Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics (annual-review-of-ecology-evolution-and-systematics)
Journal positioning
Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics is published by Annual Reviews and occupies a distinctive niche: it carries only authoritative, comprehensive review articles that survey a field, synthesize its state of knowledge, and chart future directions — it does not publish primary research of any kind. Its defining character is invitation and authority: most articles are commissioned by the editorial committee from established leaders in a subfield, and the writing is expected to define a topic for the broad ecology, evolution, and systematics community for years. The journal rewards reviews that impose conceptual order on a sprawling literature, resolve or sharpen long-running debates, and identify the questions that will drive the next decade. Readership spans the entire EEB community, including graduate students using the article as an entry point. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current official guidelines. Before proposing or submitting, re-check the live author instructions on the Annual Reviews AREES site.
When to trigger
- An author has been invited, or is considering proposing, a comprehensive review synthesizing an ecology, evolution, or systematics subfield for AREES.
- A team has a body of synthesis-ready expertise and is choosing between AREES, Trends in Ecology & Evolution, and Biological Reviews.
- A would-be author needs to understand that AREES does not accept primary research, meta-analyses-as-primary-studies, or opinion pieces, before drafting.
- The author needs AREES' invited-review conventions, breadth expectations, and desk-reject criteria before contacting the editorial committee.
Scope & topic fit
- Comprehensive syntheses across ecology: community assembly, biodiversity-ecosystem function, population and food-web dynamics, global change ecology, where a decade of literature can be organized into a coherent framework.
- Evolutionary biology reviews: speciation, adaptation, molecular evolution, phylogenetics, eco-evolutionary dynamics, evolutionary developmental biology at field-defining breadth.
- Systematics and macroevolution: phylogenomic methodology, the tree of life, diversification dynamics, biogeographic history synthesized across clades.
- Conceptual and methodological reviews that recast how a field frames its central questions or that consolidate a newly matured set of approaches.
- Interface reviews that integrate ecology, evolution, and systematics — e.g., the genomics of adaptation, the macroecology of diversification — where the synthesis itself is the contribution.
- Forward-looking reviews that identify unresolved questions and the data or methods needed to answer them, written to orient the next cohort of researchers.
Method & evidence bar
- The contribution is the synthesis: the article must impose a clear conceptual structure on the literature, not merely list studies in sequence.
- Coverage must be authoritative and balanced — the major schools of thought, competing hypotheses, and disconfirming evidence all represented fairly.
- Claims must be grounded in the cited primary and review literature; the article is judged on comprehensiveness, accuracy, and interpretive insight rather than on new data.
- A good review advances a viewpoint: it evaluates evidence, takes defensible positions on contested questions, and explains its reasoning rather than staying neutral.
- Figures and tables should consolidate understanding — conceptual schematics, comparative tables, syntheses of disparate datasets — not present novel statistical results.
- The reference list is expected to be extensive and current; the review should be the most complete entry point to its topic at the time of publication.
Structure & house style
- AREES articles are long-format invited reviews; re-check the current target length and figure/table allowances on the live site before drafting.
- House style favors a strong organizing framework: a clear introduction defining scope, themed sections that build an argument, and a "future directions" or "unresolved questions" close.
- Writing is authoritative but accessible to non-specialists in the broad EEB readership; jargon is defined and the entry-level reader is kept in mind.
- Annual Reviews uses its own citation and production conventions; follow the supplied author guide and any provided template rather than a generic format.
- Conceptual figures are central to the house style and are often professionally redrawn; plan figures that a newcomer could learn the field from.
- A short summary-points / future-issues list at the end is a standard Annual Reviews feature; confirm the current required elements.
Official-submission checklist
- Before giving submission-ready advice, read
../../resources/source-basis.md and ../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors for this journal family, then cite the current journal-specific page you checked.
- Search the live site for "Annual Review of Ecology Evolution and Systematics author guidelines" and follow the current Annual Reviews version.
- Confirm the invitation/commissioning process: most articles are solicited; re-check how unsolicited topic proposals are handled by the editorial committee.
- Re-check the current target length, figure/table limits, and reference-format and summary-points requirements.
- Re-check copyright, permissions for reproduced figures, competing-interests, funding, and AI-use disclosure requirements.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions win.
Pre-submission self-check
Common desk-reject triggers
- A primary research paper, a single empirical study, or a narrow data-driven meta-analysis submitted as if it were a review.
- An unsolicited full manuscript sent without an invitation or an accepted topic proposal, when the current process requires one.
- A review that lists studies sequentially without imposing a conceptual framework or advancing an interpretive viewpoint.
- A narrow, specialist survey of interest only to a small subfield, lacking the breadth expected of the broad EEB readership.
- An opinion or perspective piece without comprehensive, balanced coverage of the underlying literature.
Re-routing decision
- A short, opinionated, forward-looking synthesis rather than a comprehensive review: Trends in Ecology & Evolution (
trends-in-ecology-and-evolution).
- A concise conceptual advance integrating theory and data as primary research: Ecology Letters (
ecology-letters).
- A comprehensive review that is primarily quantitative or meta-analytic in its evidence: Biological Reviews or Ecological Monographs.
- A primary research study on the topic: route to the appropriate EEB primary venue (Nature Ecology & Evolution, Ecology, Evolution) by scope.
Output format
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Annual Review of Ecology, Evolution, and Systematics
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest topics>
[Method/evidence] <is this a comprehensive, framework-imposing, balanced invited synthesis rather than primary research?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <invitation/proposal process / target length / figure-table limits / summary-points / permissions-disclosure>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>