Avian Conservation and Ecology is an open-access, fully electronic scientific journal, sponsored by the Society of Canadian Ornithologists and Bird Studies Canada. We publish papers that are scientifically rigorous and relevant to the bird conservation community in a cost-effective electronic approach that makes them freely available to scientists and the public in real-time. ACE is a fully indexed ISSN journal that welcomes contributions from scientists all over the world.While the name of the journal implies a publication niche of conservation AND ecology, we think the theme of conservation THROUGH ecology provides a better sense of our purpose. As such, we are particularly interested in contributions that use a scientifically sound and rigorous approach to the achievement of avian conservation as revealed through insights into ecological principles and processes. Papers are expected to fall along a continuum of pure conservation and management at one end to more pure ecology at the other but our emphasis will be on those contributions with direct relevance to conservation objectives. Additional information on types of papers considered:We encourage papers on birds at any ecological level (individuals to ecosystems) that have a strong hypothesis driven approach to conservation problems. Papers in ACE will ideally have clearly articulated hypotheses and predictions laid out in the Introduction. However, we also recognize the value of descriptive studies that clearly define the value of the findings to real-world conservation objectives. In such cases, the onus will be on the authors to demonstrate that their descriptive study can provide significant value within the scope of current knowledge and future research directions. Papers on the natural history of species will typically not be considered. However, behavioral studies are welcomed if they have a bearing on conservation issues (e.g., whether and how extinction risk covaries with mating systems and human activities, and why it might be expected to; or whether and how dispersal is affected by habitat alteration, and why it might be expected to). Impact studies are welcomed if the consequences of documented effects are examined in a mechanistic ecological context (e.g., whether and how landscape-level habitat alteration by industrial forestry alters processes affecting population growth or community dynamics, and why it might be expected to). Studies conducted in areas essentially free of human influence are relevant if they represent controls against which impacted areas are compared. They may also represent model systems of ecological phenomena with consequences for conservation, provided that the connection to conservation is explicitly stated in the rationale for the research. We recognize the increasing scope of statistical treatments of data that range among frequentist, information theoretic and Bayesian approaches. However, we caution authors against the approach of rejecting trivial null hypotheses as these usually provide little insight into the support for the alternate hypothesis unless conducted in a strict experimental framework.

《鳥類保護與生態》是由加拿大鳥類學家和鳥類研究協會主辦的一份開放獲取、完全電子化的科學期刊。我們發表的論文科學嚴謹，與鳥類保護社區有關，并采用成本效益高的電子方法，使科學家和公眾可以實時免費獲得這些論文。ACE是一個完全索引的ISSN期刊，歡迎來自世界各地科學家的貢獻。雖然該期刊的名稱暗示著保育與生態的出版生態位，但我們認為透過生態保育的主題更能體現我們的宗旨。因此，我們特別感興趣的是，通過對生態原則和過程的深入了解，利用科學合理和嚴格的方法來實現鳥類保護的貢獻。預計論文將從一端的純保護和管理到另一端的更純生態的連續統一體，但我們的重點將放在那些與保護目標直接相關的貢獻上。獲考慮的文件類別的補充資料:我們鼓勵在任何生態水平(從個體到生態系統)發表關于鳥類的論文，這些論文對保護問題有很強的假設驅動方法。ACE上的論文最好能在引言中清楚地闡述假設和預測。然而，我們也認識到描述性研究的價值，這些研究清楚地定義了研究結果對現實世界保護目標的價值。在這種情況下，作者有責任證明他們的描述性研究可以在當前知識和未來研究方向的范圍內提供重要的價值。關于物種自然歷史的論文通常不會被考慮。然而，如果行為研究與保護問題有關(例如，滅絕風險是否以及如何與交配系統和人類活動同時變化，以及為什么可能會這樣;或者棲息地的改變是否以及如何影響擴散，以及為什么可能會影響擴散)。如果在機械性生態環境中審查有記錄的影響的后果，則歡迎進行影響研究(例如，工業林業對景觀一級生境的改變是否以及如何改變影響人口增長或社區動態的進程，以及為什么預期會改變進程)。如果在基本不受人類影響的地區進行的研究代表了對受影響地區進行比較的控制，那么這些研究是相關的。它們也可能代表生態現象的模型系統，并對保護產生影響，只要研究的基本原理中明確說明了與保護的聯系。我們認識到，統計處理數據的范圍日益擴大，包括頻率、信息理論和貝葉斯方法。然而，我們提醒作者不要拒絕瑣碎的零假設，因為這些假設通常提供很少的支持替代假設的洞察，除非在嚴格的實驗框架中進行。