New Phytologist

---
name: new-phytologist
description: Use when targeting New Phytologist or deciding whether a plant-science manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the integrative conceptual-advance and whole-plant/ecosystem-scale bar, evidence and data-deposition expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics.
---

# New Phytologist (new-phytologist)

## Journal positioning

New Phytologist, published by the New Phytologist Foundation, is a plant-science journal
with a long-standing strength in **plant ecology, physiology, environmental interactions,
and symbiosis** — mycorrhizal and other plant–microbe relationships, whole-plant function,
and processes that scale from organism to community and ecosystem. Its defining expectation
is a **conceptual advance with integrative breadth**: a study that changes how a process is
understood by connecting levels of organization, rather than a tightly bounded mechanistic
result. A study whose contribution is a single gene-to-function molecular mechanism with no
physiological, ecological, or whole-organism reach usually fits a cellular/molecular journal
better. This skill is a **fit / venue-selection / re-framing** tool. It does not replace the
journal's current author guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live New Phytologist
author guidance.

## When to trigger

- The author names New Phytologist and wants a fit/framing check for an integrative
  plant-ecology, physiology, or symbiosis paper.
- A whole-plant or ecosystem-scale result must be framed as a conceptual advance that
  connects mechanism to function across scales.
- The author is deciding between New Phytologist and `the-plant-journal` and needs the
  ecology/physiology-breadth versus molecular-mechanism distinction made explicit.
- The author needs New Phytologist's desk-reject heuristics and a credible alternative route.

## Scope & topic fit

- Plant physiology and whole-plant function: water relations, carbon and nutrient economy,
  photosynthesis, and stress ecophysiology with conceptual reach.
- Plant–microbe and plant–plant interactions, especially mycorrhizal and other symbioses,
  including nutrient exchange and community consequences.
- Plant ecology and environmental responses, including community, ecosystem, and
  global-change-relevant processes anchored in plant function.
- Plant–environment interactions spanning soil, climate, and biotic context where the plant
  is central to the process.
- Evolutionary ecology, functional and trait-based approaches that integrate across levels.
- Methods and conceptual syntheses that advance integrative plant science.

## Method & evidence bar

- The contribution must be an **integrative conceptual advance**: it should connect levels
  (molecule → organism → community/ecosystem) or generalize beyond one system.
- Physiological and ecological claims need adequate replication, defensible experimental or
  observational design, and appropriate mixed-model or multivariate statistics.
- Field and common-garden studies must address environmental variation, pseudoreplication,
  and scale of inference explicitly.
- Symbiosis and interaction studies need controls that isolate the interaction and quantify
  fluxes or fitness consequences, not just co-occurrence.
- Data and, where applicable, code/sequence data should be deposited in FAIR community
  repositories with accessions cited.

## Structure & house style

- New Phytologist publishes research articles, rapid reports, and commissioned reviews/
  viewpoints (Tansley reviews/insights); re-check current article types on the live guide.
- The introduction must frame the conceptual question and the integrative gap, not catalogue
  a study system.
- Figures should make the cross-scale or mechanistic-to-functional argument visible;
  experimental design and statistics must be transparent.
- Methods and data-availability statements must let a reader reproduce the analysis;
  ecological metadata and sampling design should be complete.

## Official-submission checklist

- Before giving submission-ready advice, read `../../resources/source-basis.md` and
  `../../resources/official-source-map.md`; start from the official source anchors, then
  cite the current New Phytologist page you checked.
- Search the live site for "New Phytologist author guidelines" and follow the current
  New Phytologist Foundation/Wiley version.
- Re-check article types (research vs. rapid report vs. review/viewpoint), word and figure
  expectations, and abstract format.
- Confirm data, code, and sequence/accession deposition requirements and FAIR expectations.
- Re-check competing-interests, funding, author-contribution, and AI-use disclosure, and
  open-access terms.
- If the live official instructions conflict with this skill, the official instructions
  win.

## Pre-submission self-check

- [ ] The contribution is an integrative conceptual advance, not a bounded single-level mechanism.
- [ ] The work connects scales or generalizes beyond one system/site.
- [ ] Design addresses replication, pseudoreplication, environmental variation, and scale of inference.
- [ ] Interaction/symbiosis claims have controls that isolate the interaction and quantify effects.
- [ ] Data, code, and any sequence accessions are deposited in FAIR repositories.
- [ ] Article type, statistics reporting, and data-availability statements are prepared.

## Common desk-reject triggers

- A single gene-to-function molecular result with no physiological, ecological, or whole-plant reach.
- A descriptive survey or correlation with no conceptual question or integrative framing.
- Pot/glasshouse results over-generalized to field or ecosystem scale without justification.
- Pseudoreplicated or under-replicated ecology presented as general, with weak statistics.
- Symbiosis claims from co-occurrence alone, with no flux/fitness quantification or controls.

## Re-routing decision

- Molecular/cellular/biochemical gene-to-function mechanism is the core → `the-plant-journal`.
- Broad, headline plant-science significance for a Nature audience → `nature-plants`.
- Field-scale crop yield and agronomy → `field-crops-research`.
- Climate/global-change process at large scale dominant → `global-change-biology`.
- Agroecosystem environment outcomes (nutrients, GHG, biodiversity) → `agriculture-ecosystems-and-environment`.

## Output format

```text
[Fit] High / Medium / Low (one-line reason)
[Target] New Phytologist
[Topic tags] <2–3 closest integrative plant topics>
[Conceptual advance] <how it connects scales or generalizes beyond one system>
[Method/evidence] <does design + replication + data deposition clear New Phytologist's bar?>
[Top risk] <the single most likely reason for rejection>
[Official items to re-check] <article type / statistics / data + accession policy / disclosures>
[Re-route suggestion] <if not a fit, a better-matched venue>
```