Article Publishing Charge (APC). You may be able to publish your article at no cost to yourself or with a reduced APC if your institution or research funder has an open access agreement or membership with Taylor & Francis.

Use our APC finder to calculate your article publishing charge

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