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2003 CONSERVATION BIOLOGY EDITOR'S REPORT

Gary K. Meffe, Editor

Highlights

In 2002, six issues of Conservation Biology were published on time. The number of manuscripts submitted in 2002 decreased slightly from the previous year (-10.8%), returning to the levels of 1999 and 2000. A total of 1690 pages was published, a decrease of 8.5% from the previous year, but still slightly above our page budget of 1632. After a flurry of Special Sections in recent years, none were published in 2002 (but several are coming up). Conservation Biology continued to receive much press coverage due to our media consultant, Robin Meadows, who provides news tips to the media of selected articles. Our Editorial Assistant, Margaret Flagg, and Managing Editor, Ellen Main, continue to be highly dedicated and do exceptional work.

Submissions

The submission rate for this journal year (January through December 2002) decreased slightly from 2001, but is still robust. We received 573 manuscripts, down from the all-time high of 643 manuscripts submitted in 2001. The trend in submittal rate is as follows:

Year	Number of manuscripts	% change
1993-94	302
1994-95	378	25.2
1995-96	434	14.8
1996-97	540	24.4
1997-98	579	7.2
1998	614	6
1999	581	-5.3
2000	580	-0.17
2001	643	10.9
2002	573	-10.8

We used 26 ad hoc Assigning Editors this year, individuals who handled one or more manuscripts but are not on the Board. Ad hoc Editors were used when a manuscript did not fall within the expertise of existing Editors, when they had special expertise in the area, or if the appropriate Assigning Editor was particularly busy with other manuscripts. This system has worked very well and will continue to be employed. Ad hoc Editors are acknowledged in the December issue of each year and are an integral part of this journal; I thank them for their contributions.

Decisions and Rejection Rates

Of the 573 papers received in 2002, 238 (41.5%) were rejected by the Editor without review, usually within three days of submittal and usually due to inappropriateness of subject matter or low quality; 335 (58.5%) were sent for review, most through Assigning Editors and a few directly by the Editor.

Of the 335 manuscripts sent for review, 177 (52.8%) were rejected, 96 (28.7%) were accepted, and no decision had yet been reached on 61 (18.2%), which are still in review or in revision with authors. Of the total number of papers submitted (573), 415 (72.4%) were rejected (about the same as last year's 70.9%), 96 were accepted (16.8%, the same percentage as last year), and no decision was yet reached on 61 (or 10.6%, down from 12.1% last year) as of 23 May 2003. Of the 512 papers for which decisions have been made, 415 (81.1%) were rejected. However, some of the "no decision" papers are being revised and are likely to be accepted, so the overall rejection rate will be lower than this, probably near our usual of 75%.

Turnaround Time

For about the last 10 years, the Editor's report has followed the format that you see. However, we recently realized that because this format reports on the fates of manuscripts from a given journal year, we are in fact truncating the right side of the distribution of the statistics. There is always a lag period because manuscripts submitted in a given year typically are published in a subsequent year. Thus, review turnaround time for a given journal year is fairly accurate but submittal to publication and acceptance to publication are misleading because they do not include manuscripts that have not yet completed the review and scheduling process. Consequently, these numbers are useful for inter-year comparisons but not for assessing absolute turnaround times. For that, one would need to collect data directly from the published submittal and acceptance dates directly in the journal in subsequent years.

Mean turnaround time for manuscript review continues to fluctuate between 70 and 80 days; it was up slightly in 2002 to 79 days (min = 7; max = 375). We continue to have a struggle with busy reviewers who do not complete the task in a reasonable amount of time (or never complete it), and we continue to replace Assigning Editors who are consistently slow. Time from acceptance to publication stayed about the same as 2001, at 236 days (from 237; min = 125; max = 442). Total time from submission to publication increased from 353 to 391days (min = 139; max = 547). Again, these latter two statistics are right-censured and should be used only in a comparative sense.

Region of Authorship

Region of authorship is determined by the address of the first author at the time the work was done, and only partially reflects sovereignty of contributions. International participation in authorship is actually higher than indicated by these statistics. Of the 96 papers submitted and accepted in 2002, the proportion that were first-authored by U.S. authors stayed almost exactly the same as in 2001: 67.7% (vs. 68%). This continues to be higher than we would like. Regional changes from 2001 are Asia (2% to 0%), Africa (0% to 4.2%), Australia (7% to 7.3%), Canada (5% to 3.1%), Central/South America (3% to 4.2%), and Europe (15% to 13.5).

Miscellaneous Information

The Editor sent letters to all section presidents in May 2003, explaining journal procedures and philosophies regarding publishing here. In particular, we are trying to boost representation of papers from outside the United States, as well as other participation including Editorial Board membership, writing of Editorials, and development of Special Sections. The Editor offered various suggestions and sought input from all sections with the hope of developing a more fully international journal as the sections develop. There will also be an Editorial in the October 2003 issue of Conservation Biology to this effect.

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