What is Conservation Physiology? Read Editor-in-Chief Steven Cooke's introduction to this essential field of study, and its relevance in an environment under the increasing influence of human activities.
Conservation Physiology is an online only, fully open access journal published on behalf of the Society for Experimental Biology.
Biodiversity across the globe faces a growing number of threats associated with human activities. Conservation Physiology publishes 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. We also welcome research towards developing and refining strategies to rebuild populations, restore ecosystems, inform conservation policy, and manage living resources. We define conservation physiology broadly and encourage potential authors to contact the editorial team if they have any questions regarding the remit of the journal.
Key topics covered by the journal include:
Understanding the influence of anthropogenic disturbance, and of variation in habitat quality, on organism condition, health and survival
Providing a mechanistic/functional understanding of the effect of anthropogenic environmental change on organisms; the use of physiological knowledge to develop mechanistic models for species distributions
Evaluating stress responsiveness and environmental tolerances relative to environmental change (including global warming and ocean acidification)
Understanding the adaptation of physiological processes to environmental variation (e.g. studies on thermal adaptation among populations)
Understanding the optimal environmental conditions for ex-situ preservation of endangered species (captive breeding, seed bank protocols for storage and regeneration, tissue culture for plant species or genotypes that are difficult to regenerate from seeds)
Understanding the ecology and evolution of physiological diversity and its relevance to conservation
Exploiting knowledge on organismal physiology to control invasive species and restore threatened habitats and populations
Developing mechanistic relationships between population declines and physiological processes
Developing of predictive models in conservation practices that include physiological parameters
Applying physiological biomarkers as part of long-term environmental monitoring programs
Integrating physiological knowledge into ecosystem management and into tools to solve complex conservation problems
Understanding the policy implications and application of knowledge arising from conservation physiology research
Understanding the physiological mechanisms involved in changes in community structure, as well as individual species, in response to environmental change
Applications of contemporary genomic and post-genomic technologies to conservation physiology
Integration of physiology with conservation behaviour, conservation medicine, and conservation genetics
Conservation Physiology publishes the following article types:
Research Articles - Papers that report on original empirical research based on observation, experimentation and/or modeling (typically 3000 to 6000 words)
The Tool Box - Papers that report on advances in techniques or methods that expand and improve the conservation physiology tool box in the lab or field (typically 3000 to 4000 words)
Reviews - Comprehensive reviews that synthesize a given topic related to conservation physiology (typically 6000 to 10000 words)
Perspectives - Persuasive essays or viewpoints with a particular focus on fostering conceptual, theoretical or practical (e.g., policy, management, conservation, modeling) advances in conservation physiology (typically 2000 to 4000 words)
Comments - Papers that critique or respond to material previously published in the journal (typically 1000 words)