It's a big moment for anniversaries at the Nordic Society Oikos, with all four of our journals reaching major milestones. To celebrate our anniversary, we have put together a special virtual issue "Climb through time", with some of our great papers across different decades.  Oikos is the longest-running journal of the society, turning 70 this year—and we have just received a lovely birthday present! Several dozen of our authors have written in from around the world sharing their thoughts about Oikos. Please join them on this occasion to share a big "Happy birthday Oikos":

“What I have greatly appreciated about Oikos is that the editors have been always been open to new ideas. When we published the Turner et al. (1989) paper on landscape models of disturbance spread, spatial models and landscape ecology studies were often viewed with skepticism at many mainstream ecological journals. Oikos did not shy away.”
—Monica Turner

“I love Oikos! It has long been one of my ‘go-to’ journals to get best research and new ideas in ecology.”
—Bradley Cardinale

“Happy 70th birthday to Oikos. As a first year PhD student I attended an Oikos training course which was a formative experience for me. I had my first experience of meeting ecologists from different countries and disciplines, and learning so much from them. It was my first exposure to the generous sharing of ideas and skills that is characteristic of ecology in general, and Oikos in particular. Oikos has been hugely influential in the international ecological community and I hope will continue to thrive far into the future.”
—Georgina Mace

“I chose to submit to Oikos early in my career because it was one of the few places that published perspectives and was a portal to an international community of scientists.  It was also a journal that spanned ecology and evolution.  While many journals fulfill these criteria today, few did back then.  Oikos was at the forefront of the expansion of our field and fulfilled my dream of reaching a large audience.”
—David Reznick

“Oikos has always been dear to my heart, publishing rigorous but adventurous work. Personally, the Oikos Forum (that is somehow both less formal yet still disciplined) provided me with a venue for publishing what I think is some of my best work so far. ”
—Dustin Marshall

“OIKOS was and is extremely important for me, my students and my collaborators, because it is the most open-minded outlet in ecology. OIKOS, with its high standards, an excellent journal office and a diverse editorial board, seems to appreciate creativity and out-of-the-box thinking more than any other high-ranked ecology journal. Consequently, I find interesting and often inspiring articles in virtually each issue of OIKOS.”
—Volker Grimm

“Since we began publishing in Oikos over 25 years ago, the journal has been an important outlet for our papers on landscape connectivity and questions around spatial scaling in ecology. I have been consistently impressed by the rigor of the review process and by the willingness of the editors to consider new ideas. Happy 70th Oikos!”
—Lenore Fahrig

“I'm well retired now, and don't read any of the primary literature any more. But when I did Oikos was special. I used to actually look forward to reading it (unlike some other important journals I had to read) because it was somehow more relaxed, more willing to take risks with what it published, and just generally more interesting. Science is serious, but it should also be enjoyable. For me Oikos was both serious and fun. Thank you!”
—John Lawton

“Oikos has been a source of insight and inspiration for scientific discovery for generations of scientists.  The razor-sharp mini reviews and research articles that run the gamut from population dynamics to phenotypic evolution, continue to stimulate and provoke us to push the boundaries and discover new realms.”
—Priyanga Amarasekare

“I have always valued Oikos as a premier international journal that publishes outstanding papers in both empirical and theoretical ecology.”
—Mark McPeek

“Oikos helped to raise Scandinavian ecology, behavior, and evolution into the position in which it now finds itself: in the first ranks of the international stage.”
—Steve Stearns

“Happy 70th anniversary Oikos! Thanks for all those years of important efforts promoting synthesis in ecology. We share an anniversary: 25 years ago you published a now very well-known synthesis I wrote with John Lawton and Moshe Shachak on Organisms as Ecosystem Engineers.”
—Clive Jones

“At a time when there were few journal options for innovative, forward-looking ideas and perspectives, the Oikos forum articles were important for growing new ideas in ecology”.
—Jason Tylianakis

“For me, the strength of Oikos is diversity: there is a range of article types including ideas, forum as well as new research, and it encompasses the whole of ecology. It is not limited by taxon or methodology, and often is the testing bed for really new ideas. I first became aware of the journal through John Lawton's 'view from the park' and always look forward to seeing the Tables of Contents. ”
—Rob Freckleton

“Since my early days as a PhD student Oikos has been an unvaluable source of inspiration and knowledge, and many papers published there have been reference readings for me during my entire career. I hope that the journal will continue publishing studies that not only advance our understanding of the natural world, but that also inspire us to look for the next frontier in the ecological sciences.”
—Fernando Maestre

“I like Oikos because it publishes from time to time unconventional articles and continues this tradition, e.g. by introducing the sections on Speculations and Alternative Viewpoints. Oikos has been especially important for me as outlet for two Mini-Review articles that were crucial to my career.”
—Thorsten Wiegand

“When I was a young researcher, life was very different and we checked papers in journals in the library on the first floor. On the weekly trip to the library, the new Oikos issue would often be one of the first arrivals that I would check. I was very inspired by Oikos – from papers on metapopulations in rock pools to super inspiring forum papers. I still am. Oikos was and is a benchmark because of the high quality of the research and the fact that the research must not necessarily be sexy. 70th years of high-quality research on ecology, almost 35 years of inspiration to me.”
—Luc De Meester

"By looking back at all these years, once can see that the pages of Oikos are filled with little pearls that have shaped the field of Ecology forever. Each of those provide a reason to celebrate, but also suggest that the best is yet to come. Happy anniversary!"
—Jordi Bascompte

“Oikos reminds me of the good old slogan "think globally, act locally". For me back then as a Nordic student, seeing that a locally grown journal can rise to be globally important was – and still is – a truly inspirational story.”
—Hanna Kokko

“My experience as a subject editor of Oikos is wonderful!  I feel very proud to belong to the editorial board of a journal that publishes innovative research on a wide spectrum of ecological aspects. Besides learning about interesting ecological topics, I have also learned a lot about papers’ processing and is being a pleasure to work with enthusiastic and very efficient colleagues in such editorial board.”
—Anna Traveset

“Oikos published my first paper on community ecology in 1991 and since then has been a real home for interesting papers in this field, striking the right balance between empirical and theoretical sides of ecological research. With true Nordic detachment, it has ignored ephemeral fashions, staying focused on sound fundamental science.”
—Novotný Vojtěch  

“Oikos has always been one of my favorite journals, because it always had a tendency to publish conceptually well-developed papers, with a clear link to both theory and empiricism. During my time as a young postdoc, I was strongly influenced by the opinion pieces, e.g., by John Lawton’s “Views from the Park”, which made me re-think my view on ecology as a discipline. In a changing publication world, I hope Oikos keeps it role as a leading ecological journal for another 70 years.”
—Helmut Hillebrand

“Besides publishing a sparkling and broad variety of highly interesting papers, Oikos has a great reputation in accepting work before the subject has become mainstream. For example, Oikos has been front runner in publishing on soil ecology and aboveground-belowground interactions. Wish that you keep this open mind for the next 100 years and further!”
—Wim van der Putten 

“I love Oikos, as it has always been a place for thought-provoking and empirically innovative studies in ecology: a society-journal, very well-edited, and never with page charges.  The journal title says it all!”
—Anurag Agrawal

“Oikos has published several of my papers.  Several of these papers would have been difficult to publish elsewhere since they are a combination of theory, opinion and empirical data in the same papers.”
—Bill Shipley

“Oikos = freedom + curiosity. As an author, Oikos is a formidable place of freedom where we can publish original and creative work without succumbing to the trend of the moment. As a reader, Oikos stimulates our curiosity by publishing theoretical and empirical articles on a broad range of topics.”
—Cyrille Violle

“As an undergraduate, I remember being sat on the floor of my university library surrounded by piles of Oikos issues poring over decades of publications. It's how I first learnt about ecological research and the ebb and flow of ideas.”
—Andy Gonzalez

“What do species do in ecosystems, that was the type of interesting and important questions Oikos pioneered in an accessible way. Here’s to the next 70 years.”
—Andrew Hector

“Oikos was always one of my favourite ecology journals, mainly because it was both interesting and seemed more engaging than others.  Much of this was about the range of formats it published, like Forum and “View from the Park” by John Lawton.  So, for nearly 40 years, I have been an avid fan!”
—Tim Benton

“Oikos has been at the heart of ecological science for 70 years, publishing many important papers; it is a truly international journal with a Scandinavian slant.  Long may it continue to publish important ecology and to nudge ecologists into thinking broadly about their field.”
—Charles Godfray

“When I started my PhD, I was fascinated by several Oikos papers on community assembly and food webs. I was impressed not only for their content, but for their style and freshness – they were a pleasure to read and I could feel a lot of freedom on the way the ideas were presented.”
—Jose Montoya

“Oikos was one of the first journals in which I published. I like the journal as it has a high standard and is non-commercial. When I cleaned up my paper archive recently, I found some of the typed short notes of Pehr Enckell, the managing editor by that time; how times have changed… Congratulations Oikos!”
—Rien Aerts

“Oikos played an important role in my career by allowing me to publish non-standard articles during the early days of the biodiversity and ecosystem functioning research field. This turned out to be a clever and effective policy since three of my most highly cited papers were published in Oikos as Opinion, Forum and Mini-review papers.”
—Michel Loreau

“In the early 1980s, the null model controversy was at its height, but Oikos was recognized as the forward-thinking journal that was receptive to new statistical methods and well-reasoned critiques of older paradigms.”
—Nick Gotelli

“The very first scientific paper I read was in Oikos – it was Hurlbert’s paper entitled “Spatial distribution of the Montane Unicorn,” and it provided me with enormous insight into the pitfalls of analysing spatial data. I have loved Oikos ever since, both as an author and reader, for its lead in publishing innovative and informative papers, without taking itself too seriously.”
—Tim Coulson

“Over the past quarter century our research group has often targeted what we consider to be our best work to Oikos, and many of the most exciting papers in our research area (aboveground-belowground linkages) continue to appear there. Unlike some other leading journals, Oikos was not hesitant to publish on this topic before it became fashionable, and part of the attraction of Oikos is that it has not been afraid to publish innovative papers that make people think but that fall a bit outside the box. It is apparent that Oikos has a long history of choosing to publishing the work with the greatest originality as opposed to the work that is most likely to boost its short-term impact factor (and no, these not the same thing).”
—David Wardle

“Oikos has been instrumental to internationalize Scandinavian ecological research.  With the creation of Oikos as a top international journal our work got exposed to the international ecological community – and the non-Nordic ecologists become interested in publishing in "our" journal – hence, looked closer at our work.”
—Nils Chr. Stenseth

“The Forum section is one of the greatest innovations of Oikos – and it has been one of the most important publication venues for my work. Forty years ago, at the start of my career, I think Oikos was the only ecology journal that would publish papers based purely on novel ideas, hypotheses and opinion pieces. Since then, most other journals have followed Oikos’ lead.”
—Lonnie Aarssen

“Congratulations! 70 years is quite some time! On to the next 70. Why has Oikos been important to the community and to myself? For me, Oikos is one of the cornerstone journals for ecology. It is the journal for publications that synthesize modelling and empirical data on organismal ecology.”
—Marcel Visser

“I was a postdoctoral student in the beautiful medieval town of Lund, Sweden, where Oikos was born 70 years ago. Oikos is a word from ancient greek (οἶκος); it means house, family. Oikos is a great journal. The editors have been good enough to publish 7 of my papers from 1989 to 2016. Some of these papers have received hundred of citations. The reviewers of Oikos are good scientists who don't dismiss new ideas without having examined them thoroughly. This is a good place to publish new ideas.”
—Pierre Legendre

“Oikos has been omnipresent throughout my career. It was the first ecological journal that I published in, back in 1999, and still today it is one of my go to journals for the best ecological science.”
—Richard Bardgett

“I rate OIKOS as the top journal in the field of ecology. I appreciate the broad coverage of ecology, including movement ecology and migration, where I have my own research interest including my most cited paper. It has always been a pleasure to interact with the editors and editorial office, keeping a high standard and providing excellent support.”
—Susanne Åkesson

“From a personal perspective, Oikos was the first journal I published in (1995) – and was also the only non-fisheries journal I published in for some years. Hence, it was really my gateway into general ecology and evolution.  Also, Oikos was one of the first journals to, in essence, publish blogs such as “View from the Park” by John Lawton.”
—Andrew Hendry

“To me, Oikos has an intelligently adventurous, upbeat spirit that reminds me of why it’s fun to be an ecologist and of why I value my colleagues in the Northern European countries so much.”
—Susan Harrison

“In addition to standard articles reporting high-quality ecological research of all kinds, ecologists can count on Oikos to publish the quirky, the provocative, or the speculative. These are the kinds of papers that make ecology fun, and that ultimately push it in new and interesting directions.”
—Mark Vellend

“Oikos has played an important role in shaping ecological thinking. Its long history particularly of providing a forum for developing and debating novel ideas, many of which have subsequently become mainstream, has proven immensely influential.”
—Kevin Gaston

“Oikos publishes some of the boldest ideas in ecology- papers with a real chance of changing the way ecologists see important topics.”
—Jonathan Levine

“The journal Oikos has through its history lived up to its name – providing a welcoming “home” for fresh and provocative theoretical ideas, trenchant syntheses and perspective pieces, and reports of creative field studies – not necessarily publications replete with heavy mathematical models, or the statistical churning of vast datasets, but rather papers focused on conceptually central issues in our discipline.”
—Bob Holt