How to publish a good journal in plant community ecology?

We are pleased to publish the 27th volume of the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS). Since its inception in 1990, JVS has been increasingly recognized by readers as a leading publication in the field of plant community ecology. This is reflected in its steadily increasing impact factor according to Thomson Reuters Web of Science. The current IF for JVS is 3.709, well comparable to many other established ecological journals. Although a high impact factor is definitely not our central goal, it is, nonetheless, an indication of visibility and recognition of the research published in the journal. In theory, it is not overly difficult to publish a good scientific journal. First, we need to attract quality papers for submission. Second, we need to select stronger manuscripts for publication. Third, we need to make published papers more visible so that they are noticed. In practice, this is a real challenge. Quality work is submitted if the journal is doing well. The overall level of submissions has indeed increased during recent years. We especially welcome studies that develop new concepts or methods, test theory, or identify general patterns. We hope that a higher impact factor will continue to encourage authors to submit their best research in plant community ecology to JVS. Papers are selected based not only on quality, but also on focus and general interest. Currently we are able to publish ca. 25% of the manuscripts we receive. We aim to keep JVS well focused on plant community ecology. Consequently, JVS does not publish studies on a single species or on ecosystem processes without a clear link to the patterns or processes of the whole plant community. Further, we work in close collaboration with our associated journal – Applied Vegetation Science, which specializes in vegetation management, conservation, restoration and survey. We occasionally suggest a transfer of manuscripts between the journals so the submission finds the more appropriate journal. Submitted manuscripts are evaluated and edited by our Associate Editors, assisted by Editorial Board members and referees. We thank all of them for their work. We are pleased that our publisher has made us available more widely globally than ever before. Nonetheless, authors themselves can also do much more to make their papers visible. Many use social media (e.g. Twitter and Facebook) to inform colleagues about new papers. If you have a recent paper in JVS, please notify colleagues who might be interested. The massive flow of new research articles requires from us, ironically, behaviour once common among early day naturalists. They used to send paper copies of their recent publications to a few colleagues worldwide to distribute their ideas. We need to do the same. Sending just a web link with a few comments could increase the chance of your paper being noticed in the explosively expanding information space. Since 1990, JVS has published more than 2500 papers. We performed a network analysis of all papers published in the journal throughout its history for scientific terms appearing in the titles and abstracts using VOSviewer software (version 1.6.1, http://www.vosviewer.com). This produced graphic scientific landscapes with linkages between terms used (van Eck & Waltman 2015). We can identify four main clusters (Fig. 1a). The first is related to vegetation structure, mostly in forests, the second to data analyses in vegetation science, including functional traits and community assembly questions, the third deals largely with experimental works related particularly to biomass and dynamics, and the fourth with regeneration and seed ecology. Publishing network analysis allows us to identify our most recurrent authors (Fig. 1b). Grouping of our most common authors is more diverse, showing connections among people who have worked on the same topics. The most central persons in the analysis are Eddy van der Maarel, a founding editor of the journal, and J. Bastow Wilson, our former Chief Editor. Bastow passed away in April 2015 after a short illness. He served our journal as Chief Editor for 15 yr, but when we include his jobs as Editorial Board member, Associate Editor or Consultant Editor, he contributed to our journal from the very beginning until 2015 (Rapson 2015). We certainly miss him, and we are most grateful for his contribution. We want to continue his work and keep the journal on track. Each year the Chief Editors acknowledge one paper published in JVS with the Editors’ Award. The award for 2015 goes to Kenny Helsen for the paper on changes in species and functional trait composition of the seed bank (Helsen et al. 2015). The most interesting studies often emerge from the borders of traditional fields and this is an excellent example. Although seed banks have been studied extensively, functional traits have been rarely considered. Helsen et al. showed that during the recovery of calcareous grassland, a diverse forest-related seed bank was present. Over time, richness of the seed bank decreased but the trait pattern of species gradually started to resemble the permanent grassland seed bank. Most surprisingly, species loss was not determined by seed persistence traits. Instead, functional changes in the above-ground community played a significant role. The work of Helsen et al. (2015) is a good example that plant communities are much more than just the above-ground parts we observe. Two other papers were in the shortlist. Sandel et al. (2010) stressed that large trait databases should be used with caution. Often such databases contain a non-representative subset of species, which can lead to biases in analyses. The general importance of this problem is also discussed in a Commentary from Violle et al. (2015). Incompleteness of various databases used in ecology is often acknowledged but Sandel et al. (2010) go beyond this. They propose a method to estimate and correct potential bias. Another runner up was the paper of Harmon & Pabst (2015), which tested predictions of forest succession using 100-yr long measurements. Many common predictions about forest succession have been based on studies of forest patches of different age. Harmon & Pabst explored whether these predictions are consistent with long-term measurements in permanent plots. They used data from a coniferous forest patch where mortality and regeneration were assessed every 5–10 yr for over a century. They concluded that predictions from chronosequences at the population and community level were similar with long-term direct observations, whereas predictions at the ecosystem level were not. This outlines the importance of long-term observations in plant community ecology.