Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation: three years on

Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation: three years on Nathalie Pettorelli, Harini Nagendra, Duccio Rocchini, Marcus Rowcliffe, Rob Williams, Jorge Ahumada, Carlos De Angelo, Clement Atzberger, Doreen Boyd, Graeme Buchanan, Alienor Chauvenet, Mathias Disney, Clare Duncan, Temilola Fatoyinbo, Nestor Fernandez, Muki Haklay, Kate He, Ned Horning, Natalie Kelly, Helen de Klerk, Xuehua Liu, Nathan Merchant, Jos e Paruelo, Helen Roy, Shovonlal Roy, Sadie Ryan, Rahel Sollmann, Jennifer Swenson & Martin Wegmann Institute of Zoology, Zoological Society of London, London, United Kingdom School of Development, Azim Premji University, Bangalore, Karnataka, India Center for Agriculture Food and Environment, University of Trento, San Michele all’Adige, Italy Oceans Initiative, Seattle, Washington, USA Tropical Ecology Assessment and Monitoring (TEAM), Conservation International, Arlington, Virginia, USA Instituto de Biolog ıa Subtropical, Universidad Nacional de Misiones and CONICET, Puerto Iguaz u, Misiones, Argentina Institute for Surveying, Remote Sensing and Land Information, University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences (BOKU), Vienna, Austria School of Geography, University of Nottingham, Nottingham, United Kingdom RSPB Centre for Conservation Science, RSPB Scotland, Edinburgh, United Kingdom School of Biological Sciences, University of Queensland, St Lucia, Queensland, Australia Department of Geography, University College London, London, and NERC National Centre for Earth Observation (NCEO), United Kingdom School of Life and Environmental Sciences, Deakin University, Burwood, Australia Biospheric Sciences Laboratory, NASA Goddard Space Flight Center, Greenbelt, Maryland, USA Department of Conservation Biology, CSIC Estacion Biologica de Do~ nana, Seville, Spain Department of Civil Environmental and Geomatic Engineering, University College London, London, United Kingdom Department of Biological Sciences, Murray State University, Murray, Kentucky, USA Center for Biodiversity and Conservation, American Museum of Natural History, New York, USA Australian Antarctic Division, Kingston, Tasmania, Australia Department of Geography and Environmental Studies, Stellenbosch University, Stellenbosch, South Africa School of Environment, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China Noise & Bioacoustics Team, Centre for Environment, Fisheries and Aquaculture Science (Cefas), Lowestoft, United Kingdom National Scientific and Technical Research Council (CONICET), University of Buenos Aires, Buenos Aires, Argentina NERC Centre for Ecology & Hydrology, Wallingford, United Kingdom Department of Geography and Environmental Science, University of Reading, Reading, United Kingdom Department of Geography, University of Florida, Gainesville, Florida, USA Department of Wildlife Fish and Conservation Biology, University of California Davis, Davis, California, USA Nicholas School of the Environment, Duke University, Durham, North Carolina, USA Department of Remote Sensing, University of W€ urzburg, W€ urzburg, Germany

In 2014, Wiley and the Zoological Society of London launched Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, an open-access journal that aims to support communication and collaboration among experts in remote sensing, ecology and conservation science. Remote sensing was from the start understood as the acquisition of information about an object or phenomenon through a device that is not in physical contact with the object, thus including camera traps, field spectrometry, terrestrial and aquatic acoustic sensors, aerial and satellite monitoring as well as ship-borne automatic identification systems (Pettorelli et al. 2015). The primary goals of this new journal were, and still are, to maximize the understanding and uptake of remote sensing-based techniques and products by the ecological and conservation communities, prioritizing findings that advance the scientific basis of, and applied outcomes from, ecology and conservation science; and to identify ecological challenges that might direct development of future remote sensors and data products.
In October 2015, the first issue of the journal was published, with four other issues produced in 2016 and four to be published in 2017. As Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation is about to complete its second full year of publication and is working towards a first impact factor score in early 2019, the time has come to reflect on how the journal has done to date, what impact it has had, which niches it has successfully filled and where the journal is yet to meet its full potential. By sharing our successes and experiences so far with our contributors and readers, we hope to demonstrate how Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation has swiftly gained significant visibility and status among scientists and practitioners interested in natural resource management.
So what is our record so far? Since its inception and up until late December 2016, 24 peer-reviewed papers have been published in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation, including 15 original research papers, three policy forums, five interdisciplinary perspectives and one review. As of the 31st of March 2017, average downloads per article was 1038 for articles published in 2015 (bearing in mind that only six contributions were published that year), and 899 for 2016. Table 1 provides the total number of downloads as of the 31st of March 2017 for each article published in Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. The global reach of the journal is also reflected in its readership, as shown in Figure 1. Are these papers impactful? Have these papers been cited? If so, have they been cited in both remote sensing and ecological and conservation journals? The short answer is yes, yes, and yes. In 2015 alone, our papers received a total of 10384 viewings with an average of 1038 accesses per article, placing Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation fourth out of all Wiley journals for the top full-text download accesses per article. Based on available altmetric data for the 24 contributions published in 2015 and 2016, the average altmetric score was 36 at the end of March 2017, with several articles achieving altmetric scores of 80 or above (Table 1).
Our citations records for these contributions are equally strong given our young history. According to Scopus, our 2015 and 2016 papers have so far been cited 63 times (or 133 times according to Google scholar) in 37 peer reviewed journals, including Methods in Ecology and Evolution, Journal of Applied Ecology, Biodiversity and Conservation, Remote Sensing of Environment, Progress in Physical Geography, Ecology and Current Opinion in Environmental Sustainability. Interestingly, our most popular contributions have by far been Policy Forums and Interdisciplinary Perspectives, with one Perspective and a Policy Forum published in late 2015 cited over 10 times by the end of March 2017. It is important at this stage to acknowledge that Scopus has a different coverage to Clarivate Analytics (who produce impact factor scores), and that the numbers presented relied on specific data requests, which means that some citations may have been  missed. As such, these data should be interpreted as indicative, and obviously a different set of data will be used to generate the first impact factor for Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation. What can we learn from these statistics and reports? Without doubt, there was a need for a publishing platform that capitalizes on the growing set of interdisciplinary research interests shared by the remote sensing, ecological and conservation communities, and indications so far are that Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation has successfully engaged many members of these communities (Fig. 2). Launching a new journal in the context of a competitive publishing environment was always going to be difficult, especially as new journals cannot use impact factors to attract top-notch contributions. Despite these challenges, Remote Sensing in Ecology and Conservation has managed to publish regular, high-quality issues that have attracted the attention of, and recognition from, the audiences it seeks to enthuse. As we build up a track record of publishing excellent science that is reaching its intended audience, and as the prospect of getting our first impact factor approaches, we know that our efforts have paid off, and that our journal is here to stay.
But we are still far from where we want to be. Our contributions so far have mainly targeted the terrestrial realm, and primarily relate to the use of satellite remote sensing data. Thanks to two successful calls for special issues and the recent appointment of several new editorial board members, we have recently seen an increase in the number of submissions capitalizing on the use of unmanned aerial vehicles and camera traps to address ecological and conservation issues. Going forward, we will be redoubling our efforts to engage with communities working with marine and freshwater ecosystems and scientists interested in acoustics. Growing submissions in these areas is a priority for the years to come, as is further supporting knowledge transfer among researchers and practitioners involved with different remote sensing technologies. But above all, our top priority remains providing a platform where people can publish excellent science important to the ecology and conservation of biodiversity. Ultimately, we believe the concept of remote sensing for theoretical and applied ecological research is innovative and exciting; we are delighted to reflect this through the manuscripts we publish and look forward to extending our reach to encompass diverse technologies across environments.