Aims and scope

Journal of Experimental Biology (JEB) is the leading journal in comparative animal physiology. We publish papers on the form and function of living organisms at all levels of biological organisation, from the molecular and subcellular to the integrated whole animal. Our authors and readers reflect a broad interdisciplinary group of scientists who study molecular, cellular and organismal physiology in an evolutionary and environmental context by utilising an experimental approach and framework.

The single most important criterion for publication in JEB is significant advancement of scientific knowledge.

In general, this means:

1. We favour novel, mechanistic, hypothesis-driven papers that are of general importance to the field of comparative animal physiology and are of interest to the broad readership of JEB.
2. A paper should pose and test a significant hypothesis or answer an important question that is relevant to basic issues of experimental biology.
3. Articles focusing on model organisms will be considered but must test hypotheses with general physiological implications.
4. Papers must be accessible to scientists with a general biological background.

The journal does not have room for descriptive papers that do not make clear their broader mechanistic and scientific relevance.

Studies where physiological and biochemical traits are measured under natural conditions (i.e. without experimental manipulations) and that only describe patterns of traits are rarely considered for publication because our key focus is determining cause-and-effect and elucidating mechanisms.

'Big data' approaches (e.g. transcriptomics, proteomics, metabolomics or informatics) are welcome but only where they are used to frame physiological hypotheses that are subsequently tested experimentally in the same manuscript.

Please note that we do NOT publish research with a behavioural ecology, biomedical or general plant physiology focus; however, plant manuscripts that ask questions of immediate interest for animal physiology may occasionally be considered.

For more information on article types, click here.

JEB receives many more manuscripts than it can publish. In recent years, the number of published manuscripts constitutes approximately 30% of those submitted.

Computational simulation and robotics papers

Papers in the fields of robotics, simulation, and computational fluid dynamics (CFD) should contain experimental biological data that fulfil at least one of the following criteria: (1) experimental data that validate the presented CFD, mechanical simulation or robotic results and (2) new data on organismal function that serve to generate hypotheses or test predictions from CFD calculations, simulations or robotic devices. Purely theoretical papers that do not advance knowledge of experimental animal function will not be considered. For more detailed information about this policy, click here.