Editorial

In this editorial to the first Issue of Volume 10 (2014), we look back on last year’s contributions to the International Journal of Biodiversity Science, Ecosystem Services & Management (IJBSEM), summarize changes to the team of Associate Editors and the Editorial Board, and provide a short overview of the papers that make up Issue 10(1).

One year ago, we reported that the recent shift in scope had resulted in increased visibility and quality of the Journal’s papers. Although the number of submissions was similar in 2013 compared to 2012, the number of citations and downloads continued to increase, with 14 of the top 20 most-cited papers published since the Journal’s shift in scope (Issue 6, mid-2010), and this is also true for 17 of the top 20 most-read papers. You can find more information on citations and downloads on our website www.tandfonline.com\tbsm. We attribute this progress to the increased focus on management implications of research into biodiversity and ecosystem services. Authors are being encouraged to focus more strongly on the context and consequences of their research for management, as biodiversity or ecosystem services assessments per se generally lack sound problem descriptions and practical recommendations on how results can be interpreted and used. Increased communication between our editors, reviewers and authors has resulted in more high-quality papers and an excellent turnaround time of less than 2 months (mean number of days between submission and first decision). At the time of writing this editorial, the annual report had not been completed yet, which contains detailed statistics on the Journal and a summary of feedback from authors, reviewers, and readers. We expect to be able to inform you on our progress in the next issue of IJBSEM.

Ecosystem services partnership

The Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) is an international network aiming to link research on ecosystem services with practical application ‘on the ground’ (www.es-partnership.org). Several Editorial Board members are already actively involved in ESP and we are planning to strengthen the links between ESP and our Journal in 2014. The annual ESP conferences are a great opportunity to meet with colleagues, collaborate on publications, and contribute to Special Issues. The sixth Ecosystem Services Partnership (ESP) conference took place in Bali, Indonesia (26–30 August 2013), and the seventh conference is scheduled to take place from 8 to 12 September 2014 in Costa Rica (see www.espconference.org for more information).

Editorial board

In recent months, the Editorial Board and Associate Editors’ team have been expanded. First of all, we are pleased to welcome Berta Martín-López as a new member to the team of Associate Editors. She takes the place of Gunhild Setten, who decided to step down as Associate Editor but will, fortunately, remain on the Editorial Board. The Associate Editors team therefore now consists of Patricia Balvanera, Neville Crossman, Berta Martín-López, and Carsten Smith-Hall. We are grateful for the work the Associate Editors have done in the past year, in close collaboration with our Editorial Board members. Their support and patience is of crucial importance to our Journal, especially because many manuscripts were sent in by less experienced, often non-native English speaking authors and therefore required more attention from the editors, who went to great lengths to help these authors. The editors’ commitment and our double-blind peer review system made it possible for IJBSEM to also give less experienced authors a chance to get their work published, a point that was raised as being a special and much appreciated feature of the Journal by several authors and editors.

We are very pleased that our Editorial Board has recently been expanded by, in alphabetical order, Christian Albert (Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research – UFZ, Germany), Edmundo Barrios (ICRAF, Kenya), Isabelle Durance (Cardiff University, United Kingdom), Christine Fürst (University of Bonn, Germany), José Potting (KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Sweden), Christina von Haaren (University of Hannover, Germany), and Piran White (University of York, United Kingdom). We still welcome new Editorial Board members, especially those who have expertise in genetic diversity and medicinal resources, nature-based recreation, and community-based ecosystem management. If you are interested, or know of suitable candidates, please send a message to the undersigned.

This issue

This issue of the Journal features contributions from Mexico, India, Austria, Italy, and the United Kingdom, and a case study on Kenya, Mongolia, the Philippines, and Vietnam combined. In their short research paper, Hernández-Mendoza et al. (2014) touch upon the potentially harmful consequences that intensive breeding might have on white-tailed deer (Odocoileus virginianus) in Mexico. Borah et al. (2014) compared structure, composition, and regeneration of tree species in undisturbed and disturbed forest in India’s hill county. An extensive biodiversity assessment of conventional and organic dairy production systems was conducted in Austria by Schader et al. (2014). An important thought-provoking article was written by Spangenberg et al. (2014) on the conceptual and pragmatic question of what ultimately determines the provision of ecosystem services. Through case studies in four different countries, the authors illustrate that not ecosystem functions but rather human agency determines the actual provision of ecosystem services. Russo et al. (2014) compared several methods to assess urban tree carbon storage and sequestration in Italy, some of which were also used by Martin et al. (2012) and others. Finally, Hodder et al. (2014) dealt with the question whether land-scale conservation management enhances the provision of ecosystem services or not. All of the above-mentioned papers have a strong management component, making the results of the studies relevant for land use management decisions and landscape planning.

We would like thank all who have been actively supporting the Journal, either in your role as editor, author, or reviewer. We look forward to continued collaboration in 2014 and will inform you of developments around IJBSEM and its linkage with active scientific networks. We would appreciate very much if you would be willing to promote the Journal to potential contributors or readers by referring to the website (www.tandfonline.com/TBSM), distributing leaflets (please contact the Managing Editor for copies), and submitting manuscripts yourself.

Wishing you a prosperous and happy New Year!