The British Ecological Society (BES) is the world's oldest ecological society, founded in London in 1913 - the same year it launched Journal of Ecology. Today it owns seven journals spanning every sub-field of ecology, from plant and animal ecology to applied conservation, methods development, and human-nature relationships. All BES journals are published in partnership with Wiley and hosted on besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com, and publishing income is reinvested in grants, training, and community programmes for ecologists.

For authors, the BES portfolio is unusual in a good way: it combines A-list society journals with a clear open-access ladder (three fully-OA titles, hybrid OA on the rest), a 20% APC discount for members, and a portfolio-wide double-anonymous peer-review policy adopted after the society's own three-year randomised trial found that anonymising author identities reduces reviewer bias. This guide covers which BES journal fits your paper, what each one publishes, the real APC numbers, and how submission works.

Seven society-owned journals, all in ecology:

• Journal of Ecology (est. 1913) - plant and ecosystem ecology; the society's original flagship.
• Journal of Animal Ecology (est. 1932) - animal ecology across scales.
• Journal of Applied Ecology (est. 1964) - ecology applied to management and policy.
• Functional Ecology (est. 1987) - organismal, physiological, and evolutionary ecology.
• Methods in Ecology and Evolution (est. 2010; fully OA since January 2023) - methods, statistics, software, and equipment.
• People and Nature (est. 2019; Gold OA) - interdisciplinary human-nature research.
• Ecological Solutions and Evidence (est. 2020; Gold OA) - applied evidence and practice.

The BES also co-owns Ecology and Evolution, a broad-scope Gold OA journal, in partnership with Wiley. All titles are indexed in the major databases, and the core research journals sit consistently in the top quartile of ecology rankings.

The BES offers three OA routes: Gold OA in the three fully-OA titles, hybrid OA in the four subscription journals, and Green self-archiving under Wiley's standard policy. APCs below are from the 2026 Wiley price list (USD, before tax) - always confirm on the journal's own fees page before submitting.

Three things cut these numbers substantially: BES members receive a 20% APC discount; corresponding authors from countries on Wiley's Waivers and Discounts List get automatic waivers or discounts; and authors at institutions with a Wiley Read & Publish (transformative) agreement - which cover thousands of institutions worldwide - can usually publish OA at no direct cost. In the hybrid journals, OA is optional: you can publish behind the subscription paywall with no fee at all.

The BES runs double-anonymous peer review across its portfolio - both author and reviewer identities are concealed. The society adopted this after publishing a three-year randomised trial in Functional Ecology showing that review outcomes were more even across author demographics when identities were anonymised. Prepare your manuscript accordingly: remove author names, affiliations, and self-identifying statements from the main text at initial submission, following each journal's anonymisation checklist.

1. Pick the journal using the decision table above; scopes are distinct, and editors frequently offer transfers between BES titles if the fit is better elsewhere.
2. Read the author guidelines on the journal's page at besjournals.onlinelibrary.wiley.com - word limits and article types differ by title.
3. Prepare an anonymised manuscript using the journal's template on SciSpace, with BES author-year referencing.
4. Submit online - BES journals have used ScholarOne Manuscripts via Wiley; Wiley is progressively migrating titles to its Research Exchange platform, so follow the submission link in the journal's current author guidelines.
5. Consider a transfer if declined: reviews can move with your paper to another BES journal, saving a full re-review cycle.

The BES journals follow COPE guidelines and Wiley's integrity framework, with published editorial policies covering authorship, competing interests, data availability, and corrections. Data archiving is expected: most BES journals require data underlying results to be deposited in a public repository (e.g., Dryad or Zenodo) with a data availability statement. As a registered UK charity, the society reinvests publishing surpluses into grants, meetings, and support for ecologists.