World's Best Scientists 2026 revealed!
ISME Journal
H-index 91

ISME Journal

1751-7362

Published by: Springer

http://nature.com/ismej/

Ranking & Metrics

Discipline name Position Best Scientists Publications D-Index
Ecology and Evolution 11 273 288 61
Microbiology 16 151 253 60

Additional Metrics

Number of Best Scientists*: 1166
Documents by Best Scientists*: 986
Top 100 Ranked Scientists*: 64
SCIMAGO H-index: 251
SCIMAGO SJR: 3.973
Impact Factor: 10

Overview

Top Research Topics at The ISME Journal?

The journal focuses largely on the fields of Ecology, Microbial ecology, Microbiology, Bacteria and Botany. The work on Ecology tackled in the journal brings together disciplines like Metagenomics, Geomicrobiology and Microbial population biology. The concepts on Metagenomics presented in The ISME Journal can also apply to other research fields, including Genome and Phylogenetics.

It connects the study in Genome with the closely related area of Evolutionary biology. The ISME Journal explores studies in Phylogenetics as part of the wider topic of Genetics. It focuses on Microbial ecology but the discussions also offer insight into other areas such as Microorganism and Archaea.

Some problems in Microbiology that were presented in The ISME Journal overlapped with concepts under Microbiome, Gut flora, Biofilm and Gene, Virulence. The work tackled in the journal goes beyond the discipline of Bacteria as it also encompasses Biochemistry. In The ISME Journal, Cyanobacteria and Soil microbiology are investigated in conjunction with one another to address concerns in Botany research.

  • Ecology (41.26%)
  • Microbial ecology (17.81%)
  • Microbiology (17.26%)

What are the most cited papers published in the journal?

  • Ultra-high-throughput microbial community analysis on the Illumina HiSeq and MiSeq platforms (5125 citations)
  • An improved Greengenes taxonomy with explicit ranks for ecological and evolutionary analyses of bacteria and archaea (3326 citations)
  • Soil bacterial and fungal communities across a pH gradient in an arable soil. (2069 citations)

Research areas of the most cited articles at The ISME Journal:

Ecology, Microbiology, Microbial ecology, Botany and Metagenomics are the main subjects of interest in the most cited papers. The published papers explore issues in Ecology which can be linked to other research areas like Phylogenetics, Geomicrobiology and Microbial population biology. The most cited articles facilitate discussions on Microbial ecology that incorporate concepts from other fields like Ecology (disciplines), Archaea and Microbial metabolism.

Papers citation over time

A key indicator for each journal is its effectiveness in reaching other researchers with the papers published at that venue.

The chart below presents the interquartile range (first quartile 25%, median 50% and third quartile 75%) of the number of citations of articles over time.

The top authors publishing in The ISME Journal (based on the number of publications) are:

  • Jizhong Zhou (50 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition, 2 less than at the previous edition,
  • Rob Knight (44 papers) published 3 papers at the last edition,
  • Jillian F. Banfield (31 papers) absent at the last edition,
  • Ramunas Stepanauskas (29 papers) published 2 papers at the last edition the same number as at the previous edition,
  • Zhili He (28 papers) absent at the last edition.

The overall trend for top authors publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top authors.

Only papers with recognized affiliations are considered

The top affiliations publishing in The ISME Journal (based on the number of publications) are:

  • Max Planck Society (173 papers) published 22 papers at the last edition, 3 more than at the previous edition,
  • Chinese Academy of Sciences (112 papers) published 28 papers at the last edition, 16 more than at the previous edition,
  • Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory (107 papers) published 5 papers at the last edition, 10 less than at the previous edition,
  • University of California, Berkeley (98 papers) published 15 papers at the last edition, 5 more than at the previous edition,
  • University of Vienna (97 papers) published 14 papers at the last edition, 8 more than at the previous edition.

The overall trend for top affiliations publishing in this journal is outlined below. The chart shows the number of publications at each edition of the journal for top affiliations.

Publication chance based on affiliation

The publication chance index shows the ratio of articles published by the best research institutions in the journal edition to all articles published within that journal. The best research institutions were selected based on the largest number of articles published during all editions of the journal.

The chart below presents the percentage ratio of articles from top institutions (based on their ranking of total papers).Top affiliations were grouped by their rank into the following tiers: top 1-10, top 11-20, top 21-50, and top 51+. Only articles with a recognized affiliation are considered.

During the most recent 2021 edition, 0.81% of publications had an unrecognized affiliation. Out of the publications with recognized affiliations, 31.88% were posted by at least one author from the top 10 institutions publishing in the journal. Another 8.99% included authors affiliated with research institutions from the top 11-20 affiliations. Institutions from the 21-50 range included 23.43% of all publications and 35.69% were from other institutions.

Returning Authors Index

A very common phenomenon observed among researchers publishing scientific articles is the intentional selection of journals they have already attended in the past. In particular, it is worth analyzing the case when the authors participate in the same journal from year to year.

The Returning Authors Index presented below illustrates the ratio of authors who participated in both a given as well as the previous edition of the journal in relation to all participants in a given year.

Returning Institution Index

The graph below shows the Returning Institution Index, illustrating the ratio of institutions that participated in both a given and the previous edition of the conference in relation to all affiliations present in a given year.

The experience to innovation index

Our experience to innovation index was created to show a cross-section of the experience level of authors publishing in a journal. The index includes the authors publishing at the last edition of a journal, grouped by total number of publications throughout their academic career (P) and the total number of citations of these publications ever received (C).

The group intervals were selected empirically to best show the diversity of the authors' experiences, their labels were selected as a convenience, not as judgment. The authors were divided into the following groups:

  • Novice - P < 5 or C < 25 (the number of publications less than 5 or the number of citations less than 25),
  • Competent - P < 10 or C < 100 (the number of publications less than 10 or the number of citations less than 100),
  • Experienced - P < 25 or C < 625 (the number of publications less than 25 or the number of citations less than 625),
  • Master - P < 50 or C < 2500 (the number of publications less than 50 or the number of citations less than 2500),
  • Star - P ≥ 50 and C ≥ 2500 (both the number of publications greater than 50 and the number of citations greater than 2500).

The chart below illustrates experience levels of first authors in cases of publications with multiple authors.

Top Publications

  • Environmental stress destabilizes microbial networks.

    Damian J. Hernandez;Aaron S. David;Aaron S. David;Eric S. Menges;Christopher A. Searcy

    (2021)
    1281 Citations
  • Defining trait-based microbial strategies with consequences for soil carbon cycling under climate change

    Ashish A. Malik;Jennifer B. H. Martiny;Eoin L. Brodie;Eoin L. Brodie;Adam C. Martiny

    (2020)
    1001 Citations
  • Erosion reduces soil microbial diversity, network complexity and multifunctionality.

    Liping Qiu;Liping Qiu;Liping Qiu;Qian Zhang;Qian Zhang;Hansong Zhu;Hansong Zhu;Peter B. Reich;Peter B. Reich

    (2021)
    708 Citations
  • Long-term nutrient inputs shift soil microbial functional profiles of phosphorus cycling in diverse agroecosystems.

    Zhongmin Dai;Guofei Liu;Huaihai Chen;Chengrong Chen

    (2020)
    692 Citations
  • Soil microbial diversity-biomass relationships are driven by soil carbon content across global biomes.

    Felipe Bastida;David J. Eldridge;Carlos García;G. Kenny Png;G. Kenny Png

    (2021)
    550 Citations
  • Biodiversity of key-stone phylotypes determines crop production in a 4-decade fertilization experiment

    Kunkun Fan;Manuel Delgado-Baquerizo;Xisheng Guo;Daozhong Wang

    (2021)
    438 Citations

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