npj Biodiversity: Journal Scope, Impact, and Submission

npj Biodiversity is an open-access journal in the Nature Portfolio’s npj (Nature Partner Journals) series, publishing peer-reviewed research that spans the full breadth of biodiversity science. Launched in 2022, it covers everything from species discovery and ecosystem monitoring to the social, ethical, and policy dimensions of conserving life on Earth. For researchers considering where to submit biodiversity-related work, the journal occupies a distinctive niche: it pairs the visibility of the Nature brand with a genuinely broad scope and a strong editorial commitment to global inclusivity.

What the Journal Publishes

The scope of npj Biodiversity is deliberately wide. Rather than focusing narrowly on taxonomy, ecology, or conservation genetics in isolation, the journal welcomes work that connects these fields and integrates them with social science, policy, and emerging technology. A glance at recent issues reveals papers on environmental DNA methods for surveying deep-sea fish communities alongside perspectives on Indigenous data sovereignty and editorials addressing structural inequities in global biodiversity research. That range is intentional. The journal’s founding editorial, authored by Editor-in-Chief J.H. and Associate Editors M.C., J.A.D.-F., S.vdH., A.L.S., and D.C.J.Y., framed the mission as building “a truly diverse biodiversity science,” signaling that diversity in both subject matter and authorship would be central to the journal’s identity.

In practical terms, this means the journal is receptive to work that might feel too interdisciplinary for a traditional ecology journal or too biological for a social science outlet. If your research sits at the intersection of biodiversity data, human communities, governance, or technology, npj Biodiversity is designed to be a home for it.

Article Types and Formatting

Like other journals in the npj series, npj Biodiversity accepts several content types, each with distinct formatting expectations:

  • Article: The primary research format, expected to report substantial original findings. These follow a conventional structure with a title page, abstract, main text (including results and discussion sections), references, and figure legends.
  • Review: Comprehensive syntheses of a research area, suitable for readers who need an authoritative overview of accumulated evidence on a topic.
  • Perspective: Opinion-driven pieces that offer a viewpoint on a scientific question, often proposing new frameworks or challenging established ones.
  • Comment: Shorter pieces addressing policies, commentaries, or developments in the field.
  • Correspondence: Brief communications, often responding to previously published work.
  • Matters Arising: Focused critiques of or responses to specific published papers, offering reanalysis or alternative interpretations.
  • Editorial: Pieces from the editorial team setting out journal priorities or addressing the state of the field.

Each format has specific structural guidelines that authors should consult on the journal’s content types page before preparing a manuscript.

1npj Biodiversity. Content types

Thematic Priorities and the Kinds of Research That Fit

While the journal does not restrict submissions to a narrow list of topics, certain themes appear repeatedly in its published output and editorial signaling. Understanding these can help prospective authors gauge whether their work aligns.

Emerging Technologies for Biodiversity Monitoring

Environmental DNA, or eDNA, is a good example of the kind of methodological work the journal highlights. eDNA involves detecting genetic material shed by organisms into water, soil, or air, and it has become a powerful tool for surveying biodiversity without physically capturing or disturbing animals. The approach is especially valued for identifying rare, endangered, and invasive species across aquatic, terrestrial, and atmospheric ecosystems, and eDNA metabarcoding now enables large-scale profiling of microbial communities as well.

2PubMed Central. Environmental DNA (eDNA) Technology in Biodiversity and Ecosystem Health Research: Advances and Prospects

npj Biodiversity has published original research pushing the boundaries of this technology. One study used eDNA analysis alongside imaging to survey deep-sea fish communities around a Pacific seamount. The researchers collected both seawater and sponge tissue samples, finding that the two sample types yielded strikingly different portraits of the fish community. Sponge samples picked up a wider range of species, including many shallow-water fish, while seawater samples more selectively detected deep-sea species. The work detected up to 16 fish species across four families in sponge samples compared to just three species in a single taxon from nearby seawater, illustrating both the power and the interpretive challenges of eDNA in remote environments.

3npj Biodiversity. Utilizing environmental DNA and imaging to study the deep-sea fish community of Takuyo-Daigo Seamount

Papers like this are representative of what the journal looks for: methodologically innovative, ecologically relevant, and upfront about limitations. If your research applies new monitoring tools to biodiversity questions and grapples honestly with what the data can and cannot tell you, the journal is likely a good fit.

Indigenous Knowledge, Ethics, and Data Sovereignty

A second strong editorial thread is the integration of Indigenous peoples and local communities (often abbreviated IPLC) into biodiversity research as genuine partners, not just subjects or informants. This is not a marginal concern for the field. Indigenous peoples represent less than five percent of the global population yet own or govern roughly 37.9 million square kilometers of land and associated inland waters across 82 countries. Those lands cover about a quarter of the Earth’s land surface, 40 percent of terrestrial protected areas and ecologically intact landscapes, and 36 percent of intact forest landscapes. In Australia alone, between 45 and 60 percent of threatened species are found on Indigenous lands.

4Nature. Indigenous peoples and local communities as partners in the sequencing of global eukaryotic biodiversity

Given those numbers, biodiversity research that ignores Indigenous land governance and knowledge systems is not just ethically incomplete but scientifically incomplete. The journal has published work arguing that within the movement toward open science and open data, Indigenous communities’ control and sovereignty over databases related to their knowledge, culture, territories, and livelihoods is a critical step that institutions shaped by colonial legacies have not yet fully upheld.

5Nature. A global biodiversity use data infrastructure acknowledging indigenous and local knowledge

For authors, this means the journal expects serious engagement with ethical standards around benefit-sharing, prior informed consent, and respectful collaboration with local communities. If your study involves genetic material, ecological data, or traditional ecological knowledge from Indigenous territories, you should be prepared to demonstrate how those communities were involved as partners in the research process, not just as a source of samples.

Global Equity in Biodiversity Science

The journal’s emphasis on inclusivity connects to a broader problem in the field that prospective authors should understand. Biodiversity research has long been shaped by economic and geopolitical asymmetries. Wealthier nations have historically dominated species discovery, sometimes describing new species from biodiverse tropical regions without involving local scientists at all, a practice widely called “parachute science.” Research on terrestrial mollusc species descriptions, for instance, has found that a country’s per capita GDP is positively correlated with both the number of species its scientists describe abroad and the proportion of species described without the involvement of resident researchers.

6PubMed Central. Geopolitical impacts on the description of new terrestrial mollusc species

npj Biodiversity has positioned itself as a journal that actively works against this pattern. The founding editorial explicitly called for diversity in authorship and geographic representation, and the journal’s content reflects an effort to publish voices from the Global South and from communities historically excluded from academic biodiversity discourse. For researchers based in or collaborating with institutions in biodiversity-rich but economically disadvantaged regions, this editorial posture can translate into a more receptive review process than they might encounter at legacy journals. It also means that submissions demonstrating genuine international collaboration, equitable credit, and community engagement are likely to be viewed favorably.

7Nature. Building a truly diverse biodiversity science

Open Access and What It Means for Authors

As part of the npj series, npj Biodiversity is fully open access. Every published paper is freely available to anyone with an internet connection, which has clear advantages for the visibility and real-world impact of biodiversity research. Conservation practitioners, land managers, policymakers, and community-based organizations can read published findings without running into paywalls, which matters in a field where the people who most need the science often work outside universities.

The trade-off, as with all open-access journals in the Nature Portfolio, is an article processing charge (APC) that authors or their institutions pay upon acceptance. The specific fee varies and should be confirmed on the journal’s website before submission, since these charges can be substantial and some funders cover them while others do not. Many research funders now mandate open-access publication and provide earmarked funds for APCs, so it is worth checking your grant terms early in the writing process rather than after acceptance.

The journal’s open-access model also intersects with its stance on data sharing. Open science principles are woven into its editorial expectations, and the published literature on Indigenous data sovereignty that the journal has highlighted suggests these expectations are evolving. Authors are generally expected to make underlying data available, but for datasets involving Indigenous or community knowledge, the journal appears receptive to arrangements that balance openness with the data sovereignty rights of the communities involved. This is an area where blanket “data must be open” mandates have caused friction across the life sciences, and the journal’s editorial content signals awareness of the tension.

Impact and Standing in the Field

npj Biodiversity is young. Launched in 2022, it does not yet have the decades-long citation record of established journals in conservation biology or ecology. For authors evaluating where to submit, this means there is no extensive journal impact factor history to compare against, say, Conservation Biology or Biological Conservation. What the journal does have is the institutional weight of the Nature Portfolio behind it, which confers immediate credibility and discoverability. Papers published in npj Biodiversity appear in Nature.com searches, are indexed in major databases, and benefit from the promotional infrastructure that Nature Portfolio applies to its family of journals.

For early-career researchers in particular, the trade-off between a newer journal with high visibility and a legacy journal with a long citation track record is worth thinking through. A paper in npj Biodiversity reaches a broad audience quickly and carries the Nature name, but hiring and tenure committees at some institutions still weigh traditional impact factors heavily. As the journal accumulates more years of citation data, this calculus will likely shift. In the meantime, the journal’s editorial scope and the caliber of its published content suggest it is building a strong reputation quickly.

How Biodiversity Research Reaches the Public

One dimension of impact that matters to the journal’s stated mission is how published research translates into public awareness and policy change. Research on how biodiversity science gets covered in the media offers some useful context here. A study analyzing over 800 Dutch newspaper articles about biodiversity research found that nearly half were triggered not by new scientific publications but by non-scientific events like political developments and societal debates. Scientific sources were cited in about 83 percent of the articles, but societal, political, and economic perspectives were rarely included, limiting the diversity of viewpoints in public biodiversity reporting.

8ScienceDirect. Media coverage of biodiversity research in the Netherlands: news triggers, sources, and frames

This suggests that biodiversity researchers who want their work to reach policymakers and the public should consider linking it to current affairs and policy discussions, not just publishing it in a journal and hoping journalists notice. npj Biodiversity’s inclusion of Comment and Perspective article types provides a formal avenue for this kind of engagement. Researchers can publish short, policy-relevant pieces that contextualize primary findings for non-specialist audiences, and the open-access format means those pieces are available to journalists and advocates without barriers.

Practical Submission Considerations

If you are preparing a manuscript for npj Biodiversity, a few practical points are worth keeping in mind beyond the standard guidance of reading the journal’s author instructions carefully.

First, scope alignment matters more at an interdisciplinary journal than at a narrowly focused one. A manuscript that is purely methodological (validating a new statistical technique, for example) without a clear connection to biodiversity questions may be redirected to a methods journal. Similarly, a purely ecological study with no broader implications for conservation, policy, or human communities might be better suited to a specialist ecology journal. The sweet spot is work that bridges disciplines or connects biological findings to human dimensions of biodiversity.

Second, ethical rigor around community engagement and Indigenous partnerships is not optional window dressing. Given the journal’s editorial record, reviewers are likely to scrutinize how the research engages with local stakeholders, particularly for studies conducted in biodiverse regions of the Global South. If your study collected samples or data from Indigenous lands, your methods section should describe the consent and collaboration framework in detail.

Third, consider the article type carefully. Not every contribution needs to be a full research article. If your primary contribution is a synthesis of existing evidence, a Review may be more appropriate. If you want to propose a new conceptual framework or challenge existing thinking, a Perspective is designed for exactly that. Matching your content to the right format increases your chances of a favorable editorial decision and ensures reviewers evaluate your work against the appropriate criteria.

Environmental DNA as a Window Into the Journal’s Review Standards

The seamount eDNA study mentioned earlier offers a useful glimpse into how the journal handles methodological nuance in review. The authors were transparent about the biases in their sampling: sponge tissues accumulated eDNA differently than seawater, producing a higher species count but one skewed toward shallow-water fish that had presumably shed DNA carried by currents. Seawater samples were more representative of the local deep-sea community but detected far fewer species. Rather than glossing over this, the paper flagged it explicitly and recommended conservative interpretation, focusing downstream analysis exclusively on deep-sea fishes whose presence could be more confidently attributed to the study site.

3npj Biodiversity. Utilizing environmental DNA and imaging to study the deep-sea fish community of Takuyo-Daigo Seamount

This kind of transparent limitation-reporting appears to be valued rather than penalized by the journal’s reviewers. For authors considering submission, it is a useful signal. Overselling results or downplaying methodological caveats is a red flag at any journal, but at one that explicitly values rigorous, honest science across disciplines, it is likely to draw sharper scrutiny. Present what your data show, be clear about what they do not, and let the contribution speak for itself. That approach aligns well with the editorial culture npj Biodiversity appears to be cultivating as it grows from a new entrant into an established voice in the field.