brycewang-stanford Agriculture & environment journal workflow (en-agrienv-journal-workflow)
Purpose
This is the routing skill for the agriculture-and-environment bundle. It does not
replace a single-journal profile; it first classifies the manuscript by sub-field,
contribution type, and evidence shape, then routes into the matching per-journal
skill for fit and re-framing. It is a sibling to en-natsci-journal-workflow
(natural science) and en-engtech-journal-workflow (engineering).
Ask four things first
- Sub-field: crop/agronomy, plant biology, soil science, food science, ecosystem/environmental science, pollution/health, climate/atmosphere, hydrology/water, ocean/limnology, or solid-earth geoscience?
- Contribution type: a mechanism, a field/management result, a synthesis/review, a model or projection, a new dataset/data product, or a methods/measurement advance?
- Evidence shape: controlled field trial, glasshouse/lab assay, observational or monitoring survey, remote sensing, long-term record, process/earth-system model, or a documented public dataset?
- Audience breadth: broad significance (a Nature Portfolio title), a whole sub-field (a society flagship), or a specialist community?
Pre-routing evidence gates
Before naming a journal, classify the manuscript through these gates. A weak gate does not always mean "do not submit"; it usually means route down to a specialist venue, reframe the claim, or fix the evidence before testing a higher-prestige venue.
| Gate | Pass signal | If weak |
|---|---|---|
| Contribution | A mechanism, management implication, method, projection, or dataset that transfers beyond the study site | Reframe as a local case study, technical note, or specialist-field result |
| Evidence strength | Replicated sites/seasons/systems, transparent uncertainty, and controls matched to the claim | Do not route to broad Nature/society flagships; strengthen replication first |
| Scale match | Claim scale matches the evidence scale: plot, field, landscape, regional, global, or dataset | Narrow the title/abstract and select a venue that accepts the actual scale |
| Data/code readiness | Data, code, model configuration, and metadata can be deposited or shared under field norms | Treat deposition as a blocker for ESSD, earth-system, hydrology, and reuse claims |
| Compliance | Permits, ethics, biosafety, field-site permissions, and competing-interest disclosures are known | Pause final routing until the single-journal checklist can verify requirements |
Evidence-shape escalation
- Single site-year field trial: usually specialist agronomy/crop venue; do not pitch as general food-security evidence without multi-site or mechanistic support.
- Multi-site or multi-season field trial: can support field flagship routing if management implications and uncertainty are explicit.
- Lab/glasshouse mechanism: plant or soil mechanism venues; needs field or ecological validation before claiming landscape or management impact.
- Remote sensing / monitoring survey: route by validation and generalizability; benchmark against independent observations and document processing code.
- Process or earth-system model: route by the model contribution, sensitivity analysis, and reproducibility package, not only by the application region.
- Dataset/data product:
earth-system-science-dataonly when the dataset itself is the product, has persistent identifiers, rich metadata, and a public archive.
Quick routing
| Manuscript signature | Prefer skill |
|---|---|
| Food-systems advance with broad significance | nature-food |
| Plant-science advance, broad and high-impact | nature-plants |
| Fundamental plant biology / physiology / ecology | new-phytologist / the-plant-journal |
| Authoritative plant-biology review | annual-review-of-plant-biology |
| Crop yield, agronomy, cropping-system field research | field-crops-research / agronomy-for-sustainable-development |
| Agroecosystem nutrient/GHG/biodiversity at field-to-landscape scale | agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment |
| Soil biology, biogeochemistry, soil carbon/microbiome | soil-biology-and-biochemistry |
| Food chemistry / composition / safety | food-chemistry |
| Food-technology trends and synthesis | trends-in-food-science-and-technology |
| Climate-change impacts on ecosystems/biota | global-change-biology |
| Human-exposure environmental health | environment-international / environmental-health-perspectives |
| Sustainability, circular economy, cleaner production | journal-of-cleaner-production / resources-conservation-and-recycling |
| Authoritative environment & resources review | annual-review-of-environment-and-resources |
| Environmental contamination / ecotoxicology | environmental-pollution |
| Broad earth/environment advance, OA | communications-earth-and-environment |
| Climate dynamics / variability | journal-of-climate |
| New, documented public dataset | earth-system-science-data |
| Catchment / surface / groundwater hydrology | journal-of-hydrology / water-resources-research |
| Solid-earth, geochemistry, planetary-scale processes | earth-and-planetary-science-letters / geology |
| Carbon/nutrient cycling, biogeochemistry | global-biogeochemical-cycles |
| Land–atmosphere flux / agro-meteorology | agricultural-and-forest-meteorology |
| Forest ecology and management | forest-ecology-and-management |
| Aquatic / freshwater / ocean ecology and limnology | limnology-and-oceanography |
| Meteorological-society review / community article | bulletin-of-the-american-meteorological-society |
Sibling-journal disambiguation
| Confusable targets | Decision rule |
|---|---|
nature-food vs field-crops-research |
Nature Food wants food-systems significance and transdisciplinary reach; FCR wants a rigorous crop/agronomy field result. |
new-phytologist vs the-plant-journal |
New Phytologist favors plant ecology/physiology/interactions breadth; The Plant Journal favors molecular/cellular plant biology with mechanism. Re-check current scopes. |
journal-of-hydrology vs water-resources-research |
WRR (AGU) favors fundamental water-science methodology/theory; Journal of Hydrology spans process, observational, and applied hydrology more broadly. |
agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment vs soil-biology-and-biochemistry |
AEE emphasizes field-to-landscape agroecosystem outcomes; SBB emphasizes soil-process mechanism and soil biota. |
global-change-biology vs agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment |
GCB needs a global-change framing and biological response; AEE needs an agroecosystem-management framing. |
Nature Portfolio (nature-food/nature-plants/communications-earth-and-environment) vs society flagships |
Nature titles need broad significance and framing; a complete sub-field result routes to the society/specialist journal. |
earth-system-science-data vs an analysis journal |
ESSD is for the dataset itself (documented, publicly deposited with a DOI); the scientific analysis of that data belongs in an analysis journal. |
environment-international / environmental-health-perspectives vs pollution journals |
Human-exposure or health-risk inference routes to the health journals; contaminant behavior, remediation, or ecotoxicology routes to the pollution/environmental-process venues. |
journal-of-climate vs agricultural-and-forest-meteorology |
Climate dynamics and variability route to Journal of Climate; land-atmosphere fluxes, crop/forest microclimate, and agro-meteorological applications route to AFM. |
global-biogeochemical-cycles vs global-change-biology |
Element cycles, fluxes, and earth-system budgets route to GBC; organismal, ecosystem, or biological responses to global change route to GCB. |
resources-conservation-and-recycling vs journal-of-cleaner-production |
Circular-material-flow and recycling systems route to RCR; cleaner production, industrial sustainability, and management interventions route to JCP. |
Decision rules
- Name the advance, not the site. "We measured X at our site" is not a contribution unless it yields a generalizable mechanism, management result, projection, or dataset.
- Field evidence discipline. Field/observational claims need adequate replication, controls, and uncertainty; a single site-year or unreplicated trial is a common reject at the agronomy and ecology venues.
- Data deposition is a gate, not a nicety. Earth-science and environmental venues increasingly mandate FAIR data/code deposition; data journals (ESSD) require the public dataset itself. Sort this before submission.
- Review vs. primary. Annual Review titles and the synthesis-leaning venues are largely invited/scoped — do not route an unsolicited primary-data paper there without checking scope.
- Scale and framing. Plot/lab, field, landscape, regional, and global results route to different venues; match the claim's scale to the journal's audience.
- Health, policy, and management claims need the right endpoint. Do not route a contaminant-detection paper as environmental health unless exposure/outcome inference is actually measured; do not route a sustainability paper as policy unless a decision, intervention, or system boundary is specified.
- Always enter the single-journal skill's official-submission checklist before submitting; never rely on a stale template.
Handoff protocol
After routing, hand off only the minimum needed context to the single-journal skill:
- the strongest claim the evidence can honestly support;
- the rejected broader claim, if any, and why it was narrowed;
- the evidence shape and weakest gate from the table above;
- the one official requirement most likely to block submission;
- the alternative venue to keep warm if the first-choice fit fails.
Output format
[Top journal skill] <skill-name>
[Alt 1] <skill-name> (reason)
[Alt 2] <skill-name> (reason)
[Do not submit to] <journal> (one-line mismatch reason)
[Evidence gates] contribution / evidence-strength / scale / deposition / compliance: pass|watch|block
[Biggest current gap] significance / field-evidence / replication / data-deposition / scale-framing / official requirements
[Claim to narrow] <claim, or none>
[Next step] invoke <skill-name> for single-venue fit and re-framing