Virtual issues as foundational resources

Abstract

Through Wiley, The Journal of Wildlife Management (JWM) has created virtual issues that provide curated collections of research articles on key themes, draw material from multiple journals, and make articles freely available to read for 3 months. Virtual issues can be particularly useful for those seeking a comprehensive overview of a specific field of research. As we look forward to the annual meeting this October, we encourage symposium and working group organizers to partner with us to also publish a virtual issue.

We first ventured into the world of virtual issues in 2019 with a pair of issues co-published by The Wildlife Society and the American Fisheries Society in advance of the 2019 Joint Annual Meeting (Trushenski et al. 2019a, b). After a bit of a dry spell, in 2024 we published 4 more. The first 2 focused on the top-cited articles published in 2022 and 2023 (JWM 2024a) and the most-read articles in 2023 (JWM 2024b), containing content exclusively drawn from JWM. The next 2 issues took a different tack by coordinating the publication of special focuses in The Wildlife Professional in tandem with a virtual issue containing research articles on the same theme. The first of these focused on beaver management and conservation (JWM 2024c), the second focused on wildlife in desert ecosystems (JWM 2024d), and both coalesced articles from across The Wildlife Society family of publications, including JWM, Wildlife Society Bulletin, and Wildlife Monographs. That same year, The Wildlife Society published a virtual issue on greater sage-grouse in the Wildlife Society Bulletin to support the ongoing drafting of a conservation plan for the species by the Bureau of Land Management (Wildlife Society Bulletin 2024).

Expanding on our efforts to provide the science behind hot topics highlighted in The Wildlife Professional, we have recently published a virtual issue on nutritional ecology (JWM 2025). This issue drew together 28 articles across 11 different journals available within the Wiley Online Library. This collection was curated by the Nutritional Ecology Working Group of The Wildlife Society. The Working Group organized a series of 5 articles highlighting the foundations and frontiers of nutritional ecology within the May/June 2025 issue of The Wildlife Professional and provided us with their list of modern foundational readings (since 2003) for this virtual issue. We then worked to gain permission to include as many of these resources as possible. The resulting virtual issue includes 6 review, synthesis, or meta-analysis articles ranging from critical reviews on the application of key methodologies, such as stable isotope analysis (Stephens et al. 2023), to outlining an integrated framework for nutritional ecology (Rauenheimer et al. 2009). A series of original research papers explores a range of topics including functional responses in herbivory (Hobbs et al. 2003), nutritional impacts on population vital rates (Cook et al. 2010, 2013), and effectively measuring forage availability (Monzigo et al. 2022), among many others. The research also covers a diversity of species, with a strong base of papers focused on North American ungulates, specifically elk (Cervus canadensis), mule deer (Odocoileus hemionus), white-tailed deer (O. virginianus), moose (Alces alces), and bison (Bison bison), but with good representation from several primates and excellent studies on koala (Phascolarctos cinereus), polar bear (Ursus maritimus), brown bear (U. arctos), Steller sea lions (Phascolarctos cinereus), and lesser snow goose (Chen caerulescens caerulescens).

We are grateful of the Nutritional Ecology Working Group for their efforts in advancing the field and for compiling the research included in the recent virtual issue. We also appreciate the American Society of Primatologists, the British Ecological Society, the Cambridge Philosophical Society, the Ecological Society of America, the Society for Marine Mammalogy, and Wiley for partnering with us to feature research published across our organizations. All of the articles in this virtual issue will be available as free to read through mid-August 2025. Be sure to check it out!