About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Ethnobiology Letters (EBL) invites manuscripts concerning ethnobiology, the study of the relationships between humans and environments in diverse spatial and temporal contexts. Article types are Research Communications; Interviews & Reflections; Perspective essays; Data, Methods & Taxonomies; Short Topical Reviews; and Reviews.

Research Communications are short case studies that include description of methods, results, and brief discussion of the implications of results. Perspectives present scholarly opinions, memoirs, and scientific arguments relevant to ethnobiology. Interviews & Reflections communicate insights, perspectives, and thoughts in a conversational style and in diverse formats including personal essays, obituaries, memorials, and non-scientific opinion pieces. Data, Methods & Taxonomies portray innovative approaches and/or communicate ethnobiological data, such as plant taxa and linguistic notes. Short Topical Reviews critically review relevant literature on a narrow topic of particular interest or neglect in ethnobiology.  Reviews evaluate texts, films, or exhibitions and assess their value within ethnobiology and related disciplines (see Books Available for Review). Additional information about target manuscript lengths for these article types is provided on the Article Types page.

Longer research papers should be submitted for consideration to the Journal of Ethnobiology. Monographs and thematic edited volumes should be submitted to Contributions in Ethnobiology.

Due to its scope and small size, the editors of Ethnobiology Letters do not extensively edit manuscripts. We require that authors who write in English as a second language have their papers edited prior to submission.

Publication Frequency

Ethnobiology Letters is published on a continual basis with one regular volume per year and occasional special thematic issues.

Open Access Policy

This journal provides immediate open access to its content on the principle that making research freely available to the public supports a greater global exchange of knowledge. Articles are licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0), which permits others to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited. Commercial reuse must be authorized by the copyright holder.

Copyrights to articles published in 2016 and thereafter are owned by the author(s). At the time of submission, authors(s) must agree to our Copyright Notice.

Ethnobiology Letters implemented use of Creative Commons licenses in 2016. Authors of all papers published before that year assigned primary and subsidiary copyrights to Ethnobiology Letters either by signing a Copyright Release form or agreeing to our Copyright Notice during the online submission process. Copyrights to articles published from 2010 to 2015 are owned by Ethnobiology Letters and the Society of Ethnobiology. Under their copyright authority, as of January 4, 2016, Ethnobiology Letters and the Society of Ethnobiology apply the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International Public License (CC BY-NC 4.0) for all previously published articles. Accordingly, for articles published from 2010 to 2015, Ethnobiology Letters remains the copyright holder and: (1) as contractually agreed, authors retain nonexclusive license to republish their contents without charge in any printed or digital text of their authorship and in any online repository and (2) authors and others are permitted to use, distribute, and reproduce the work non-commercially, provided the work's authorship and initial publication in this journal are properly cited.