The ISME Journal: Multidisciplinary Journal of Microbial Ecology is the official publication of the International Society for Microbial Ecology

International Society for Microbial Ecology

The International Society for Microbial Ecology is the principle scientific society for the burgeoning field of Microbial Ecology and its related disciplines. ISME fosters the exchange of scientific information by organizing international symposia as well as specific workshops, sponsoring...

 (ISME). The journal covers all areas of microbial ecology

Microbial ecology

Microbial ecology is the ecology of microorganisms: their relationship with one another and with their environment. It concerns the three major domains of life — Eukaryota, Archaea, and Bacteria — as well as viruses....

 spanning the breadth of microbial life, including bacteria

Bacteria

Bacteria are a large domain of prokaryotic microorganisms. Typically a few micrometres in length, bacteria have a wide range of shapes, ranging from spheres to rods and spirals...

, archaea

Archaea

The Archaea are a group of single-celled microorganisms. A single individual or species from this domain is called an archaeon...

, microbial eukaryotes, and virus

Virus

A virus is a small infectious agent that can replicate only inside the living cells of organisms. Viruses infect all types of organisms, from animals and plants to bacteria and archaea...

es. It publishes original research, review articles, and commentaries.

The editors are Mark Bailey, John Heidelberg, George Kowalchuk, and Janet Jansson.

The journal is published in partnership with the Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group

Nature Publishing Group is an international publishing company that publishes academic journals, online databases, and services across the life, physical, chemical and applied sciences and clinical medicine...

 and has an impact factor

Impact factor

The impact factor, often abbreviated IF, is a measure reflecting the average number of citations to articles published in science and social science journals. It is frequently used as a proxy for the relative importance of a journal within its field, with journals with higher impact factors deemed...

of 6.397, ranking it 8th out of 124 journals in the category "Ecology".