Taking stock R. W. Battarbee
rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org
Editor-in-Chief RWB, 0000-0003-3963-6228
Editorial Cite this article: Battarbee RW. 2016 Taking stock. Biol. Lett. 12: 20160523. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0523
After 2 years as Editor-in-Chief, I can report that Biology Letters is continuing to make excellent progress as one of the world’s premier short-format biological sciences journals. In 2015, we received more than 1000 manuscripts, all of which were processed by our 70-strong Editorial Board and four Handling Editors, expertly coordinated by Surayya Johar and Raminder Shergill in the editorial office of the Royal Society. Together their efficiency is responsible for maintaining our highly competitive publishing rates, with an average of 25 days from receipt to first decision and three months from submission to publication. Last year, we introduced reviews as an article type, planning to publish one per month on average. We have now published 14 reviews; so we are well on schedule. As befits our short-format style and publishing philosophy, our reviews are intended to be concise (5000 words) and highly focused, designed to set clear agendas for future research. We continually seek to commission review articles and our new Reviews Editor, Bob Elwood, would welcome proposals at any time and on any biological topic. This year sees the introduction of our mini-series format in which three to six papers on a single theme are published together in the same issue. The first mini-series, on ‘Evolutionary ecology of species ranges’ edited by Martin Genner and Stephen Hawkins, has now been published and can be at [1]. The mini-series concept is ideal for organizers of workshops or special conference sessions seeking to promote new research themes. Again, Bob Elwood would like to hear from anyone with ideas for a mini-series. Special Features remain an important element of Biology Letters and we have published a number of very well received Features over recent years. Last year saw the publication of ‘Frontiers in marine movement ecology’; a collection of nine papers organized by Lee Fuiman, Pablo Munguia and Benjamin Walther. The papers were published online over a series of consecutive issues and have now been collated into a single volume available from our website (http://rsbl. royalsocietypublishing.org/content/frontiers-marine-movement-ecology). Currently, we have two ongoing Special Features with one soon to start and another in the planning stages. The first of the current Special Features is on ‘Biological extinction’, edited by John Alroy and Barry Brook. The idea for this feature sprang directly from the controversy in 2014 surrounding the status of the Aldabran banded snail (Rhachistia aldabrae) which was declared extinct in a Biology Letters article in 2007 [2] but later re-discovered [3]. The controversy attracted media attention as the supposed extinction had been attributed to climate change, and referenced as such in the 2013 IPCC report [4]. It also sparked a debate over the IUCN Red List guidelines for declaring taxa extinct. This issue is debated in the Special Feature by Collens et al. in an article that aims to clarify the misconceptions of extinction risk assessment with the IUCN Red List [5]. The first papers of the second current Special Feature ‘Putting fossils in trees: combining morphology, time, and molecules to estimate phylogenies and divergence times’ edited by David Bapst, Graeme Lloyd, Nick Matzke and April Wright, are now online. This will be followed by a collection of articles on ‘The effects of sea-ice on arctic biota’ edited by Eric Post and Marc Macias-Fauria which are now under review. Papers in our journal continue to attract wide media attention and this, along with our policy of encouraging open access publishing, is leading to a
& 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
References 1.
2.
3.
Genner MJ, Hawkins SJ. 2016 Evolutionary ecology of species ranges in aquatic environments. Biol. Lett. 12, 20160415. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2016.0415) Gerlach J. 2007 Short-term climate change and the extinction of the snail Rhachistia aldabrae (Gastropoda: Pulmonata). Biol. Lett. 3, 581–585. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0316) Battarbee RW. 2014 The rediscovery of the Aldabra banded snail, Rhachistia aldabrae.
4.
5.
Biol. Lett. 10, 20140771. (doi:10.1098/rsbl. 2014.0771) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Chapter 4: terrestrial and inland water systems. See http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5Chap4_FGDall.pdf. Collen B et al. 2016 Clarifying misconceptions of extinction risk assessment with the IUCN Red List. Biol. Lett. 12, 20150843. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2015.0843)
6.
7.
Wlodarski R, Manning J, Dunbar RIM. 2015 Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women. Biol. Lett. 11, 20140977. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0977) DeLuca WV, Woodworth BK, Rimmer CC, Marra PP, Taylor PD, McFarland KP, Mackenzie SA, Norris DR. 2015 Transoceanic migration by a 12 g songbird. Biol. Lett. 11, 20141045. (doi:10.1098/rsbl. 2014.1045)
2
Biol. Lett. 12: 20160523
northeastern North America to the northeastern coast of South America is undertaken as a single non-stop transoceanic flight, a distance of 2700 to 4500 km. The authors used minitiarized 0.5 g geolocators (called ‘bird back-packs’ by the UK’s Guardian newspaper) to provide direct evidence of the non-stop flight over the ocean, a migratory feat they claim, after scaling for body mass, to be one of the most extraordinary on the planet. 2016 is proving to be another excellent year. We strive to be excellent in all we do, especially in the service we provide to authors. It is rewarding to know from our annual questionnaire survey of authors that last year 100% of authors who have had papers accepted would submit again as would more than 90% of those with rejected papers. Congratulations to all our authors, and thanks to our editors, reviewers and readers for their continuing support. The commitment of our reviewers is especially appreciated as they are the main guarantors of our very high scientific standards.
rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org
record number of downloads, with the 2 000 000 mark being passed in 2015. Top of our 2015 downloads was the article by Wlodarski et al. ‘Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women’ [6], in which the authors found statistical support for the hypothesis that humans, both males and females, consist of a mixture of both promiscuous and monogamous mating phenotypes. Although the division of males into ‘cads’ and ‘dads’ has been previously mooted, this is the first paper to propose a similar bimodal division in females. Perhaps, unsurprisingly this paper garnered significant media attention, which may have been one of the factors leading to its very high download count. Our most highly cited paper from 2015, on the ‘Transoceanic migration of a 12 g songbird’ [7] was also extensively reported by the media and heavily downloaded, but was intriguingly the only paper to occur in both our top 10 download and citation lists. The article tests the hypothesis that the southward migration of blackpoll warblers (Setophaga striata) from
rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org
Editor-in-Chief RWB, 0000-0003-3963-6228
Editorial Cite this article: Battarbee RW. 2016 Taking stock. Biol. Lett. 12: 20160523. http://dx.doi.org/10.1098/rsbl.2016.0523
After 2 years as Editor-in-Chief, I can report that Biology Letters is continuing to make excellent progress as one of the world’s premier short-format biological sciences journals. In 2015, we received more than 1000 manuscripts, all of which were processed by our 70-strong Editorial Board and four Handling Editors, expertly coordinated by Surayya Johar and Raminder Shergill in the editorial office of the Royal Society. Together their efficiency is responsible for maintaining our highly competitive publishing rates, with an average of 25 days from receipt to first decision and three months from submission to publication. Last year, we introduced reviews as an article type, planning to publish one per month on average. We have now published 14 reviews; so we are well on schedule. As befits our short-format style and publishing philosophy, our reviews are intended to be concise (5000 words) and highly focused, designed to set clear agendas for future research. We continually seek to commission review articles and our new Reviews Editor, Bob Elwood, would welcome proposals at any time and on any biological topic. This year sees the introduction of our mini-series format in which three to six papers on a single theme are published together in the same issue. The first mini-series, on ‘Evolutionary ecology of species ranges’ edited by Martin Genner and Stephen Hawkins, has now been published and can be at [1]. The mini-series concept is ideal for organizers of workshops or special conference sessions seeking to promote new research themes. Again, Bob Elwood would like to hear from anyone with ideas for a mini-series. Special Features remain an important element of Biology Letters and we have published a number of very well received Features over recent years. Last year saw the publication of ‘Frontiers in marine movement ecology’; a collection of nine papers organized by Lee Fuiman, Pablo Munguia and Benjamin Walther. The papers were published online over a series of consecutive issues and have now been collated into a single volume available from our website (http://rsbl. royalsocietypublishing.org/content/frontiers-marine-movement-ecology). Currently, we have two ongoing Special Features with one soon to start and another in the planning stages. The first of the current Special Features is on ‘Biological extinction’, edited by John Alroy and Barry Brook. The idea for this feature sprang directly from the controversy in 2014 surrounding the status of the Aldabran banded snail (Rhachistia aldabrae) which was declared extinct in a Biology Letters article in 2007 [2] but later re-discovered [3]. The controversy attracted media attention as the supposed extinction had been attributed to climate change, and referenced as such in the 2013 IPCC report [4]. It also sparked a debate over the IUCN Red List guidelines for declaring taxa extinct. This issue is debated in the Special Feature by Collens et al. in an article that aims to clarify the misconceptions of extinction risk assessment with the IUCN Red List [5]. The first papers of the second current Special Feature ‘Putting fossils in trees: combining morphology, time, and molecules to estimate phylogenies and divergence times’ edited by David Bapst, Graeme Lloyd, Nick Matzke and April Wright, are now online. This will be followed by a collection of articles on ‘The effects of sea-ice on arctic biota’ edited by Eric Post and Marc Macias-Fauria which are now under review. Papers in our journal continue to attract wide media attention and this, along with our policy of encouraging open access publishing, is leading to a
& 2016 The Author(s) Published by the Royal Society. All rights reserved.
References 1.
2.
3.
Genner MJ, Hawkins SJ. 2016 Evolutionary ecology of species ranges in aquatic environments. Biol. Lett. 12, 20160415. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2016.0415) Gerlach J. 2007 Short-term climate change and the extinction of the snail Rhachistia aldabrae (Gastropoda: Pulmonata). Biol. Lett. 3, 581–585. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2007.0316) Battarbee RW. 2014 The rediscovery of the Aldabra banded snail, Rhachistia aldabrae.
4.
5.
Biol. Lett. 10, 20140771. (doi:10.1098/rsbl. 2014.0771) Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. Chapter 4: terrestrial and inland water systems. See http://ipcc-wg2.gov/AR5/images/uploads/WGIIAR5Chap4_FGDall.pdf. Collen B et al. 2016 Clarifying misconceptions of extinction risk assessment with the IUCN Red List. Biol. Lett. 12, 20150843. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2015.0843)
6.
7.
Wlodarski R, Manning J, Dunbar RIM. 2015 Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women. Biol. Lett. 11, 20140977. (doi:10.1098/rsbl.2014.0977) DeLuca WV, Woodworth BK, Rimmer CC, Marra PP, Taylor PD, McFarland KP, Mackenzie SA, Norris DR. 2015 Transoceanic migration by a 12 g songbird. Biol. Lett. 11, 20141045. (doi:10.1098/rsbl. 2014.1045)
2
Biol. Lett. 12: 20160523
northeastern North America to the northeastern coast of South America is undertaken as a single non-stop transoceanic flight, a distance of 2700 to 4500 km. The authors used minitiarized 0.5 g geolocators (called ‘bird back-packs’ by the UK’s Guardian newspaper) to provide direct evidence of the non-stop flight over the ocean, a migratory feat they claim, after scaling for body mass, to be one of the most extraordinary on the planet. 2016 is proving to be another excellent year. We strive to be excellent in all we do, especially in the service we provide to authors. It is rewarding to know from our annual questionnaire survey of authors that last year 100% of authors who have had papers accepted would submit again as would more than 90% of those with rejected papers. Congratulations to all our authors, and thanks to our editors, reviewers and readers for their continuing support. The commitment of our reviewers is especially appreciated as they are the main guarantors of our very high scientific standards.
rsbl.royalsocietypublishing.org
record number of downloads, with the 2 000 000 mark being passed in 2015. Top of our 2015 downloads was the article by Wlodarski et al. ‘Stay or stray? Evidence for alternative mating strategy phenotypes in both men and women’ [6], in which the authors found statistical support for the hypothesis that humans, both males and females, consist of a mixture of both promiscuous and monogamous mating phenotypes. Although the division of males into ‘cads’ and ‘dads’ has been previously mooted, this is the first paper to propose a similar bimodal division in females. Perhaps, unsurprisingly this paper garnered significant media attention, which may have been one of the factors leading to its very high download count. Our most highly cited paper from 2015, on the ‘Transoceanic migration of a 12 g songbird’ [7] was also extensively reported by the media and heavily downloaded, but was intriguingly the only paper to occur in both our top 10 download and citation lists. The article tests the hypothesis that the southward migration of blackpoll warblers (Setophaga striata) from
