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2006 CONSERVATION BIOLOGY EDITOR'S REPORT

GARY K. MEFFE, EDITOR

• Overview
• Major Developments and Events in 2005
• Submissions
• Decisions and Rejection Rates
• Turnaround Time

Overview

In 2005 six issues of Conservation Biology were published on time. The number of manuscripts submitted in 2005 (780) increased from the previous year by 10.3% and is the highest number of manuscripts ever received at the journal. A total of 2065 pages was published (an increase of 20.3% from 2004), including two Special Sections, Brazilian Conservation: Challenges and Opportunities (162 pages) and Implementation and Management of Marine Protected Areas (73 pages). The Brazilian Special Section was also reprinted in Portuguese in the inaugural volume of the new journal Megadiversidade. We thank Blackwell Publishing for their cooperation and support of this effort. The October issue featured a Conservation Focus, Amphibian Declines and Chytridiomycosis. The journal's impact factor increased in 2005 from 3.67 to 4.11, the first time in our history that we exceeded 4. Conservation Biology continued to receive excellent national and international press coverage on many of its articles in 2005.

Major Developments and Events in 2005

1. Growth of the submittal rate continues unabated and once again exceeded the previous year by more than 10%. It also exceeded the projected increase at this time last year (6-7%). The projection for 2006 is an increase of 7-8% (to around 840 submittals).

2. A new section of the journal, "Conservation and Policy," debuted in 2005. It is intended to address the intersections and relationships of conservation science with appropriate policy issues.

3. In 2005, in conjunction with Blackwell Publications, we began publishing "Online Early." Accepted papers generally will now be published online well before they will appear in hard copy, significantly reducing the time to publication (usually by a couple of months).

4. In 2005, also in conjunction with Blackwell Publications, we instituted the ability to publish supplementary materials (large appendices, pertinent data) electronically in an archival system. This should make these available to scientists for at least decades into the future and will allow comparative studies and other uses of information that is too large to publish within the hard-copy journal.

Submissions

The submission rate for this journal year (780) increased from 2004 (707), indicating continued and growing interest in publishing here.

We also received and processed 189 preliminary manuscript inquiries, a 30% increase from the previous year's total of 145, another indicator of increased interest in publishing in Conservation Biology. These consist 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 59 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 780 papers received in 2005, 336 (43.1%) were rejected by the editor without review, usually within 3 days of submittal and usually due to inappropriateness of subject matter or low quality; 444 (56.9%) were sent for review, most through assigning editors and a few directly by the editor.

Of the 444 manuscripts sent for review, 254 (57.2%) were rejected, 163 (36.7%) were accepted, and no decision had yet been reached as of 25 May 2006 on 32 (7.2%), which are still in review or in revision with authors. Of the total number of papers submitted (780), 585 (75.0%) were rejected (slightly more than last year's 71.5%), 163 were accepted (20.89%, down from 24.6 % last year), and no decision was yet reached on 32 (or 4.1%, very close to the 3.8% of last year). Of the 748 papers for which decisions have been made, 585 (78.2%) were rejected, somewhat higher than last year's 74.4%. Some of the "no decision" papers are being revised and are likely to be accepted, so the overall rejection rate will be lower than this, probably near 72%.

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 2005, from 63 to 57 days (a 9.5% decline), a new record. We attribute this entirely to better performance and hard work by assigning editors and reviewers. As always, we are not yet completely satisfied with this time and will continue to work to reduce it further.

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