This initial part of the third volume of New Journal of Botany contains the first papers generated by the international conference on mapping distribution data, which was held to mark the fiftieth anniversary of publication of the 1962 Atlas of the British flora. The two-day conference was held at the Royal Botanic Garden, Edinburgh (RBGE), in September 2012, and was organised jointly by BSBI and RBGE.
The conference focused on the use of data from biological recording to analyse distribution patterns and temporal changes in the flora, particularly over the past 50 years. Presentations covered the development of species distribution recording and mapping, and went on to address current trends and future prospects. The impact of the ground-breaking first Atlas, and its influence on European naturalists studying diverse taxonomic groups, was commemorated and acknowledged by an impressive array of European scientists. We are delighted to publish the first two papers from the conference, and look forward to publishing more throughout 2013. We are helped in this respect by the increased frequency of publication of New Journal of Botany, from two to three issues per year.
Chris Preston’s paper, ‘Following the BSBI’s lead: the influence of the Atlas of the British Flora, 1962–2012’ provides fascinating background and several of the conference themes are picked up in both Quentin Groom’s paper on ‘Estimation of vascular plant occupancy and its change using kriging’ and David Pearman’s paper on ‘Late-discovered petaloid monocotyledons – separating the native and alien flora’. We also have a full Book Reviews section in this issue, including those which were held over from Volume 2.
We hope that, in this first part of our third volume, we have once again met our aim of providing something of interest to almost any botanist who cares to look inside. Although we are determined to retain the interest of our British and Irish readership, we also hope to engage plant scientists from across northern and western Europe, and are pleased to note that botanists from outside the British Isles are submitting their work for publication. While we can only publish what passes the peer review process, we do encourage submissions from all authors who feel their work might sit well on our pages. Our aim is to broaden the academic scope of the journal whilst retaining the core topics, and we welcome the submission of both original research papers and short notes, and also occasional reviews and opinion articles, designed to provoke and stimulate thought and further research.
In summary, the New Journal of Botany has a northern and western European focus and is a new forum for communicating the results of scientific studies relating to the vascular plants and charophytes of this region. Topics of particular interest are:
| •. | Phytogeography, floristics, distribution, and recording; | ||||
| •. | Taxonomy, systematics, and evolution; | ||||
| •. | Population & conservation biology, including ecological genetics; | ||||
| •. | Ecology, including autecological, physiological, and phenological studies; | ||||
| •. | Plant/animal interactions, including plant biochemistry; | ||||
| •. | History of botany, including its development not only in the British Isles but also in a European context. | ||||
The journal contains both a book review section and also a section on British & Irish plant records, which will continue to appear at least once a year. Our European colleagues may be puzzled by the appearance of plant records relating solely to the British Isles; they are, however, an integral part of the Society’s work and represent an important scientific record.
We look forward to hearing your responses to this third volume of New Journal of Botany.
Richard Gornall
Editor-in-Chief