Nature Communications is a bimonthly peer-reviewed

Peer review

Peer review is a process of self-regulation by a profession or a process of evaluation involving qualified individuals within the relevant field. Peer review methods are employed to maintain standards, improve performance and provide credibility...

 scientific journal

Scientific journal

In academic publishing, a scientific journal is a periodical publication intended to further the progress of science, usually by reporting new research. There are thousands of scientific journals in publication, and many more have been published at various points in the past...

 published by 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...

 since 2010. The editor in chief is Lesley Anson. It is multidisciplinary

Multidisciplinarity

Multidisciplinarity is a non-integrative mixture of disciplines in that each discipline retains its methodologies and assumptions without change or development from other disciplines within the multidisciplinary relationship....

 in scope, with coverage that includes all topics in physics, chemistry, and biology.

The online-only journal is specifically designed to fill in gaps for research articles where there is no dedicated journal available in the Nature Publishing Group journals. For example coverage of this journal includes developmental biology

Developmental biology

Developmental biology is the study of the process by which organisms grow and develop. Modern developmental biology studies the genetic control of cell growth, differentiation and "morphogenesis", which is the process that gives rise to tissues, organs and anatomy.- Related fields of study...

, plant sciences

Botany

Botany, plant science, or plant biology is a branch of biology that involves the scientific study of plant life. Traditionally, botany also included the study of fungi, algae and viruses...

, microbiology

Microbiology

Microbiology is the study of microorganisms, which are defined as any microscopic organism that comprises either a single cell , cell clusters or no cell at all . This includes eukaryotes, such as fungi and protists, and prokaryotes...

, ecology

Ecology

Ecology is the scientific study of the relations that living organisms have with respect to each other and their natural environment. Variables of interest to ecologists include the composition, distribution, amount , number, and changing states of organisms within and among ecosystems...

 and evolution

Evolution

Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...

, palaeontology

Paleontology

Paleontology "old, ancient", ὄν, ὀντ- "being, creature", and λόγος "speech, thought") is the study of prehistoric life. It includes the study of fossils to determine organisms' evolution and interactions with each other and their environments...

 and astronomy

Astronomy

Astronomy is a natural science that deals with the study of celestial objects and phenomena that originate outside the atmosphere of Earth...

. Cross-disciplinary research such as biophysics

Biophysics

Biophysics is an interdisciplinary science that uses the methods of physical science to study biological systems. Studies included under the branches of biophysics span all levels of biological organization, from the molecular scale to whole organisms and ecosystems...

, bioengineering

Biological engineering

Biological engineering, biotechnological engineering or bioengineering is the application of concepts and methods of biology to solve problems in life sciences, using engineering's own analytical and synthetic methodologies and also its traditional...

, chemical physics

Chemical physics

Chemical physics is a subdiscipline of chemistry and physics that investigates physicochemical phenomena using techniques from atomic and molecular physics and condensed matter physics; it is the branch of physics that studies chemical processes from the point of view of physics...

 and environmental science, are also published. However, all cross-disciplinary works are considered for publication.

Abstracting and indexing

The journal is indexed in the following databases:

• Science Citation Index
  Science Citation Index
  The Science Citation Index is a citation index originally produced by the Institute for Scientific Information and created by Eugene Garfield in 1960, which is now owned by Thomson Reuters. The larger version covers more than 6,500 notable and significant journals, across 150 disciplines, from ...
  
  
• Current Contents
  Current Contents
  Current Contents is a rapid alerting service database from the Institute for Scientific Information, now part of Thomson Reuters, that is published online and in several different printed subject sections.-History:...
  
  /Agriculture, Biology & Environmental Sciences
• Current Contents/Life Sciences
• Current Contents/Physical, Chemical & Earth Sciences
• The Zoological Record
  The Zoological Record
  The Zoological Record is a print and electronic index of zoological literature that also serves as the unofficial register of scientific names in zoology....
  
  
• BIOSIS Previews
  BIOSIS Previews
  BIOSIS Previews is an English-language, bibliographic database service, with abstracts and citation indexing. It is part of Thomson Reuters Web of Knowledge suite. Content that was originally integrated from the BIOSIS company before the merger in 2004 is now part of the Web of Knowledge...