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Journal development, vegetation survey and the restoration of invaded ecosystems

2011; Wiley; Volume: 14; Issue: 1 Linguagem: Inglês

10.1111/j.1654-109x.2010.01115.x

1654-109X

Milan Chytrý, Alessandro Chiarucci, Meelis Pärtel, J. Bastow Wilson,

Forest Ecology and Biodiversity Studies

Applied Vegetation Science started in 1998 as a journal with just two issues published per year. In 2007 it was extended to three issues and since 2008 it has had four issues per volume. These four issues accommodated 45–58 papers with a total size of 515–554 pages in 2008–2010. The space available in the journal does not allow us to publish all good and competent papers that are submitted; also, we cannot publish papers that are too long. Because of a growing interest of authors in publishing in Applied Vegetation Science and increased income from journal sales and subscriptions, the Council of the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS) decided to increase the size of the journal to 612 pages in 2011. Further increase in 2012 may be possible. We are happy that this will enable us publishing more high-quality papers devoted to various aspects of human interactions with vegetation, as well as vegetation survey studies. There were several important publishing developments in 2010. The online version of the journal, including full text articles since the first volume, has been integrated into the Wiley Online Library, a large collection which includes about 1500 journals and many other electronic resources. The journal website now highlights the most downloaded papers. The Author Guidelines were extensively revised to reflect the changes since the transfer to Wiley-Blackwell. The scope of the journal is now described more accurately with a focus on defining the line between topics covered by Applied Vegetation Science and its sister Journal of Vegetation Science. We are especially excited about our new page design with the IAVS logo, developed in close cooperation with the Wiley-Blackwell staff. We believe that this modern design will increase the attractiveness of the journal for readers and authors. The journal publishes three categories of papers: Ordinary paper, Forum and Report. We are particularly interested in the increase of Forum papers, which enliven the journal. There were no Forum papers in the 2010 volume of Applied Vegetation Science, but there were examples of such papers in Journal of Vegetation Science (Chiarucci et al. 2010a; De Bello et al. 2010; Jansen & Dengler 2010; Tamme et al. 2010). We encourage authors to submit short essay papers with original ideas, speculations or well-sustained arguments that contribute to debates on current and controversial ideas in applications of vegetation science. Short Report papers on non-scientific topics such as the existence of databases and technical information are also welcome in Applied Vegetation Science. Sandra Díaz, who served as one of the Chief Editors since 2003, left the journal in 2010. We thank Sandra for all the efforts and hard work for the journal over all those years. We also appreciated the help of all the referees who significantly contributed to the quality of the journal (App. 1). There has been some discussion over the last three years within IAVS and beyond on a suitable international platform for publishing vegetation classification and survey papers. Consideration was given to establishing a third official journal of IAVS, devoted exclusively to this topic, but after advice from Wiley-Blackwell it became clear that this is not an economic possibility at the moment. An alternative supported by both the IAVS Council and the editors was launching a specialized section on Vegetation Survey in Applied Vegetation Science (Chiarucci et al. 2010b). Vegetation classification and survey are frequently used for nature conservation inventories and monitoring, thus tightly linked to applications, and all survey is applied in some sense. Both Applied Vegetation Science and Journal of Vegetation Science have always accepted papers on vegetation classification and survey, provided they were of broad international interest. This is reflected in the online virtual special issue on Vegetation Survey, which we produced in 2010. It contains 16 earlier papers devoted to these topics and published in our journals, which have been made freely available for a limited period on the journal websites. Most of these papers were originally published in the Journal of Vegetation Science (e.g. Košir et al. 2008; Wagner 2009; Pajunen et al. 2010, to mention some recent ones), but from 2011 all such papers will be directed to Applied Vegetation Science. To support this development, we have compiled a separate document with author instructions on vegetation classification papers, which is now available under Author Guidelines on the journal's website. There are very many vegetation survey studies which describe the local diversity of plant cover and vegetation types in a particular area of the world. Due to its limited space, Applied Vegetation Science can publish only a restricted number of such studies. We believe that papers of local interest should be published in local journals, in which they most easily find the interested readership. We aim to publish the world's top-quality vegetation survey papers that are of interest to a broad international audience. Such papers should: (1) contain a synthetic, comparative treatment of the selected vegetation type(s) over a large area, based on a large comprehensive data set (international studies are particularly welcome), or (2) describe vegetation that is unique for biogeographical reasons, or has a particularly interesting ecology and has hardly ever been described before, or (3) apply a new method of data analysis, or evaluate the performance of such a method, or compare different methods or approaches, or (4) describe new applications of vegetation classification, e.g., for conservation management and other applied purposes. This scope of the Vegetation Survey section should make Applied Vegetation Science a leading international platform for vegetation classification and survey research. We are now preparing a real (non-virtual) Special Feature on Vegetation Survey with invited contributions from leading international experts in this field, which is scheduled for publication in 2011. We would like Vegetation Survey to continue as a special section in the journal, and the Special Feature will show examples of the types of paper that we hope authors will submit. Every year since 2001, the Editors of Applied Vegetation Science have selected an outstanding paper to receive the Editors' Award. Some papers are nominated for this Award by their Co-ordinating Editors, others by the Chief Editors. The Applied Vegetation Science Editors' Award for 2010 goes to Sierra McDaniel and Rebecca Ostertag for their paper “Strategic light manipulation as a restoration strategy to reduce alien grasses and encourage native regeneration in Hawaiian mesic forests” (McDaniel & Ostertag 2010). They addressed a complex issue of the restoration of native woodland on abandoned pastures in tropical areas. Such areas are often dominated by alien grasses, which impair regeneration of native woody species. Establishment of woody natives over grass aliens can be favoured by light reduction due to the canopy shading introduced by plantation-style planting. However, light must be reduced to the level that limits alien grasses but still enables recruitment of native woody species. McDaniel & Ostertag combined a survey study with an experimental manipulation of light availability, and convincingly demonstrated that light reduction is a very promising restoration strategy for abandoned tropical pastures. Invasion ecology is among the most dynamic sub-disciplines of ecology, with specialized journals and ever increasing number of papers published per year (Ricciardi & MacIsaac 2008). Indeed two papers on iceplant (Carpobrotus) in Mediterranean coastal areas are among the most downloaded (Carranza et al. 2010) and most cited (Traveset et al. 2008) of the recently published Applied Vegetation Science papers. We are looking especially for studies on plant invasion in the context of whole plant communities (rather than at the population level) with direct implications for restoration and management, and the paper by McDaniel & Ostertag (2010) is a fine example of this kind of research. There were other interesting papers nominated for the Editors' Award. Dahlström et al. (2010) studied the distribution of grassland plant species in a changing landscape of Northern Europe. Using unique historical data on a large number of farms that were abandoned at known dates, and where land-use information was available, they showed that several decades after abandonment the highest numbers of all plant species and of grassland species were found on former arable fields rather than in former hay meadows. This indicates that after few decades of spontaneous succession, former arable land can be a more appropriate target for conservation of grassland species than former grassland in Northern European landscapes. Another nominated paper was Hall et al. (2010), who demonstrated an application of high spatial resolution satellite imagery which is particularly interesting for conservation monitoring. Their measures of spectral heterogeneity obtained from satellite data appeared to be suitable predictors of sward height (i.e. grazing intensity) and species richness in semi-natural grasslands. Although this application of remote sensing in vegetation science is not entirely new (Rocchini et al. 2007), it is a very promising avenue of research with high potential impact on future vegetation surveys for nature conservation. Tsipe Aavik Arnon Accad Martín Aguiar Naikoa Aguilar-Amuchastegui Thomas Allen Margarita Arianoutsou Andre Arsenault Mark Ashton Laurent Augusto Annett Baasch Ingvar Backéus Loretta Battaglia Daniel Bebber Thomas Becker Christian Berg Gregory Biging Frans Bongers Zoltán Botta-Dukát Elizabeth Boughton Brad Boyle Ian Breckheimer Andrea Britton Richard Busing Daniel Campbell Roberto Canullo Marta Carboni Maria Laura Carranza Luis Cayuela Rafael Celaya Richard Condit Jeffrey Corbin Heike Culmsee Fred Daniëls John David Francesco de Bello Miquel De Cáceres Guillermo Defossé Roger del Moral Jürgen Dengler Martin Diekmann Klaus Dierssen Thomas Dirnböck Solomon Dobrowski Justin du Toit Stefan Dullinger Michel Duru Keith Edwards Carsten Eichberg Julie C. Ellis Maarten Eppinga Valerie Eviner Corneille Ewango Don Faber-Langendoen Jeremie Fant Mark Fenn Rod Fensham Max Finlayson Marie-Josée Fortin Katherine Frego Kris French Jan Friesen Samuel Fuhlendorf Richard Fynn Susan Galatowitsch Antonio Gazol Coert Geldenhuys Sarah Gergel Luciana Ghermandi Diethardt Goetze William Gould Megan Griffiths Phillip Groom Emilie Grossmann Daniela H. Haarmeyer Michal Hájek Leena Hamberg Matt Hansen Jan Hanspach Todd Hawbaker Hong He Stephan Hennekens Tomáš Herben José Luis Hernández Stefanoni Benjamin Heumann Michael Hilton Tracy Hmielowski S. Hoechstetter William Hoffmann Norbert Hölzel Olivier Honnay Makihiko Ikegami Monika Janišová Florian Jansen John Janssen Michael Jennings R. Todd Jobe Jesse Kalwij David Keith Jitka Klimešová László Körmöczi Jochen Krauss Siegfried Krauss Pavel Krestov Sunil Kumar Jan Květ Shiqing Li Jaan Liira Regina Lindborg Canran Liu Javier Loidi Todd Lookingbill Gabriela Lopez-Gonzalez Leonel Lopez-Toledo Frédérique Louault Roy Lubke Belen Luna Michael Manthey Pablo Manzano Rob Marrs Tetsuya Matsui Jeffrey Matthews Sue McIntyre Ken McLeod Karl Mellert Beth Middleton Thomas E. Miller Sue Milton Franz Mora Ladislav Mucina Jeff Nekola Martha Nungesser Tim O'Connor Jens Oldeland Pål Olsson Marina Omacini Yvette Ortega Mutlu Ozdogan Michael Palmer V. Thomas Parker Meelis Pärtel Vilém Pavlů Trent Penman Cord Peppler-Lisbach Lorenzo Peruzzi Nathalie Pettorelli Katharina Plassmann Jan Plue Sven Pompe Gabriela Posse Karel Prach Eduardo Pucheta Juha Pykälä Fabien Quetier Gillian Rapson William Rees Jim Reinartz Tarmo Remmel Dave Roberts George Robinson John Rogan Gert Rosenthal Louise Ross Michael Rudner Jasper Ruijven Riccardo Santoro Udo Schickhoff Marco Schmidt Sebastian Schmidtlein Walter Seidling Merav Seifan Chang-Wan Seo Henning Sommer Conghe Song Laurens Sparrius Nick Spencer Thomas Spiegelberger William Stock Jason Stoker Karle Sýkora Cajo ter Braak Kenneth Thompson Lubomír Tichý Simon Todd Mitsuru Tsubo Atushi Ushimaru Han van Dobben James Van Kley Wim van Leeuwen Michel Vennetier Kris Verheyen Pascal Vittoz Henrik von Wehrden Viktoria Wagner Susan Ward Tim Warner Benjamin Wigley Richard Williams Wolfgang Willner Susan Wiser Monika Wulf Susumu Yamada Fei-Hai Yu Paul Zedler Linda Zeigenfuss David Zelený Gerhard Zotz