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>