The BMC Series is committed to continual innovation in research publishing to better support the needs of our communities, ensuring the integrity of the research we publish and championing the benefits of open research for all. In line with this mission, BMC Ecology and Evolution is delighted to welcome the submission of articles recommended by the Peer Community In (PCI) platform.

PCI is a non-profit organisation that aims to create research communities that review and recommend preprints in their field. These specific communities are named ‘Peer Community In X’. Currently, there are 14 PCIs, including:

• PCI Evolutionary Biology
• PCI Ecology
• PCI Paleontology
• PCI Animal Science
• PCI Zoology
• PCI Neuroscience
• PCI Genomics
• PCI Mathematical & Computational Biology
• PCI Forest & Wood Sciences
• PCI Archaeology
• PCI Network Science
• PCI Registered Reports
• PCI Ecotoxicology and Environmental Chemistry
• PCI Infections

A PCI recommender determines the recommendation of an article based on at least two peer review reports. Author’s may wish to publish their PCI recommended manuscript within the BMC Series to validate that their manuscript has undergone full peer review and ensure that their research reaches a broad audience via inclusion in the best-known indexing services. 

BMC Ecology and Evolution will consider submissions of articles recommended by PCI Ecology, PCI Evolutionary Biology and PCI Paleontology and may use PCI reviews and recommendations for their own review processes, if appropriate. 

How to submit your PCI recommended manuscript to BMC Ecology and Evolution:

During the PCI peer review process, reviewers can choose whether their names can be released to PCI friendly journals. PCI recommended manuscripts will only be considered if this information has been made available to us. Like other articles published within the BMC Series, readers will also have access to the peer review histories of manuscripts received via this route.

To submit your PCI recommended manuscript, we ask you include the following information in your cover letter:

• State that your manuscript is PCI recommended
• A link to your PCI recommendation (e.g. https://evolbiol.peercommunityin.org/articles/rec?id=410)
• The PCI preprint DOI
• Request that your manuscript is handled by the Editor of BMC Ecology and Evolution – Jennifer Harman (jennifer.harman@springernature.com)

Authors will be expected to pay our usual article processing charge, and final acceptance will be subject to the paper meeting the journal’s standard editorial criteria and formatting.