Use when targeting Nature Plants or deciding whether a plant-science manuscript fits this venue. Encodes the journal's fit, the broad-significance and Nature-framing bar, evidence and reproducibility expectations, house style, official-submission re-check, and desk-reject heuristics.
SkillScore82Maintained
Automatic
◆Research pack
Last verified 8/15/2026
What it changes
Passed 18 of 22 test cases with the skill, and 15 of 22 without it.
Without skill68%
With skill82%
Checks it passed that the model alone missed
Rates the fit as Low
Identifies the incremental nature of the result as the top risk
Suggests new-phytologist as the backup venue due to the ecological or environmental focus
3 fixed15 passed either way4 still failing0 broke
Pass-rate lift
+14 pp
Tokens
+26%
Agent turns
0%
Response time
-33%
Model gemini-3.6-flashMeasured 8/15/2026v118 of 22 cases passed with skill
Tokens, turns and time describe resource use, not a dollar price.
See it in action
One of 3 test cases the skill fixed. Same model, same prompt, with and without the skill.
1 of 3
Prompt
We've written a paper on how global supply chain disruptions affect the distribution and pricing of staple crops, focusing heavily on food security and economic impacts rather than plant biology. Is this a good fit for Nature Plants? Provide the standard evaluation.
What was checked, without and with the skill
Checked
Without skill
With skill
Rates the fit as Low
Missed
Passed
Suggests nature-food because food-systems significance is dominant
Passed
Passed
case-09 · gemini-3.6-flash · 8/15/2026 · answers are capped and redacted
What's inside
The instructions your model reads when the skill loads.
SKILL.md116 linessingle file
Nature Plants (nature-plants)
Journal positioning
Nature Plants is the Nature Portfolio journal devoted to plant science in its full
breadth — from molecular and cell biology through development, physiology, genetics,
and evolution to ecology and crop science — including the plant-associated microbes and
the agricultural and societal contexts in which plants matter. Its defining expectation
is a significant advance with broad significance: a finding that changes how a wide
plant-science readership thinks about a problem, not a clean but incremental result that
extends one specialist literature. A technically sound, narrowly framed specialist paper
with no broad significance is a poor fit, however careful the work. This skill is a fit
/ venue-selection / re-framing tool. It does not replace the journal's current author
guidelines. Before submitting, re-check the live Nature Plants submission guidance.
When to trigger
The author names Nature Plants and wants a fit/framing check for a plant-science paper.
A specialist molecular, physiological, or ecological plant result must be re-framed into
a broad-significance, Nature-style narrative for a wide plant audience.
The author is choosing between Nature Plants, a Nature Portfolio sibling, and a strong
specialist plant journal such as the-plant-cell or new-phytologist.
The author needs Nature Plants' desk-reject heuristics and a credible alternative route.
Scope & topic fit
Molecular and cellular plant biology — signaling, gene regulation, cell architecture —
when the mechanism reframes a broadly held understanding.
Plant development, physiology, and stress responses with conceptual reach beyond one
pathway or species.
Plant genetics, genomics, and evolution, including domestication and trait architecture
with significance across taxa or systems.
Plant ecology, plant–microbe and plant–environment interactions framed for cross-field
relevance.
Crop science and agricultural plant biology when the finding has implications wider than
a single cultivar or trial.
Methods and resources that open new questions for a broad plant-science community.