Cross-Citation Patterns Between the Journal of Vegetation Science and Other Ecological Journals

Scientific progress relies on the exchange of ideas, often acknowledged through citations. Journals within the same scientific field cite each other as they share overlapping topics and contribute to shared knowledge networks. In earlier editorials (Pärtel et al. 2016; Pillar et al. 2022), we explored these networks for the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS). In this editorial, we analyse cross-citation patterns between JVS and other ecological journals to understand the connections and roles these journals play in advancing shared scientific questions.

We used Journal Citation Reports (Clarivate 2024) to compile citation records from articles published in JVS. Citation counts of JVS articles in other journals and of these journals in JVS were limited to articles published in the last 10 years (2014–2023), except for a few journals that were included in the Journal Citation Reports (JCR) after 2014. Our analysis included 49 journals meeting at least one of two criteria: they cited the JVS articles published during this period at least 15 times or they were cited in the JVS articles at least 15 times. As the analysis is centred on JVS articles that within the same timeframe were either cited by the other journal or were citing this journal, we were not concerned about unequal numbers of articles published by each journal.

The results, presented in Figure 1, show that in approximately 71% of the listed journals, citations of JVS articles exceeded JVS citations of those journals. Journals with the highest citations of JVS articles tended to have an applied focus, including Forest Ecology and Management, Science of the Total Environment, Forests, and Applied Vegetation Science (our sister journal), along with Global Ecology and Conservation, Ecological Indicators, and Biodiversity and Conservation. Journals focused on fundamental research, such as the Journal of Ecology, Ecology and Evolution, Functional Ecology, Plant Ecology, Oikos, Flora, and Journal of Biogeography, also contributed substantially.

Conversely, for 29% of the listed journals, JVS cited their articles more frequently than they cited JVS. This pattern was most notable in New Phytologist, Global Ecology and Biogeography, Ecology, Ecography, Ecology Letters and other journals with lower citation counts in JVS, all of which focus on fundamental and theoretical aspects of ecology and plant sciences. Some journals, such as the Journal of Ecology and Global Change Biology, had relatively high and balanced citation counts in both directions, whereas others, like the Journal of Biogeography, Scientific Reports, PLOS One, and Journal of Applied Ecology, showed balanced but overall low citation numbers.

The findings suggest varied citation dynamics influenced by journal focus. The higher citation counts in applied journals highlight the relevance of JVS articles for scientists developing solutions in vegetation management, biodiversity conservation and ecosystem monitoring. Although JVS does not focus on applied research (this is published in our sister journal Applied Vegetation Science), the results suggest that JVS articles on fundamental plant community ecology are sources of theoretical and empirical support as well as tools to inform applied research. The balanced citation relationship with the Journal of Ecology and Global Change Biology suggests that the fundamental questions and approaches of both journals resonate with each other, in contrast to some other fundamental ecology journals that cited JVS less often than they were cited by JVS.

We are pleased to announce that the 2024 Editor's Award goes to the methodological article by Andrew Siefert, Daniel Laughlin and Francesco Sabatini (Siefert, Laughlin, and Sabatini 2024) on the use of species co-occurrence data to make ecological predictions. They introduce and evaluate an innovative method to encode species co-occurrence data into low-dimensional vectors, capturing distinct ecological information that may not be evident in traits or phylogeny. They tested the method using species co-occurrence data from sPlotOpen, a global vegetation plot database (Sabatini et al. 2021). The vectors were then applied to predict species elevation range shifts using an independent data set from European mountains. The new method improved the predictive power compared with using traits or phylogeny.

An article by Petra Janečková, Lubomír Tichý, Lawrence R. Walker and Karel Prach (Janečková et al. 2024) emerged as a forerunner for the Editors' Award. The authors analysed the trajectory of spontaneous succession on the basis of 528 published studies from around the world. Their results showed that the type of disturbance was the most significant factor underlying success in achieving target vegetation recovery, with vegetation changes after fire showing the most successful outcomes, whereas those after volcano eruptions had the least successful results. Vegetation trajectories were also shaped by temperature and latitude, and to a lesser degree by biological factors.

The second forerunner to the Editors' Award was a research article by Juliette Hocedez, Karine Gotty, Vanessa Hequet, Sandrine Chay, Audrey Léopold, Stéphane Dray and Yohan Pillon, which explored the co-existence of vascular plant species in a diverse shrubland on nutrient-poor and metal-rich soils in New Caledonia (Hocedez et al. 2024). Based on an analysis of the leaf ionome (22 chemical elements) and types of root symbioses, the authors found that species occupied distinct niches, with the rarest species displaying the most functionally unique attributes. The authors concluded that species co-existence in the studied plant community is likely explained by the partitioning of their biogeochemical niches.

As you may notice when reading the PDF version of this Editorial, the graphic design of the articles has changed. This design has been introduced in many other journals published by Wiley, our publisher. However, the Journal of Vegetation Science is owned by the International Association for Vegetation Science, and the team of editors is related to this association. Currently, the journal has four Chief Editors, 36 Associate Editors and 36 members of the Editorial Review Board. In 2024, Gabriella Damasceno and Glenda Mendieta-Leiva were appointed as new members of the Editorial Review Board. Jonathan Bennett and Yasuhiro Kubota have stepped down as Associate Editors. Many thanks to them and to the other members of the Editorial Board for their dedicated work for the journal. We are also grateful for the help of 256 reviewers over the past year, many of whom reviewed more than one article (Appendix A).

The authors declare no conflicts of interest.