Editorial

The priority of the Société Botanique de France is to contribute to the progress of both fundamental and field botany. The international journal Botany Letters (formerly known as Acta Botanica Gallica, and Bulletin de la Société Botanique de France), launched in 1854 and published on behalf of this learned society, is an outstanding medium for promoting such scientific progress. We do not charge Article Processing Charges (APCs) for ordinary submission, depend on the volunteer work of our editors and reviewers, and encourage submissions from early-career researchers from all over the world.

During the last year, our journal has received a total of 220 manuscripts submitted, with an acceptance rate of approximately 27%. Forty-six articles have been published in the past year. Thanks to the efficiency of our editorial board, we are constantly improving publication speed. The manuscripts are examined within 4 or 5 days from submission, and either rejected immediately with recommendations (re-submit a thoroughly revised version of the manuscript or submit the article to a more suitable journal) or forwarded to one of our editors and reviewed by two or three experts within 3 to 6 weeks. There is an average of 20 days from acceptance to online publication. The continuing success of Botany Letters translates into the impact factor which has been increasing since 2017 (now 1.566). Our journal is now ranking 154/238 in the Plant Sciences-SCIE JCR¹ category. For detailed metrics see here: https://www.tandfonline.com/action/journalInformation?show=journalMetrics&journalCode=tabg21. Almost 631,000 downloads were made from the website of Botany Letters, which is 17% higher than downloads received in 2021. The most downloaded article was ‘Revisiting pollination mode in chestnut (Castanea spp.): an integrated approach’ by Larue et al. We wish to thank all the authors that help us make our journal a steady reference in botany in the broad sense, and of course our readers.

An Article Collection was devoted to palaeobotany, organized by editor Christine Strullu-Derrien and the guest editors Thomas Servais and Paul Kenrick (issue 169(4), will be continued in the issue 170(2)). An additional article from the series ‘Monographs on Invasive Plants in Europe’ has been published (Casati et al. 2022), adding up to the general knowledge on the plant species that put ecosystems at threat. Let us underline the diversity of fields that were covered by the articles published in Botany Letters in 2022: physiology, anatomy, morphology, systematics, taxonomy, biodiversity, conservation biology, palaeobotany, invasive plants, biogeography, ecology, pharmacology, curation and history of botany. As an illustration of the diversity of topics dealt with in Botany Letters, the current issue includes an original Article Collection about Plants and Scents, organized by Sylvie Baudino and the guest editor Jean-Claude Caissard.

We are pleased to welcome two new members in our very active editorial board. Jean-Yves Dubuisson, from Sorbonne Université in Paris, brings his expertise in systematics and taxonomy, particularly on ferns and orchids, and Andriy Novikov, from the State Museum of Natural History, Lviv, Ukraine, brings his expertise in morphology, anatomy, temperate and mountain flora.

In addition to our proficient editors, the success of Botany Letters relies also very much on the major contribution of the many experts, anonymous for most of them, who help us select the best articles and help the authors improve their manuscripts. On behalf of the Société Botanique de France, we wish to warmly thank them all for their contribution in 2022. The list of experts is published as an online-only document on the website of Botany Letters (https://www.tandfonline.com/toc/tabg21/current). Those who need a certificate to testify to this activity may contact Jason Wilde ([email protected]) to obtain a reviewer certificate from Taylor & Francis.

The Jussieu prize

To support research in botany, Botany Letters and the Société Botanique de France award every year a prize of 5000 euros to the best article published during the previous year. The Jussieu prize has been awarded this year to the review article ‘Effects of hedgerows on the preservation of spontaneous biodiversity and the promotion of biotic regulation services in agriculture: towards a more constructive relationship between agriculture and biodiversity’, by Pierre-Antoine Précigout and Corinne Robert. Hedgerows are uniquely diverse among semi-natural habitats, since they correspond to an ecotone between grasslands, shrublands, and woodlands. The authors analyze the impact of hedgerows on the preservation of spontaneous biodiversity (i.e. biodiversity not directly related to agriculture), on the promotion of biotic regulation services such as pollination and pest control in agriculture, and on the interactions between spontaneous and associated biodiversity (i.e. biodiversity in action in crops). They propose a functional conceptual framework of the ecological effects of hedgerows on associated biodiversity and they highlight the possible synergistic and antagonistic effects related to hedgerow characteristics and the life-history traits of the organisms under consideration (e.g. arthropods, birds, and rodents). Their analysis seeks to move beyond the separation between the preservation of spontaneous biodiversity and the promotion of associated biodiversity for agricultural purposes only.

Erratum

The cover illustration of the issue 169(4) was taken from Kerp et al. (2022), and not from Bomfleur et al.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Notes

¹ SCIE: Science Citation Index Expanded; JCR: Journal Citation Reports.