1. Ecology and Environmental Sciences flipped to an open access journal since the 1st issue of 2026. Afterwards, all articles once published will be immediately and permanently available for readers to read and download free of charge. Articles published in this journal from 2009 to 2025 are converted to open access works, which can be accessed through this website. Articles published before 2009 are not open access works, but some articles can be downloaded in full text through this website. The copyright of these articles belongs to the Editorial Office of Ecology and Environmental Sciences.
2. For all open access articles published by this journal, permitted authors and third-party reuse of the articles is defined by the following user license: Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivatives 4.0 (CC BY-NC-ND 4.0). This license allows reusers to copy and redistribute the material in any medium or format. The licensor cannot revoke these freedoms as long as the license terms below are followed: reusers must give appropriate credit, provide a link to the license, and indicate if changes were made. Reusers may do so in any reasonable manner, but not in any way that suggests the licensor endorses the use. Reusers may not use the material for commercial purposes. If reusers remix, transform, or build upon the material, they may not distribute the modified material. The full details of the license are available at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/deed.en
3. All authors are required to sign the "Copyright Transfer Agreement". All authors agree to transfer the entire copyright of the whole paper to the Editorial Office of Ecology and Environmental Sciences, including but not limited to the rights of reproduction, distribution, information network dissemination, broadcasting, performance, translation, compilation, adaptation, and other related rights. The authors agree to the journal’s open access policy, which permits the authors and any reusers to copy, disseminate, or otherwise use the published papers, provided that the terms of the CC BY-NC-ND 4.0 license are complied with.
4. All journal articles published by this journal since 1999 have been digitally archived. Hard and soft copies of each issue of the journal are kept in the editorial office for archiving. In order to ensure data security, all information and relevant materials, such as supplementary information and forms provided by the authors are backed up in the editorial office. The journal’s articles can also be downloaded in full text from databases including CNKI, Wanfang and Weipu.
5. The authors are encouraged to publish or share their research data whenever appropriate. Data sharing is helpful for experiment repetition and data reuse. The data for sharing may include original data, observation records, experimental results, etc. The journal also encourages the sharing of software, code, models, algorithms, protocols, methods, and other useful materials. The authors can upload the materials above to an accessible third-party repository and make a proper citation or add a link at the end of the article.