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Conservation Biology Editors' Report

• Introduction
• Submissions
• Decisions and Rejection Rate
• Turnaround Time
• Region of Authorship
• Farewell

Reed Noss, Editor

Ellen Main, Managing Editor

Lisa Loegering, Editorial Assistant

Introduction

This is the last editorial report from this editorial office. Reed Noss and Lisa Loegering are leaving the journal staff at the close of 1997, and Gary Meffe has already begun work as incoming Editor. Ellen Main, most thankfully to all concerned, is staying on as Managing Editor. As the following statistics demonstrate, Conservation Biology has continued its stunning growth in submissions over the past year. This growth has necessitated an increase in rejections and has hindered our efforts to reduce the backlog of accepted papers and publish papers as quickly as we would like. Yet, we have managed to stay on track with our publication schedule with only modest increases in page budget. Further, the papers we receive have generally increased in quality and, with more to choose from, those accepted for publication have met increasingly rigorous standards.

We also have good news about circulation and prestige of the journal from our publisher, Blackwell Science. Total paid circulation topped 6,000 for the first time in 1996 and was 7% higher than in 1995, including a 10% increase in Society subscriptions and a 6% increase in library circulation. Total sales increased 16% over 1995, with a 25% increase in profits. Conservation Biology's impact factor, as measured in the Journal Citation Report from the Institute for Scientific Information, increased markedly from 1.643 in 1994 to 2.004 in 1995, the latest year for which statistics are available (covering the years 1993 and 1994). We now rank 15th in the category Biology (from 20th the previous year) and 14th in the category Ecology (up from 16th). According to Blackwell Science, our impact factor--which measures the frequency with which scientists are citing papers from Conservation Biology--is easily within the top 10% of all scientific journals worldwide.

Submissions

Submissions of new papers to Conservation Biology continue to climb and show no sign of leveling off (Fig. 1). We received 540 new manuscripts during the "journal year" from 1 June 1996 through 31 May 1997, an average of 45 papers per month. This rate represents a 24% increase over last year (434), a 43% increase over two years ago (378), and a 79% increase over three years ago (302), the first year for which detailed records were kept.

Decisions and Rejection Rate

Of the 540 papers received during the past journal year, 77% (414) were reviewed and 23% (126) were rejected without review. Of those reviewed, 65% (271) were sent to assigning editors, 27% (113) were sent directly to reviewers, and 7% (30) were reviewed in-house. In-house reviews were reserved for submissions to Comments, Diversity, or Editorial columns (many Comments went out for full peer review). Each assigning editor handled 0-20 papers during the journal year (y = 5.36).

Decisions have been made on 80% (434/540) of the papers received during the journal year. Seventy percent (303/434) of those papers were rejected, compared to 69% last year, 53% two years ago, and 58% three years ago. Of the rejections, 42% (126/303) were without review. The rejection rate for the past 6 months (December 1996 - May 1997), when submissions were particularly heavy, was 83% (Table 1). However, because many of these decisions were rejections without review, the rejection rate for manuscripts submitted in those months is expected to decline to about 75-80% as more reviews come in. In any case, the rejection rate is rising and must continue to rise as the submission rate rises, even given anticipated modest increases in the journal page budget.

Turnaround Time

One of our major goals as the premier journal in a field with a time limit is to publish papers as quickly as possible after acceptance. Unfortunately, meeting this goal has proven difficult because submission rates are rising much faster than we can increase the page budget, without raising subscription rates faster than our readers will tolerate.

Review turnaround time (the span from submission to when we inform the author of our decision to reject or ask for revision) was y = 62 days (min = 0, max = 303, sd = 54) for papers submitted over the past journal year. This period is the shortest since records have been kept (Fig. 2). In contrast, the times from submission to publication (Fig. 3) and acceptance to publication (Fig. 4) have increased very slightly. For these statistics, we use the journal volume year in order to have complete data.

The average time from submission to publication was 439 days for volume 10 (1996) (min = 80, max = 863, sd = 143) and 456 days for the first four issues of volume 11 (1997) (min = 108, max = 807, sd = 155). The average time from acceptance of a paper to publication was 262 days for volume 10 (1996) (min = 73, max = 400, sd = 79) and 266 days for the first four issues of volume 11 (1997) (min = 94, max = 440, sd = 79). As of 31 May 1997 we had a backlog of 64 papers that had been accepted but not yet published or in production (i.e., the June and August issues were considered in production). This figure is comparable to the 59 papers in the backlog at the same time last year, and well below the 114 papers in the backlog two years ago. Nevertheless, it is too high to make substantial progress toward publishing papers expeditiously.

Region of Authorship

Our statistics for volume 10 (1996) show that 68% of the papers are first-authored by people with addresses at the time of submission in the United States. This is identical to the statistic for 1995, and the figures for other regions (Fig. 5) are close, except that authorship from Africa, Asia, and Europe has increased slightly while authorship from Canada, Mexico, and Central and South America has decreased slightly; authorship from Australia and New Zealand has stayed the same. The editorial staff and the board of governors of the Society would like to increase the proportion of authors from outside the U.S. publishing in the journal; however, there are no intentions at this time for "affirmative action" to lower the standards for such papers. We urge all Society members to encourage their colleagues throughout the world to submit high-quality papers to Conservation Biology. The new president of the Society, Dee Boersma, has indicated that one of her primary goals is to increase Society membership outside the U.S., which should help us attract more papers from other countries.

Farewell

It has been a pleasure serving the Society for Conservation Biology in an editorial capacity. The workload has been intense, we get more complaints than compliments, and staying within budget is a nightmare. Yet, the work is truly rewarding. With Gary Meffe taking over the editorship, we rest comfortably with the knowledge that the journal is in good hands.

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