Journal of Ecology’s Reviews Editor, Jason Fridley, introduces our new Grime Reviews series.
We are currently accepting review proposals on the subject of “Remote sensing in plant ecology”. If you are interested in contributing please email your proposal by 31 January 2021 (see below for full details).

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Journal of Ecology is pleased to announce a new Essay Reviews series honoring eminent ecologist J. Philip (Phil) Grime. Grime Reviews are a set of commissioned papers on a subject area that rotates annually. The inaugural theme was plant-pathogen interactions, and you can read the first published contributions here.

Grime Reviews are meant to be provocative, timely, and forward-looking, not unlike the many contributions of Phil Grime himself to the Journal and our science over many decades. Journal readers will likely need no introduction to his work, but if you missed his personal research summary in recognition of the first entry of our Eminent Ecologist series, read it here. Grime Reviews will also cover the span of current and future research areas that are the purview of Journal of Ecology. This is also fitting, as Phil pioneered a large range of subjects over the span of his 60-year (and counting) career, including plant functional ecology, diversity-productivity relationships, global change ecology, consequences of intraspecific variation to community structure, plant phenology and genome size, mechanisms of resource foraging, how species interactions shape communities, and how species drive ecosystems, among many other contributions.

In his personal summary from 2013, Phil concluded that “Ecology cannot assume a place in the front rank of sciences addressing environmental and human problems unless it establishes reliable generalisations about how organisms function within ecosystems, cause them to vary from place to place, and allow them to suffer degradation under specific human pressures.” We hope that papers in the Grime Reviews series carry on this tradition of bold development of new theory, formalized in ways that permit robust empirical testing and wide application to the many challenges faced by humanity in the years ahead. The combination of detailed observation, general theorizing, and careful experiment are the hallmark of the Grimean approach to ecology, but equally important is wide, provocative dissemination—something few authors have done as well or as frequently as Phil.

It is in this spirit that we are encouraging essay review contributions and ideas for future Grime Reviews series! Please contact our Reviews Editor, Jason Fridley.

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The next Grime Review topic will be: What can remote sensing do for plant ecology? We are particularly interested in submissions that address how remote sensing can enhance how we view the natural world and accelerate the adoption of new technologies by plant ecologists. Submissions should follow our Essay Review format.

If you are interested in contributing please email a brief outline of your proposed contribution to the Journal’s Assistant Editor Rhiannon Robins by 31 January 2021.