Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment (agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment)

Journal positioning

Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment (AGEE), published by Elsevier, sits at the interface of agriculture and the environment at field-to-landscape scale: how agricultural systems affect — and are affected by — nutrient and greenhouse-gas fluxes, biodiversity, soil and water quality, and ecosystem services. Its defining expectation is a study whose central contribution is an environmental outcome of agroecosystem management, quantified with sound design and generalizable beyond one plot. A pure crop-yield/agronomy study with no environmental outcome, or a soil-process mechanism study with no agroecosystem/management framing, fits a sibling journal better. This skill is a fit / venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live AGEE author guidance.

When to trigger

• The author names AGEE and wants a fit/framing check for an agriculture–environment paper.
• A management or land-use study must be framed around its environmental outcome (fluxes,

biodiversity, water/soil quality) rather than around yield alone.

• The author is choosing between AGEE, field-crops-research (crop/yield focus), and

soil-biology-and-biochemistry (soil-process mechanism).

• The author needs AGEE's desk-reject heuristics and a credible alternative route.

Scope & topic fit

• Greenhouse-gas and nutrient fluxes from agroecosystems (N2O, CH4, CO2; N and P losses) and

their management drivers.

• Biodiversity and ecosystem services in agricultural landscapes: pollinators, natural enemies,

soil biota, and habitat effects.

• Soil and water quality outcomes of agricultural management at field-to-catchment scale.
• Land-use and management effects on agroecosystem function, including conservation

agriculture, agroforestry, and grazing systems.

• Trade-offs and synergies between production and environmental outcomes across landscapes.
• Modeling and upscaling of agroecosystem environmental outcomes when validated against

measurements.

Method & evidence bar

• The central claim must be an environmental outcome at field-to-landscape scale,

quantified with defensible design and adequate replication across space and/or time.

• Flux measurements need appropriate sampling frequency, chamber/eddy methodology, and error

characterization; cumulative-flux estimates must state their uncertainty.

• Biodiversity and ecosystem-service studies need sound sampling design, taxonomic/functional

rigor, and statistics that handle landscape structure and pseudoreplication.

• Management comparisons need realistic controls and full agronomic/environmental context so

outcomes are attributable and transferable.

• Models and upscaling must be validated against measured fluxes/outcomes with reported skill;

data and code should be available per Elsevier policy.

Structure & house style

• Standard IMRaD; the introduction must frame the agriculture–environment problem and the

outcome of interest, not just a production question.

• Methods must document the agroecosystem (soil, climate, management) and the environmental

measurement protocol in reproducible detail.

• Figures/tables should make the environmental outcome and its management drivers visible

(flux time series, landscape comparisons, trade-off plots) with variability shown.

• A data-availability statement and complete site/management metadata are expected;

supplementary material carries measurement detail.

Official-submission checklist

• Before giving submission-ready advice, read ../../resources/source-basis.md and

../../resources/official-source-map.md; start from the official source anchors, then cite the current Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment page you checked.

• Search the live site for "Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment guide for authors" and

follow the current Elsevier version.

• Re-check article types, structure, word/figure expectations, and abstract format.
• Confirm the data-availability/repository policy and reporting of environmental measurement

and management metadata.

• Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and

open-access terms.

• If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions

win.

Pre-submission self-check

• [ ] The central contribution is an environmental outcome of agroecosystem management, not yield alone.
• [ ] Design has adequate spatial/temporal replication and handles landscape structure.
• [ ] Flux/biodiversity measurements have appropriate methods and reported uncertainty.
• [ ] Management comparisons have realistic controls and full environmental/agronomic context.
• [ ] Models/upscaling are validated against measured outcomes with reported skill.
• [ ] Data-availability statement and site/management metadata are prepared.

Common desk-reject triggers

• A pure crop-yield/agronomy study with no quantified environmental outcome.
• A soil-process mechanism study with no agroecosystem or management framing.
• Flux estimates without uncertainty, or sampling too sparse to support cumulative claims.
• Biodiversity/ecosystem-service claims with weak sampling design or pseudoreplication.
• A single-plot result generalized to landscape scale without justification.

Re-routing decision

• Crop yield/agronomy and resource-use efficiency is the core → field-crops-research.
• Soil-process mechanism (SOM, microbial function, nutrient cycling) is the core → soil-biology-and-biochemistry.
• Explicit sustainability framing, review, or meta-analysis → agronomy-for-sustainable-development.
• Large-scale climate/global-change ecosystem process dominant → global-change-biology.
• Broad food-systems significance → nature-food.

Output format

[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] Agriculture, Ecosystems & Environment
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest agriculture–environment topics>
[Environmental outcome] <the field-to-landscape outcome and its management driver>
[Method/evidence] <does design + measurement rigor + replication clear AGEE's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / data policy / measurement + metadata reporting / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>