Serguei Saavedra, Sonia Kéfi
Systems Ecology Vol. 1 (2026)
Systems ecology seeks to understand how interactions among ecological components generate system-level patterns, dynamics, and responses to change. In this founding editorial, we outline the motivation and scope of Systems Ecology, a diamond open-access journal organized around systems-level ecological questions rather than disciplinary boundaries. We introduce the journal’s Field Map as a living framework for connecting contributions across ecological systems and identify a set of open questions spanning emergence, energy and material constraints, persistence and fragility, transformation, recovery, scaling, spatial connectivity, and inference and prediction. We argue for a publishing model in which synthesis, theory, empirical work, methods, and cross-system comparisons contribute collectively to cumulative understanding in systems ecology.Systems ecology seeks to understand how interactions among ecological components generate system-level patterns, dynamics, and responses to change. In this founding editorial, we outline the motivation and scope of Systems Ecology, a diamond open-access journal organized around systems-level ecological questions rather than disciplinary boundaries. We introduce the journal’s Field Map as a living framework for connecting contributions across ecological systems and identify a set of open questions spanning emergence, energy and material constraints, persistence and fragility, transformation, recovery, scaling, spatial connectivity, and inference and prediction. We argue for a publishing model in which synthesis, theory, empirical work, methods, and cross-system comparisons contribute collectively to cumulative understanding in systems ecology.
Read the full article at: systems-ecology.org
