Search

Progress in ecological research is basically driven by the publication of studies in peer reviewed journals. However, competition for space in high-ranking journals is severe, and these journals require an objective way to accept the best works. This “objective way” is based on the traditional peer review process. To evaluate the quality of a manuscript, it is sent to several specialists in the same field, and the editor makes a decision based on the reviewers' comments and his/her own opinion. Overall, in a good peer review process everybody wins: the author improves her/his knowledge, and the scientific community reads a better paper; even if the manuscript is finally submitted to a different journal. However, more and more ecological journals are skipping this fruitful process and rejecting some papers based only on the opinion of one person: the subject-editor. This practice is becoming more common despite criticisms related to its subjectivity and inappropriateness (Farji-Brener 2007, Bornmann and Hans-Dieter 2010, Arnqvist 2013). The key argument to favor rejections without peer review is that subject-editors (hereafter “editors”) are able to easily identify the best works among the submitted manuscripts (Strong 2007). Therefore, editors reject papers that “definitively” would have received negative revisions if they were sent to reviewers. In other words, editors are considering themselves as good “oracles” in the task of guessing the opinion of external reviewers about the quality of a manuscript. We tested this assumption by monitoring the final destiny of a large number of papers that were first rejected without revisions by an editor. Fil: Farji Brener, Alejandro Gustavo. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue; Argentina Fil: Kitzberger, Thomas. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina. Universidad Nacional del Comahue; Argentina

Why do ecologists seem to underestimate the consequences of using bad taxonomy? Is it because the consequences of doing so have not been yet scrutinized well enough? Is it because these consequences are irrelevant? In this paper I examine and discuss these questions, focusing on the fact that because ecological works provide baseline information for many other biological disciplines, they play a key role in spreading and magnifying the abundance of a variety of conceptual and methodological errors. Although overlooked and underestimated, this cascade-like process originates from trivial taxonomical problems that affect hypotheses and ideas, but it soon shifts into a profound practical problem affecting our knowledge about nature, as well as the ecosystem structure and functioning and the efficiency of human health care programs. In order to improve the intercommunication among disciplines, I propose a set of specific requirements that peer reviewed journals should request from all authors, and I also advocate for urgent institutional and financial support directed at reinvigorating the formation of scientific collections that integrate taxonomy and ecology. Fil: Bortolus, Alejandro. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Conicet - Centro Nacional Patagónico; Argentina

In an earlier work, we found that 66% of manuscripts that suffered editorial rejections were finally accepted in journals of similar ranking to which they were originally submitted. We thus concluded that editors appear to be “poor oracles” with regards to being able evaluate the quality of a manuscript without the help of external reviewers. This article was recently criticized by the team of editors of the Ecological Society of America. In this work, we clarify some misunderstandings and offer new evidence supporting our view that external reviews should be the rule in the process of publishing scientific literature. Specifically, here we argue that (a) the claim that editorial rejections are based on manuscripts not adjusting to the journal’s scope rather than on academic quality is unconvincing; (b) if academic quality is being assessed to decide the fate of a submitted paper, this attribute must be evaluated including several external opinions and not only the superficial reading of one person, (c) our survey design was appropriate and, despite the small sample size, the conclusion that editors are poor oracles seems to be fairly reliable and, (d) the practice of sending the majority of submitted papers to external review should not cause the collapse of most popular journals. We insist that for the sake of science, editors need the opinion of external experts and should not act as oracles. Fil: Farji Brener, Alejandro Gustavo. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio de Ecotono; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina Fil: Kitzberger, Thomas. Universidad Nacional del Comahue. Centro Regional Universitario Bariloche. Laboratorio de Ecotono; Argentina. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Centro Científico Tecnológico Patagonia Norte. Instituto de Investigación en Biodiversidad y Medioambiente; Argentina

The Editorial presents the focus, scope, policies, and the inaugural issue of NeoBiota, a new open access peer-reviewed journal of biological invasions. The new journal NeoBiota is a continuation of the former NEOBIOTA publication series. The journal will deal with all aspects of invasion biology and impose no restrictions on manuscript size neither on use of color. NeoBiota implies an XML-based editorial workflow and several cutting-edge innovations in publishing and dissemination, such as semantic markup of and enhancements to published texts, data publication, and extensive cross-linking within the journal and to external sources. Fil: Kühn, Ingolf. Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research; Alemania Fil: Kowarik, Ingo. Technische Universität Berlin; Alemania Fil: Kollmann, Johannes. Technische Universitat München; Alemania Fil: Starfinger, Uwe. Julius Kuehn Institute; Alemania Fil: Bacher, Sven. University of Fribourg; Suiza Fil: Blackburn, Tim. King Saud University; Arabia Saudita Fil: Bustamante, Ramiro. Universidad de Chile; Chile Fil: Celesti Grapow, Laura. Università degli studi di Roma "La Sapienza"; Italia Fil: Chytrý, Milan. Masaryk University; República Checa Fil: Colautti, Robert. University of Duke; Estados Unidos Fil: Essl, Franz. Environment Agency Austria; Austria Fil: Foxcroft, Llewellyn. South African National Parks; Sudáfrica. Stellenbosch University; Sudáfrica Fil: García Berthou, Emili. University of Girona; España Fil: Gollasch, Stephan. GoConsult; Alemania Fil: Hierro, Jose Luis. Consejo Nacional de Investigaciones Científicas y Técnicas. Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra y Ambientales de La Pampa. Universidad Nacional de La Pampa. Facultad de Ciencias Exactas y Naturales. Instituto de Ciencias de la Tierra y Ambientales de La Pampa; Argentina Fil: Hufbauer, Ruth. Colorado State University; Estados Unidos Fil: Hulme, Philip. Lincoln University; Estados Unidos Fil: Jarosik, Vojtech. Charles University in Prague; República Checa. Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; República Checa Fil: Jeschke, Jonathan. Ludwig Maximilians Universitat; Alemania Fil: Karrer, Gerhard. University of Natural Resources and Life Sciences Vienna; Austria Fil: Mack, Richard. Washington State University; Estados Unidos Fil: Molofsky, Jane. University of Vermont; Estados Unidos Fil: Murray, Brad. University of Technology Sydney; Australia Fil: Nentwig, Wolfgang. University of Bern; Suiza Fil: Osborne, Bruce. Universidad de Dublin; Irlanda Fil: Pysek, Petr. Charles University in Prague; República Checa. Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic; República Checa Fil: Rabitsch, Wolfgang. Environment Agency Austria; Austria Fil: Rejmanek, Marcel. University of California at Davis; Estados Unidos Fil: Roques, Alain. Institut National de la Recherche Agronomique; Francia Fil: Shaw, Richard. CABI Europe; Reino Unido Fil: Sol, Daniel. Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona; España Fil: van Kleunen, Mark. Consejo Superior de Investigaciones Científicas; España Fil: Vilà, Montserrat. University of Konstanz; Alemania Fil: von der Lippe, Moritz. Technishe Universitat Berlin; Alemania Fil: Wolfe, Lorne. Georgia Southern University; Estados Unidos Fil: Penev, Lyubomir. Pensoft Publishers; Bulgaria