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2005 CONSERVATION BIOLOGY EDITOR'S REPORT

• Overview
• Major Developments and Events in 2004
• Submissions
• Decisions and Rejection Rates
• Turnaround Time
• Region of Authorship
• Upcoming Changes for 2005 / 2006

by Gary K. Meffe, Editor

Overview

In 2004 six issues of Conservation Biology were published on time. The number of manuscripts submitted to the journal in 2004 (707) increased from the previous year by 15.3%; this is the first time the 700 mark has been broken. A total of 1717 pages was published, including one Special Section on Wildfire and Conservation in the Western United States of 105 pages. The journal's impact factor increased from 3.28 to 3.67 in 2004, and Conservation Biology continued to receive excellent national and international press coverage on many of its articles.

Major Developments and Events in 2004

1. The journal continues to grow in popularity as the place to publish results of conservation science. The journal received the largest number of manuscripts ever in 2004, 707. This is a significant increase from 2004 (613 manuscripts) and a nearly 10% increase over the previous high (643 manuscripts in 2001). The projection thus far for 2005 is a further increase of about 6-7%.

2. The journal has now been running completely electronically with regard to manuscript submittal and review. We believe the system is working extremely well and has improved the submittal and review process significantly.

3. In a continual effort to improve all aspects of production, a number of changes at Blackwell further streamlined the process of preparation of manuscripts for publication.

4. Our high impact factor in 2003 in part led to increased institutional subscriptions (even with a rate increase) as well as more licensing agreements. This in turn has led to an increasing profit share for SCB. The even higher impact factor for 2004 should continue this trend.

5. The journal Editorial Office was challenged twice within a three-week period in September by Hurricanes Frances and Jeanne. Power was lost for a total of 10 days but we managed to keep the office running for all but about two days by finding alternate locations in which to work (while clearing downed trees and waiting in lines for water and ice!). Predictions for 2005 are for another active year; should this occur we ask for patience and understanding from authors.

Submissions

The submission rate for this journal year (707) increased from 2003 (613), indicating continued and growing interest in publishing here.

We also received and processed 145 preliminary manuscript inquiries, a nearly identical count to the previous year's total of 141. Most of these consisted of an abstract and an inquiry as to its suitability for the journal. These inquiries typically are responded to within 1-3 days of receipt.

We used 69 ad hoc assigning editors this year, individuals who handled one or more manuscripts but are not on the editorial 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 and are an integral part of this journal's review process; I thank them for their contributions.

Decisions and Rejection Rates

Of the 707 papers received in 2004 (Table 1), 286 (40.4%) 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 (59.6%) were sent for review, most through assigning editors and a few directly by the editor.

Of the 421 manuscripts sent for review, 220 (52.3%) were rejected, 174 (41.3%) were accepted, and no decision had yet been reached as of 31 May 2005 on 27 (6.4%), which are still in review or in revision with authors. Of the total number of papers submitted (707), 506 (71.5%) were rejected (slightly more than last year's 66.7%), 174 were accepted (24.6%, up from 21.8% last year), and no decision was yet reached on 27 (or 3.8%, a large drop from the 10.4% of last year). Of the 680 papers for which decisions have been made, 506 (74.4%) were rejected, identical to last year's percentage. However, some of the "no decision" papers are being revised and are likely to be accepted, so the overall rejection rate will be lower, probably near 70%.

Turnaround Time

See the 2003 report for a discussion of how turnaround statistics are calculated (i.e., these are relative but not absolute times because they are right-truncated due to manuscripts still in process).

Mean turnaround time for manuscript review decreased significantly in 2004, from 80 to 63 days (Figure 1), the shortest time in this millennium. We attribute this partly to electronic transfer of manuscripts and partly to better performance by assigning editors, as well as removal of some of the habitually slower editors. However, even with this large improvement we are not satisfied and will continue to work to reduce this time further. Time from acceptance to publication (Figure 2) increased from 215 days in 2003 to 225 days in 2004 (4.7%), but this is an artifact of a change in accounting procedure (i.e., manuscripts are now considered accepted at an earlier point in our procedure, which automatically increases their time from acceptance to publication). Total time from submission to publication (Figure 3) decreased from 344 to 327 days (-4.9%), indicating a reasonable improvement in the overall process.

Region of Authorship

Region of authorship is determined by the address of the first author at the time the work was done and only partially reflects sovereignty of contributions. International participation in authorship is actually higher than indicated by these statistics due to secondary authorships. Of the 174 papers submitted and accepted in 2004, the proportion of first authors from the United States decreased from 56.0% in 2003 to 42.5% in 2004 (Figure 4). Although this is a welcome trend that reflects greater internationalization, it is also partly due to a 25-paper Special Section on Brazil that appeared in the June 2005 issue (most of the authors were Brazilian). Other regional changes from 2003 to 2004 included increases in accepted papers from Africa (1.5% to 2.9%), Australia (6.0% to 8.0%), Central / South America (4.1% to 16.1%), and Europe (21.1% to 21.9%) and decreases in papers from Asia (5.3% to 4.0%) and Canada (6.0% to 4.6%)

Upcoming Changes for 2005 / 2006

1. We are instituting the new "On-line Early" feature in which completed and proofed manuscripts will be published on line well before they appear in print, often several months sooner. This will very significantly decrease the time to publication (probably by several months) by reducing the time in a publication queue, and make the science available to readers much sooner.

2. We have begun a new manuscript category called "Conservation and Policy," which will address the intersection of conservation science and public policy. The first paper will appear in October 2005.

3. We will continue to work with Blackwell to streamline the production process and cut production costs, and our Editorial Board to decrease the review time.

4. We are planning a series of special papers for the June 2006 issue of Conservation Biology, which will mark the 20th anniversary of the journal. These will include critical looks at where we've been and where we are going as a journal and a society.

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