Acta Botanica SinicaInstruction for Contributors

Acta Botanica Sinica is the official publication of Botanical Society of China. Founded in 1952, it has become a monthlyjournal. It publishes original papers, rapid communications and reviews on all aspects of plant science in English withChinese abstract. The scope of this journal extends from modern plant science to classical botany.     

不懈探索, 努力引领中国生物多样性科学发展——《生物多样性》创刊三十周年回顾

为更好地推动我国生物多样性科学的发展, 提升期刊服务能力, 并庆祝创刊30周年, 我们梳理了《生物多样性》2013-2022年的主要进展。(1)近10年中, 期刊的特色进一步凸显。围绕学科前沿、国家重大行动计划、履约等领域共策划出版56个专辑/专题, 新设立编者按、生物编目、数据论文、保护与治理对策、生物文化多样性等特色栏目, 通过发表数据论文、生物编目等文章推动数据共享, 以及通过鼓励学术争鸣、探索中文期刊的国际传播等举措使期刊的特色进一步凸显。(2)期刊载文量快速增加, 报道的内容不断拓展。研究方向由前20年的61个增加为目前的78个, 90%左右的文章聚焦于生物多样性保护、环境科学/生态学等领域; 植物学、动物学、微生物学的稿件分别占41.79%、47.48%和4.61%。基于关键词的文献计量分析表明, 近10年刊登的文章关键词聚类为遗传多样性、群落结构、红外相机、红色名录、生物多样性公约、国家公园、植物多样性、分类学和地理分布等9个子领域。培养了大批生物多样性人才, 10年中共有4,665位作者署名(作者记录数6,295), 发表文章最多的前20位作者主要来自中国科学院相关研究所、中国环境科学研究院、北京大学等机构, 其中60%为编委。(3)刊登的论文被广泛引用和下载。根据中国知网数据(排除了学位论文和会议论文, 2022年10月18日), 近10年刊登的文章有1,211篇累计被引用13,507次, 平均每篇被引11次以上; 网上下载量从2012年的6.64万次增加到2021年的23.85万次。有5篇文章入选中国科协优秀科技论文或中国百篇最具影响国内学术论文; 以国家公园、红外相机、红色名录、多功能性、生物入侵为关键词的文章是受关注的热点。《生物多样性》的影响因子和总被引频次在生物学领域一直排名前列; 是《科技期刊世界影响力指数(WJCI)报告》中全球保护生物学领域唯一的中国期刊, 2019年和2020年分别位列23/48和25/49位。最后我们探讨了今后如何继续引领中国生物多样性研究和保护、建设一流科技期刊面临的挑战和对策以及如何进一步提升科学传播能力。     

Zdeněk Šesták and Photosynthetica,a tribute

On the occasion of the 50th anniversary of the international journal Photosynthetica in 2017 we briefly report on the establishment of this journal and on Dr. Zdeněk ?esták, the renowned researcher of photosynthesis processes who, in cooperation with the Czechoslovak Academy of Sciences, founded this essential science journal in Prague in 1967.     

基于学科类别和富集分析的生物安全研究领域学科交叉研究*

随着合成生物学、基因编辑等典型两用性新兴生物技术的发展,生物安全作为一个具有显著交叉性的研究领域引起了国际各界的广泛关注。利用Web of Science数据库的论文数据,基于期刊学科类别分析了生物安全研究的学科交叉现状和时序演化,并采用富集分析方法研究了不同国家的学科交叉倾向差异。结果表明,20世纪以来,生物安全研究与其他学科的交叉融合日益广泛,动植物科学、环境和生态学、社会科学、微生物学、农业科学是其交叉融合最多的学科领域。不同国家生物安全研究的学科交融情况有所差异,欧美主要国家的学科交叉情况对我国有很好的借鉴之处。以期为生物安全特定研究领域的学科交叉研究提供一种新的方法探索,并为强化我国生物安全研究领域学科交叉和探索新的科研方向提供参考。     

History and evolution of the International Association for Plant Biotechnology (IAPB): 1963–2008

The International Association for Plant Biotechnology (IAPB) was founded in 1963 at the first truly international conference on plant tissue culture, which was organized by Philip R. White. White was a devoted internationalist and was strongly committed to global scientific cooperation. He felt that the time had come for the international tissue culture community to organize so that it could meet regularly and provide a forum to its members for the exchange of ideas and information of mutual interest and use. The various activities of the IAPB since its founding—the publication of its newsletter, its journal, and the proceedings of its quadrennial congresses—faithfully document the remarkable advances in plant biotechnology that were made possible by the successful integration of tissue culture and molecular biology. In particular, the congress proceedings serve as time capsules, providing a wealth of information about the best of science and the most prominent scientists of the time. The history of the IAPB is indeed the history of plant biotechnology.     

Recruitment Notice

Senior Managing Editor, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (JIPB) is a monthly plant biological journal that reports scientific iscoveries by using integrative genetic, chemical, cell and molecular biological approaches. As one of iley-Blackwell's leadingjournals, JIPB is available in over 7,800 libraries worldwide and indexed by 45 abases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, SCI, CA, BA and BIOSIS (www.jipb.net). We are looking for a nior Managing Editor to be fully in-charge of the Editorial Office, to work under the supervision of the hief ditor and the board members to promote the journal in the plant science community, to bridge the munication between the editorial board, the reviewers, the authors and the publisher. he ideal candidate hould be creative in increasing the journal’s visibility through organizing special issues, setting up a ser riendly public access system, and ensuring an efficient publication cycle. The annual salary range will be 100,000 RMB to 180,000 RMB, depending on the qualification. This position opens opens for pplication from 1 September, 2009, till the position is filled. Qualifications: 1. PhD degree in plant molecular biology-related area; 2. Over three-year-working experience in scientific publishing or three or more years research xperience in an English-speaking laboratory, with good publication record; 3. Experienced in writing, editing and marketing scientific journals. To apply, please send your application, including your CV and the names of three referee, to cmliu@ibcas.ac.cn.     

Recruitment Notice

Senior Managing Editor, Journal of Integrative Plant Biology Journal of Integrative Plant Biology (JIPB) is a monthly plant biological journal that reports scientific discoveries by using integrative genetic, chemical, cell and molecular biological approaches. As one of Wiley-Blackwell's leadingjournals, JIPB is available in over 7,800 libraries worldwide and indexed by 45 databases such as PubMed, Google Scholar, SCI, CA, BA and BIOSIS (www.jipb.net). We are looking for a Senior Managing Editor to be fully in-charge of the Editorial Office, to work under the supervision of the chief editor and the board members to promote the journal in the plant science community, to bridge the communication between the editorial board, the reviewers, the authors and the publisher. The ideal candidate should be creative in increasing the journal’s visibility through organizing special issues, setting up a user-friendly public access system, and ensuring an efficient publication cycle. The annual salary range will be 100,000 RMB to 180,000 RMB, depending on the qualification. This position opens opens for application from 1 September, 2009, till the position is filled. Qualifications: 1. PhD degree in plant molecular biology-related area; 2. Over three-year-working experience in scientific publishing or three or more years research experience in an English-speaking laboratory, with good publication record; 3. Experienced in writing, editing and marketing scientific journals. To apply, please send your application, including your CV and the names of three referee, to cmliu@ibcas.ac.cn.     

科技学术期刊国际化发展的思考与初探

结合办刊实践,提出了如下措施和建议:(1)明确读者定位,开拓优质稿源新渠道。(2)通过策划选题,充分体现知识的创新性;设置特色栏目,栏目内容具有科学性和实用性;增加载文的信息量,提高信息密度等途径优化期刊内容,努力创办特色期刊。(3)通过强化政策导向,建立合理机制吸引优秀稿件;跟踪国际科技前沿课题,掌握学术团队的发展动态;重视学术会议组稿,加强引进和派出访问学者的联系等措施提高稿件学术质量,增强刊物核心竞争力。(4)建立国际交换关系,提升刊物自身价值。(5)加强与国际重要检索系统的联系,重视进入专业数据库。(6)加快信息化建设,加大期刊的对外宣传。以此提升期刊的国际影响力,促进期刊的国际化发展。     

Under-Representation of Women on Dental Journal Editorial Boards

Introduction

Each journal’s editorial and advisory board plays a critical role in resolving gender bias in the peer-review and publication process. Thus, this study aimed to quantify women’s participation in editorial and advisory boards of major dental journals. Gender data on editorial and advisory boards were extracted from major dental journals, which were then categorized by journal specialty focus. The gender of the editor-in-chief and associate editor-in-chief was noted to assess the effect of journal leadership on women’s participation in journal boards. For comparison purposes, data were also obtained regarding the percentage of women faculty for each dental specialty.

Results

Overall, in the major 69 dental journals, 14.8% of editorial board members were women. An one-way ANOVA analysis revealed statistically significant gender differences between journal specialty categories (p = 0.003) with some dental specialties’ journals demonstrating a relatively high participation of women as editorial board members. There was a significant positive correlation for various dental specialties between women’s representation in editorial and advisory boards and women in similar dental academic specialties (p = 0.02, r² = 0.55). Furthermore, there was a positive correlation between the presence of women in journal editorial leadership and the percentage of women serving as advisory board members (p = 0.03). Our results confirmed that the under-representation of women on dental journal editorial boards was significantly different between dental science specialties. When there were more women in journal editorial leadership positions, there was a higher participation of women as editorial and advisory board members. Journals should increase the numbers of women on editorial boards in order to secure diversity, improve publication quality and recognize women’s contribution to dental science.     

A new chapter for a better Bioscience Reports

As Bioscience Reports enters its fifth decade of continuous multidisciplinary life science publishing, here we present a timely overview of the journal. In addition to introducing ourselves and new Associate Editors for 2021, we reflect on the challenges the new Editorial Board has faced and overcome since we took over the editorial leadership in June of 2020, and detail some key strategies on how we plan to encourage more submissions and broader readership for a better and stronger journal in the coming years.     

Gas valves,forests and global change: a commentary on Jarvis (1976) ‘The interpretation of the variations in leaf water potential and stomatal conductance found in canopies in the field’

Microscopic turgor-operated gas valves on leaf surfaces—stomata—facilitate gas exchange between the plant and the atmosphere, and respond to multiple environmental and endogenous cues. Collectively, stomatal activities affect everything from the productivity of forests, grasslands and crops to biophysical feedbacks between land surface vegetation and climate. In 1976, plant physiologist Paul Jarvis reported an empirical model describing stomatal responses to key environmental and plant conditions that predicted the flux of water vapour from leaves into the surrounding atmosphere. Subsequent theoretical advances, building on this earlier approach, established the current paradigm for capturing the physiological behaviour of stomata that became incorporated into sophisticated models of land carbon cycling. However, these models struggle to accurately predict observed trends in the physiological responses of Northern Hemisphere forests to recent atmospheric CO₂ increases, highlighting the need for improved representation of the role of stomata in regulating forest–climate interactions. Bridging this gap between observations and theory as atmospheric CO₂ rises and climate change accelerates creates challenging opportunities for the next generation of physiologists to advance planetary ecology and climate science. This commentary was written to celebrate the 350th anniversary of the journal Philosophical Transactions of the Royal Society.     

From Excessive Journal Self-Cites to Citation Stacking: Analysis of Journal Self-Citation Kinetics in Search for Journals,Which Boost Their Scientometric Indicators

Bibliometric indicators increasingly affect careers, funding, and reputation of individuals, their institutions and journals themselves. In contrast to author self-citations, little is known about kinetics of journal self-citations. Here we hypothesized that they may show a generalizable pattern within particular research fields or across multiple fields. We thus analyzed self-cites to 60 journals from three research fields (multidisciplinary sciences, parasitology, and information science). We also hypothesized that the kinetics of journal self-citations and citations received from other journals of the same publisher may differ from foreign citations. We analyzed the journals published the American Association for the Advancement of Science, Nature Publishing Group, and Editura Academiei Române. We found that although the kinetics of journal self-cites is generally faster compared to foreign cites, it shows some field-specific characteristics. Particularly in information science journals, the initial increase in a share of journal self-citations during post-publication year 0 was completely absent. Self-promoting journal self-citations of top-tier journals have rather indirect but negligible direct effects on bibliometric indicators, affecting just the immediacy index and marginally increasing the impact factor itself as long as the affected journals are well established in their fields. In contrast, other forms of journal self-citations and citation stacking may severely affect the impact factor, or other citation-based indices. We identified here a network consisting of three Romanian physics journals Proceedings of the Romanian Academy, Series A, Romanian Journal of Physics, and Romanian Reports in Physics, which displayed low to moderate ratio of journal self-citations, but which multiplied recently their impact factors, and were mutually responsible for 55.9%, 64.7% and 63.3% of citations within the impact factor calculation window to the three journals, respectively. They did not receive nearly any network self-cites prior impact factor calculation window, and their network self-cites decreased sharply after the impact factor calculation window. Journal self-citations and citation stacking requires increased attention and elimination from citation indices.     

关于植物营养生态学

植物营养学与植物生态学发展的前沿交叉正形成了植物营养生态学,植物营养生态学是探讨植物营养利用策略的科学,包括植物体内营养的合理利用策略和植物对无机营养环境的改造以利于营养吸收的各种可能策略。其研究内容主要包括养分利用效率、植物体内营养的再利用、体内营养含量格局和植物对土壤无机营养环境的改造。植物营养生态学以植物种群为研究对象。它的发展对深刻理解种群的生态行为特征具有重要意义,同时对如何增进人工混交群落的营养协调性具有实践上的指导意义。营养生态机理的各个方面是相互协调和相互补充的整体,营养生态机理的效率决定了种群营养合理利用的程度和在营养资源上的竞争力。目前,研究上尚缺少营养策略与其它生态策略的关联性的探讨,随着各种营养策略研究上的深入,这种关联性探讨将成为今后植物营养生态学的主要发展趋势。     

Species Distribution Models and Impact Factor Growth in Environmental Journals: Methodological Fashion or the Attraction of Global Change Science

In this work, I evaluate the impact of species distribution models (SDMs) on the current status of environmental and ecological journals by asking the question to which degree development of SDMs in the literature is related to recent changes in the impact factors of ecological journals. The hypothesis evaluated states that research fronts are likely to attract research attention and potentially drive citation patterns, with journals concentrating papers related to the research front receiving more attention and benefiting from faster increases in their impact on the ecological literature. My results indicate a positive relationship between the number of SDM related articles published in a journal and its impact factor (IF) growth during the period 2000–09. However, the percentage of SDM related papers in a journal was strongly and positively associated with the percentage of papers on climate change and statistical issues. The results support the hypothesis that global change science has been critical in the development of SDMs and that interest in climate change research in particular, rather than the usage of SDM per se, appears as an important factor behind journal IF increases in ecology and environmental sciences. Finally, our results on SDM application in global change science support the view that scientific interest rather than methodological fashion appears to be the major driver of research attraction in the scientific literature.     

The 30th Anniversary of Voprosy Psikhologii

The status of psychology in the postwar period was substantially different from its present status. First, it did not yet exist organizationally as an independent science; there were no faculties of psychology or scientific degrees in psychology, and there was no psychological journal in the country.     

Molecular immunology: At the border of centuries and at the interface of disciplines

This is a special issue of the journal Molekulyarnaya biologiya (Molecular Biology) focusing on topical problems in molecular immunology, virology, and the related fields of science, including molecular genetics, biochemistry, and cell biology. Several reviews are offered to the attention of our readers, as well as original experimental papers. This issue was prepared on a tight schedule and, certainly, cannot pretend to cover all the areas of the state-of-the-art science.     

Writing scientific papers,with special reference to <Emphasis Type="Italic">Evolutionary Ecology</Emphasis>

The advancement of science, as well as scientific careers, depends upon good and clear scientific writing. Science is the most democratic of human endeavours because, in principle, anyone can replicate a scientific discovery. In order for this to continue, writing must be clear enough to be understood well enough to allow replication, either in principle or in fact. In this paper I will present data on the publication process in Evolutionary Ecology, use it to illustrate some of the problems in scientific papers, make some general remarks about writing scientific papers, summarise two new paper categories in the journal which will fill gaps that appear to be expanding in the literature, and summarise new journal policies to help mitigate existing problems. Most of the suggestions about writing would apply to any scientific journal.     

2015年中国植物科学若干领域重要研究进展

2015年中国植物科学研究处于飞速发展的态势, 主要表现在中国植物生命科学家在国际顶级学术刊物发表文章的数量呈现出明显的优势。中国科学家在植物学诸多领域取得了骄人的成果, 如高等植物PSI与捕光天线的超分子复合物晶体结构的解析、水稻感知和耐受寒害机制、乙烯信号转导分子机制研究等。2015年中国生命科学领域十大进展中, 植物科学领域有两项成果入选。值得一提的是, 中国本土科学家因青蒿素的发现与抗疟疾药物新疗法的开创首次获得自然科学领域的诺贝尔奖, 标志着中国植物化学和中药学对人类健康事业的巨大贡献受到国际高度关注, 也标志着中国科学家围绕国家重大需求开展科学技术问题研究模式的有效性和影响力。中国植物科学从跟踪、并行, 逐渐迈入领跑学科发展的方阵。该文对2015年中国本土植物科学若干领域取得的重要研究成果进行了概括性评述, 旨在全面追踪当前中国植物科学领域发展的最新前沿和热点事件, 并与国内读者分享我国科学家所取得的杰出成就。     

Do you do text?

Retrieving information from text has become an important areain bioinformatics, and not too surprisingly, this journal haspublished more than 30 papers on this topic since the firstarticle published by the journal in 1998. In addition, ISCB(International Society for Computational Biology) (www.iscb.org)has organized special sessions in the ISMB conferences (IntelligentSystems for Molecular Biology, see www.iscb.org/ismb2005) anda specialized interest group (www.pdg.cnb.uam.es/BioLink/) forthe last five years. In parallel, major computer science conferencesin related areas have begun     

Commentary: statistics for biomarkers

This short commentary discusses Biomarkers' requirements for the reporting of statistical analyses in submitted papers. It is expected that submitters will follow the general instructions of the journal, the more detailed guidance given by the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors, the specific guidelines developed by the EQUATOR network, and those of various specialist groups. Biomarkers expects that the study design and subsequent statistical analyses are clearly reported and that the data reported can be made available for independent assessment. The journal recognizes that there is continuing debate about different approaches to statistical science. Biomarkers appreciates that the field continues to develop rapidly and encourages the use of new methodologies.