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CONSERVATION BIOLOGY EDITOR'S REPORT
Gary K. Meffe, Editor
Introduction1999 was another successful year at the journal, with six issues coming out in a timely fashion. For the first time the number of submitted manuscripts decreased slightly (5.3% decline). We believe this is a result of a December 1998 article by the Editor that called for greater self-culling at submittal time. A better definition of acceptable manuscripts in that article may have led to this decrease in submission rate. Also in 1999 a new feature, the Conservation Forum, was introduced and created much discussion. The Forum is intended to highlight especially contentious topics through a featured article, a series of response articles, and a rejoinder by the author(s) of the original article. The feature Conservation in Practice, introduced in late 1998, is becoming a more regular element with three papers in 1999 and several expected in 2000. No Special Sections were published in 1999, but that is merely the result of time lags. Three or four Special Sections will appear in 2000, with several more to follow in 2001. This feature of the journal is alive and well and seems to be very popular. Conservation Biology continues to be covered in the popular press thanks to our media consultant, Robin Meadows, who provides a press release of selected articles one week before each journal issue is mailed. These are picked up by the press, and numerous inquiries are made and stories written. Press releases also continue to be made available on-line through the science news service EurekAlert! (www.eurekalert.org). In May of 2000 one of our articles (the cave invertebrate cover story) was featured as the lead science article on the ABC News web site. The Editorial Office will experience a loss in 2000. The Editorial Coordinator, Krista Clements, will leave as of 1 August to pursue her Ph.D. studies simultaneously with parenthood. But that loss will be capably filled by the new Editorial Assistant, Margaret Flagg. Margaret is from the Gainesville area and has experience in similar work in the business field, successfully juggling many assignments and much detail, which is what it takes to produce a journal. We do not anticipate any interruption in journal operation, as we will have a five-week overlap of personnel. We have tried to improve the quality of Spanish Abstracts by adding a proofreader who examines the preliminary abstracts after translation and then proofs the final version. We hope that a visible increase in quality will result. We initiated a new process in 1999 to try to increase SCB membership. When a paper is accepted we check the authorship against membership. If the main author is not a member we send a letter of invitation to join the society.
SubmissionsThe submission rate for this journal year (January through December 1999) declined slightly for the first time in the journal's history. We consider this to be good news, as continued growth of manuscript numbers can only lead to slower turnaround. We received 581 manuscripts, a 5.3% decrease from the 614 manuscripts submitted in 1998. We also received and processed 99 preliminary manuscript inquiries, a substantial increase from the previous year's total of 57. Most of these consisted of an abstract and an inquiry as to its suitability for the journal. This increase in preliminary inquiries could help to explain the decline in submittal rate and is exactly what the Editorial Office was hoping for. The trend in submittal rate is as follows: Year # manuscripts % change
The trend so far in 2000 is close to the same pace as for 1999 (currently on track for 560 manuscripts). We used 36 ad hoc Assigning Editors this year, individuals who handled one or more manuscripts but are not on the Board. Ad hoc Editors were used when a manuscript did not fall within the expertise of existing Editors, when they had special expertise in the area, or if the appropriate Assigning Editor was particularly busy with other manuscripts. This system has worked very well and will continue to be employed. Ad hoc Editors are acknowledged in the December issue of each year.
Decisions and Rejection RatesOf the 581 papers submitted in 1999, 160 (27.5%) were rejected by the Editor without review, usually within three days of submittal, and usually due to inappropriateness of subject matter or low quality; 421 (72.5%) were sent for review, most through Assigning Editors and a few directly by the Editor. The percentage immediately rejected by the Editor in 1999 decreased from 1998 (32.7%), another possible indicator that the reduction in number of papers submitted was due to greater self-culling of inappropriate manuscripts. Of the 421 manuscripts sent for review, 169 (40.1%) were rejected, 134 (31.8%) were accepted, and no decision had yet been reached on 118 (28.0%), which are still in review or in revision with authors. Of the total number of papers submitted (581), 329 (56.6%) were rejected, 134 (23.1%) were accepted, and no decision was reached on 118 (20.3%) as of 31 May 2000. Of the 463 papers for which decisions were made, 329 (71.0%) were rejected. However, some of the "no decision" papers are being revised and likely to be accepted, so the actual rejection rate will be lower than this, probably near 65%.
Turnaround TimeThere was some bad news and some very good news in turnaround time in 1999. Mean turnaround time for manuscript review increased from 79 days in 1998 to 83 days in 1999 (min = 4; max = 255). We have a continual struggle with busy reviewers completing the task in a reasonable amount of time, and with a few Assigning Editors who are consistently slow; the latter problem is being addressed by their replacement on the Board. Also, as we add more overseas Assigning Editors the time will increase due to slower mails. However, the good news is that time from acceptance to publication decreased from 293 to 255 days (the lowest in the journal's history), and total time from submission to publication decreased from 532 to 477 days (near the lowest in journal history). Thus, average time from submittal to publication is about 15.5 months, down from more than 17 months last year. The Editorial Office has made a more concerted effort to get authors to revise their papers quickly, which may account for some of this decrease.
Region of AuthorshipOf the 136 papers submitted and accepted in 1999, the proportion written by U.S. authors was 59%. This is more good news and an encouraging trend in internationalization of the journal, as the figure last year was 72%; thus, more papers were published by non-U.S. authors than in 1998. Notable regional increases from 1998 include Asia (1% to 4%), Australia (7% to 11%), Central/South America (1% to 7%), and Europe (10% to 13%). And it should always be kept in mind that international participation in authorship is actually higher than indicated by these statistics because region of authorship is calculated solely on the basis of the first author's address; many "U.S." papers have authors from multiple regions.
Miscellaneous InformationThe page budget for the journal remains the same at 1632 pages; 1538 pages were actually published in 1999. Special sections in 2000 likely will result in more pages than are budgeted, but at no cost to the journal or SCB, because special sections are funded externally. These sections represent a bonus for the readers. Efforts toward better internationalization of Conservation Biology continue. Three non-U.S. Editorial Board members were added in 1999, and three more so far in 2000 (for a total of eight). We expect further additions this year. Editorials continue to be one of the more challenging aspects of journal production. The Editor welcomes submissions of potential Editorials, or discussion of ideas for such.
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