Editorial

These are heady times. As the new millennium dawns, the field of zoology is more exciting than ever. Phylogenetic relations among animals are rapidly being refined or revised in light of new data and powerful new analyses. These revelations in turn are rekindling interest in the function, development, and evolution of animals from all branches of the zoological tree. Tools and insights derived from work on a few model organisms are being applied widely to fill in significant gaps in our knowledge about how the astonishing diversity of animal characteristics evolved.Paralleling this new excitement is an upheaval in scientific publishing. Increasingly specialized journals are sprouting up worldwide as publishers rush to embrace emerging areas of excitement. Electronic communication is re-defining expectations about how new knowledge is disseminated both in format and in mode of transmission and about the time from submission to publication. For established journals to survive, they too must evolve.This journal, ZOOLOGY, is evolving to meet the needs and expectations of the modern community of animal biologists. It aims to promote research like that of it's founder J.W. Spengel — that explicitly emphasizes comparative aspects of animal biology. With the rapid growth of phylogenetic information, ZOOLOGY now offers a venue where the full impact of recent phylogenetic advances on our understanding of animal form, function, development, and evolution can be addressed. An ambitious new group of editors, a new advisory board, and a professionally staffed editorial office, are working to rejuvenate ZOOLOGY as an internationally recognized leader in comparative animal biology.ZOOLOGY has a distinguished place in the pantheon of animal biology journals. It ranks among the oldest continuously published journals in Germany. Founded in 1886 as Zoologische Jahrbücher it quickly rose to prominence among European zoological journals. In the early 1990's, after political and social upheavaling some European countries and after the reunification of Germany, the journal took a more international approach under a new title, ZOOLOGY — ANALYSIS OF COMPLEX SYSTEMS (ZACS). For the last four years, ZOOLOGY has also worked in close cooperation with the German Zoological Society and this tradition will continue. Once each year, it will publish review lectures presented at the annual meeting of the Society. A supplement to ZOOLOGY, containing the abstracts of oral and poster presentations of the annual meeting, will also be produced in conjunction with the German Zoological Society.But the new ZOOLOGY also recognizes the increasing importance of rapid and international communication in all areas of animal biology. It therefore aims to reduce publication time drastically and to enhance the speed and rigor of the review process. The new editors and editorial board are committed to maintaining the highest scientific standards and also to remaining flexible enough to adjust to the ever changing field of animal biology. Recognizing the increasing importance of rapid, effective, international communication, the new ZOOLOGY will offer:— the highest scientific standards— a short review time— a publication time schedule of three months after acceptance— color plates free of charge (at the editors' discretion)— an online version published in advance of the printed journal— free E-mail Table of Contents alerts so papers are widely publicized— papers abstracted/indexed by all the major scientific indexing servicesAs the new cover and the more accessible layout inside this issues show, the change has already begun. The future holds great promise for animal biology. Join us as Zoology strives to fulfil that promise.Spring 2001J. Matthias StarckThomas C. BoschA. Richard PalmerKiyokazu Agata     

Re‐defining and tackling the emerging challenges in stem cell research and translation: A report of the 10th CSSCR annual meeting

The 10th congress of the Chinese Society for Stem Cell Research was held from 11 to 13 October 2020 at Guiyang International Eco‐Conference Center in Guizhou (Southwest China) with 700 offline participants (and 500 online participants). With a theme adopted from a poem by Mao Zedong during the long march, ‘However difficult it might appear; the challenges will be overcome’, the congress provided opportunities for the fast‐growing field to exchange ideas among people from academia, industry and regulatory authorities, to help accelerate translation. Eight plenary lectures and six concurrent sessions on cell fate decision, stem cell metabolism, neural stem cells and neural regeneration, organoids and disease models, tissue and organ regeneration and clinical translation of stem cell research were covered, including 77 oral presentations and 75 poster presentations. The congress also included special programmes of a youth forum, a lecture award programme, a flagship journal forum and a dedicated networking session. This 3‐day event will significantly boost the stem cell research in an era closing to application.     

Geographic origin of journal articles on nonhuman primates

During the 1970s variations in the number of citations published in CURRENT PRIMATE REFERENCES seemed to parallel changes in the fortunes of primate research in the United States. In 1981 and 1982, however, the trends diverged, with the number of citations increasing 25% over the two years. In an effort to identify more specifically some factors underlying the trend in literature growth, citations of journal articles appearing in 1971, 1976, and 1981 issues were tabulated according to the general subject indicated by the title and the site of research indicated by the author's address. The number of journal articles was 20% larger in 1981 than in 1971. The United States was the largest contributor in all three years, but its relative contribution declined. Continental Western Europe ranked second consistently, and its contribution grew at an above-average rate. Japan ranked fifth in 1971 and third in 1981. India contributed less than 2% of the literature in 1971 and more than 3% in 1981, as a result of a doubling of its contribution. The subject composition of the literature did not change greatly.     

征稿启事

Virologica Sinica《中国病毒学（英文版）》是中国微生物学会病毒学专业的正式学术刊物,由中国科学院武汉病毒研究所和中国微生物学会共同主办。原中文版创刊于1986年,系中国生物学和医学核心期刊,2007年后发行语种变更为英文。本期刊目前是国内唯一的被PubMed/MedLine检索的病毒学领域的全英文期刊,与德国Springer-Verlag出版公司共同出版,全球发行。     

Contested Pasts and the Practice of Anthropology

With this issue, the editors of the American Anthropologist introduce the first Contemporary Issues Forum, "Contested Pasts and the Practice of Anthropology." We find it incumbent upon the flagship journal of the profession to encourage productive discussion of current issues of relevance to anthropologists and the public. The editors have targeted broadly significant and controversial topics as foci for the forums with a view to encouraging productive dialogue. With this initial forum we open an arena for debate regarding anthropological practice and discourse and their consequences in the contemporary period of ethnic resurgence and (neo)colonial disempowerment. We recognize the debated nature of these issues and the potential importance of such controversies to the profession. Commentary on the forum papers from the readership of the American Anthropologist is welcome.     

A Current Controversy in Human Evolution. Overview

With this issue, the editors of the American Anthropologist publish the second Contemporary Issues Forum, "A Current Controversy in Human Evolution." We find it incumbent upon the flagship journal of the profession to encourage productive discussion of issues of relevance to anthropologists and to the public. With this in mind the editors have targeted broadly significant and controversial topics as foci for the forums with a view to encouraging dialogue. The second forum opens an arena for debate in this journal regarding contemporary theories of modern human evolution and their evidential bases in genetics and the fossil record. We recognize the disputed nature of these issues and the potential importance of such controversies to the profession. Commentary on the forum papers from the readership of the American Anthropologist is welcomed.     

Book notices

ENTOMOLOGY. By Cedric Gillott.
MEDICAL ZOOLOGY FOR TRAVELLERS. By John Hull Grundy.
RECENT ADVANCES IN ACAROLOGY. Edited by J. G. Rodriguez.
SAMPLING METHODS IN SOYBEAN ENTOMOLOGY. Edited by M. Kogan and D. C. Herzog.
MOUNTAIN TORRENT OF THE TIEN SHAN. A FAUNISTIC-ECOLOGY ESSAY. By K. A. Brodsky. Translated from Russian by V. V. Golosov.
ECOLOGY OF INSECT-PLANT INTERACTIONS. By Peter J. Edwards and Stephen D. Wratten.     

Biophysical reviews: call for nominations for the 2023 Michèle Auger Award

This Editorial for Issue 3 (Vol. 14 2022) of Biophysical Reviews first describes the Issue’s contents (five commentaries/editorials within the front matter and seven review/letter articles appearing within the main body) before going on to discuss a number of matters of potential importance to the journal and its readers. Amongst this second tranche of content is the opening of the call for nominations for the 2023 Michèle Auger Award for Young Scientists’ Independent Research.

Created in 2009, Biophysical Reviews is the flagship journal of IUPAB, the International Union for Pure and Applied Biophysics (IUPAB 2022). Each of the journal’s six issues per year are divided into a front section, dealing with journal process and points of interest to biophysicists and IUPAB society members, and a main section, that presents scientific Letters and Reviews that are written by recognized experts in the field and are selected with an eye to providing an as wide as possible level of international participation. The first duty of each Issue’s editorial is to provide a precis of both the non-scientific and scientific articles appearing within, and we carry this out forthwith.     

向本刊2018年度审稿专家致谢

2018年度,共有386位专家为《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》审稿,他们的辛勤劳动保证了学报的学术质量,他们提出的中肯意见帮助了作者提高科研水平和论文写作质量。在此,编辑部谨向所有的审稿专家致以最诚挚的感谢！以下为审稿专家姓名,其中审稿3篇以上的专家被评为优秀审稿专家。 (专家名单详见pdf文件） 《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》编辑部 2019 年1月     

向本刊2017年度审稿专家致谢

The editorial office of Journal of Chinese Biochemistry and Molecular Biology wishes to give our sincere gratitude to the following reviewers who have provided their valuable reports and detailed comments for our journal during 2017. Your contributions are vital for the ever improving scientific quality of the journal and essential for the development of the journal. Editorial Board of Chinese Journal of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology January,2018     

向本刊2016年度审稿专家致谢

一年一度春来到,金鸡报晓春来早！感谢各位审稿专家2016年的陪伴,是你们在百忙之中的辛苦工作,才有了学报一期期保质保量的出版。《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》送走了2016年12期,迎来了2017年的第1期。2016年我们有许多新的尝试,微信公众号的发布、最新录用栏目的启用、还有特约综述的推出,学报点滴的进步都离不开各位专家的帮助,这是期刊向前的步伐,这是属于你我的荣光！2016年度共有238名审稿专家为我刊审稿,其中审稿3篇以上的被评为优秀审稿专家。祝各位专家新春快乐！ 名单详见pdf。 《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》编辑部 2017年1月     

Comparison of Journal Self-Citation Rates between Some Chinese and Non-Chinese International Journals

Background

The past 3 decades have witnessed a boost in science development in China; in parallel, more and more Chinese scientific journals are indexed by the Journal Citation Reports issued by Thomson Reuters (SCI). Evaluation of the performance of these Chinese SCI journals is necessary and helpful to improve their quality. This study aimed to evaluate these journals by calculating various journal self-citation rates, which are important parameters influencing a journal impact factor.

Methodology/Principal Findings

We defined three journal self-citation rates, and studied these rates for 99 Chinese scientific journals, almost exhausting all Chinese SCI journals currently available. Likewise, we selected 99 non-Chinese international (abbreviated as ‘world’) journals, with each being in the same JCR subject category and having similar impact factors as their Chinese counterparts. Generally, Chinese journals tended to be higher in all the three self-citation rates than world journal counterparts. Particularly, a few Chinese scientific journals had much higher self-citation rates.

Conclusions/Significance

Our results show that generally Chinese scientific journals have higher self-citation rates than those of world journals. Consequently, Chinese scientific journals tend to have lower visibility and are more isolated in the relevant fields. Considering the fact that sciences are rapidly developing in China and so are Chinese scientific journals, we expect that the differences of journal self-citation rates between Chinese and world scientific journals will gradually disappear in the future. Some suggestions to solve the problems are presented.     

Formalizing the definition of meta‐analysis in Molecular Ecology

Meta‐analysis, the statistical synthesis of pertinent literature to develop evidence‐based conclusions, is relatively new to the field of molecular ecology, with the first meta‐analysis published in the journal Molecular Ecology in 2003 (Slate & Phua 2003). The goal of this article is to formalize the definition of meta‐analysis for the authors, editors, reviewers and readers of Molecular Ecology by completing a review of the meta‐analyses previously published in this journal. We also provide a brief overview of the many components required for meta‐analysis with a more specific discussion of the issues related to the field of molecular ecology, including the use and statistical considerations of Wright's F_ST and its related analogues as effect sizes in meta‐analysis. We performed a literature review to identify articles published as ‘meta‐analyses’ in Molecular Ecology, which were then evaluated by at least two reviewers. We specifically targeted Molecular Ecology publications because as a flagship journal in this field, meta‐analyses published in Molecular Ecology have the potential to set the standard for meta‐analyses in other journals. We found that while many of these reviewed articles were strong meta‐analyses, others failed to follow standard meta‐analytical techniques. One of these unsatisfactory meta‐analyses was in fact a secondary analysis. Other studies attempted meta‐analyses but lacked the fundamental statistics that are considered necessary for an effective and powerful meta‐analysis. By drawing attention to the inconsistency of studies labelled as meta‐analyses, we emphasize the importance of understanding the components of traditional meta‐analyses to fully embrace the strengths of quantitative data synthesis in the field of molecular ecology.     

Biodiversity gains from efficient use of private sponsorship for flagship species conservation

To address the global extinction crisis, both efficient use of existing conservation funding and new sources of funding are vital. Private sponsorship of charismatic ‘flagship’ species conservation represents an important source of new funding, but has been criticized as being inefficient. However, the ancillary benefits of privately sponsored flagship species conservation via actions benefiting other species have not been quantified, nor have the benefits of incorporating such sponsorship into objective prioritization protocols. Here, we use a comprehensive dataset of conservation actions for the 700 most threatened species in New Zealand to examine the potential biodiversity gains from national private flagship species sponsorship programmes. We find that private funding for flagship species can clearly result in additional species and phylogenetic diversity conserved, via conservation actions shared with other species. When private flagship species funding is incorporated into a prioritization protocol to preferentially sponsor shared actions, expected gains can be more than doubled. However, these gains are consistently smaller than expected gains in a hypothetical scenario where private funding could be optimally allocated among all threatened species. We recommend integrating private sponsorship of flagship species into objective prioritization protocols to sponsor efficient actions that maximize biodiversity gains, or wherever possible, encouraging private donations for broader biodiversity goals.     

The role of ecotourism in conservation: panacea or Pandora’s box?

Does ecotourism contribute towards conservation of threatened species and habitats or is it just a marketing ploy of the tourism industry? Using 251 case studies on ecotourism from the literature, I looked at the distribution of case studies over continents, habitats and flagship species types and what factors influenced whether an ecotourism regime was perceived as ecologically sustainable by authors. Over 50% of ecotourism case studies were reported from Africa and Central America. The overall distribution of ecotourism case studies did not reflect vertebrate endemism, nor overall tourism distribution in terms of tourist numbers and receipts. There were significant differences between continents and habitats with regard to the proportion of sustainable case studies: ecotourism is perceived to be less sustainable in South America and Asia, and in island and mountain habitats. The type of flagship species also influenced whether ecotourism was classified as sustainable or not: ecotourism with no flagship species was rarely classified as sustainable while charismatic bird and mammal species were associated with a higher probability of sustainability. In a multivariate analysis, flagship species type and local community involvement were important predictors of sustainability in ecotourism. Detailed a priori planning, local involvement and control measures were perceived by authors of case studies to increase the success of ecotourism in conservation. They also perceived that ecotourism can only be an effective conservation tool under certain conditions. If these are met, the evidence indicates that ecotourism can make a contribution to conservation.     

向本刊2019年度审稿专家致谢

2019年度,共有368位专家为《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》审稿,他们的辛勤劳动保证了学报的学术质量,他们提出的中肯意见帮助作者提高了科研水平和论文写作质量。在此,编辑部谨向所有的审稿专家致以最诚挚的感谢！以下为审稿专家姓名,其中审稿3篇以上的专家被评为优秀审稿专家。     

向本刊2019年度审稿专家致谢

2019年度,共有368位专家为《中国生物化学与分子生物学报》审稿,他们的辛勤劳动保证了学报的学术质量,他们提出的中肯意见帮助作者提高了科研水平和论文写作质量。在此,编辑部谨向所有的审稿专家致以最诚挚的感谢！以下为审稿专家姓名,其中审稿3篇以上的专家被评为优秀审稿专家。     

中国兰科植物保育的现状和展望

兰科植物是植物保育中的“旗舰”类群 (flaggroup)。中国不是兰科植物种类最丰富的地区 ,但具有最复杂多样的地理分布类型以及众多的原始类群 ,因此 ,开展对中国兰科植物的研究和保育是世界兰科植物研究和保育工作中的重要组成部分。本文介绍了目前中国兰科植物研究和保育的现状 ,分析了与国际同类工作相比存在的差距 ,并对今后的发展方向提出了一些看法     

The value of flagship and umbrella species for restoration and sustainable development: Bale monkeys and bamboo forest in Ethiopia

Forest loss and degradation are the most significant threats to terrestrial biodiversity in the tropics. Promoting flagship or umbrella species is a strategy that can be used to conserve intact forests and restore degraded ecosystems, conserve biodiversity, and achieve sustainable development goals. The Bale monkey (Chlorocebus djamdjamensis) is an arboreal, forest-dwelling, threatened primate restricted to a small range in the southern Ethiopian Highlands, which relies mostly on a single species of bamboo (Arundinaria alpina) and prefers bamboo forest habitat. Most of the Bale monkey’s range lies outside protected areas and most of its historical bamboo forest habitat is degraded or destroyed. The conservation of Bale monkeys and bamboo is highly inter-dependent; however, the value of using the Bale monkey as a flagship or umbrella species for forest restoration has not been evaluated. Here we use geographic range overlap and geospatial modeling to evaluate Bale monkeys as a flagship and/or umbrella species. We also assess if conservation intervention on behalf of Bale monkeys can help restore bamboo forest, while simultaneously providing a wide range of socioeconomic and environmental benefits. We found that Bale monkeys share their range with 52 endemic and/or threatened vertebrate species and at least 9 endemic and/or threatened plant species. Our results show that Bale monkeys meet both the flagship and umbrella species criteria to restore bamboo forest and conserve threatened co-occurring species. Since bamboo is fast-growing and can be harvested every year, we suggest that a science-based sustainable harvest and management regime for bamboo would help to improve the livelihood of both the local community and Ethiopians in general without significantly affecting the long-term survival of Bale monkeys and regional biodiversity. Further, a conservation management strategy protecting and restoring bamboo forest has the potential to achieve at least six of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals.