New open access journal PLOS Ecosystems publishes its first papers on September 8, 2026. The first issue includes research and writing on a range of key topics focused on ecosystems, the environment, biodiversity, and policy.
Earth is experiencing rapid ecosystem changes and biodiversity loss. Though the problems these issues trigger are deeply interconnected, the scientific community has lacked a multidisciplinary, global journal to meet this moment. PLOS Ecosystems seeks to create a space for scientists working across fields to publish work addressing the biodiversity crisis, the environmental challenges affecting society and the natural world, and more – and to reach researchers, practitioners, and decision-makers.
The journal's Editor-in-Chief, Henrique M. Pereira, is the Professor of Biodiversity Conservation at iDiv, the German Center for Integrative Biodiversity Research, leads the General Zoology department at Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, and is an Invited Professor at BIOPOLIS/InBio, Universidade do Porto. In an Editorial accompanying the journal’s first issue, he notes that PLOS Ecosystems , includes sections dedicated to key topics of the Intergovernmental Platform on Biodiversity and Ecosystems Services, including pollution, climate, biodiversity, terrestrial and freshwater/marine ecosystems, social-ecological interactions, and nature contributions to people. Each journal section is overseen by a diverse group of academic editors drawn from across all six inhabited continents
In this first issue of PLOS Ecosystems , papers include:
For Pereira, the need for a journal like PLOS Ecosystems comes from a growing gap between the complexity of environmental challenges and the way research is often published: “There are already a lot of journals in this field broadly, but they are too specialized - they only cover parts of the challenges that we have in ecosystem research or they are not affordable and they are too expensive for scientists to publish.”
Pereira adds: “What motivated me to join PLOS as Editor-in-Chief for PLOS Ecosystems is that I feel that there is a need for a truly transdisciplinary journal that integrates all scientists that are working to address ecosystem change, biodiversity loss, and all the other associated environmental problems…the biggest challenge is to uncover what parts of this complexity we can pinpoint to find solutions for policies and management approaches that can be used by practitioners to lead us towards a positive path for nature and people."
He concludes: “My vision is of a forum to publish not only the best research in ecosystem and biodiversity science, but also to publish research that is societally relevant…and that is read by practitioners and decision-makers around the world, so that we accelerate the speed at which research in this field is uptaken.”
In your coverage please use this URL to provide access to the freely available article in PLOS Ecosystems : https://plos.io/46oLny5
Citation: Pereira HM (2026) PLOS Ecosystems: An interdisciplinary journal for ecosystem and biodiversity sciences. PLOS Ecosyst 1(1): e0000031. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pesy.0000031
Author Countries: Germany, Portugal
Funding: There was no funding for this Editorial.
Also in the first issue of PLOS Ecosystems, publishing September 8:
Commentary/editorial
Not applicable