The relaunch is more than a change of infrastructure. It reflects a deliberate strategy by TIBS to position the journal for growth in a publishing landscape that has been transformed over the past decade. The society, a non-profit founded in 2001 to support the study, understanding, communication and application of biogeography, established the journal’s vision and mission, subsidises its running costs, appoints its chief editors, who serve without payment alongside the rest of the editorial board, and oversees its performance through a newly established publications committee reporting to the TIBS board.

Founded in 2009, Frontiers of Biogeography began as an open-access forum for syntheses, perspectives and discussion, with its first volume containing profiles, commentaries, book reviews and announcements alongside early research contributions. Over seventeen volumes the journal has evolved into a more conventional format, with empirical Research Articles now forming the majority of published papers, complemented by Perspectives, Reviews, Correspondence, Book Reviews and occasional Editorials. The journal accepts work on any taxon, across temporal scales from short to deep time, and across spatial scales of analysis, spanning pure and applied schools of thought within biogeography.

A significant milestone accompanies the relaunch. Clarivate has selected Frontiers of Biogeography for inclusion in the Web of Science, with articles published from 2022, beginning with volume 14, indexed in the Emerging Sources Citation Index, Zoological Record, Biological Abstracts and BIOSIS Previews. The journal’s current Scopus CiteScore of 4.3, recorded for 2023, offers one existing measure of the attention its published work is already receiving. Inclusion in major citation and listing systems enhances connectivity and ease of discovery, an expectation in modern scientific publishing that the journal has now formally met.

The transition to Pensoft also changes the journal’s publication model in a fundamental way. Rather than appearing in four issues per year, Frontiers of Biogeography now operates on a continuous publication schedule, meaning each paper is published in final form as soon as possible after acceptance and proofing are complete. Volume 16, the last produced via the e-Scholarship platform, was closed after its first two issues, and all subsequent 2024 papers form volume 17. Thereafter, each new volume will begin at the start of each calendar year, aligning the journal with contemporary practices in rapid, article-level publication.

Pensoft’s strengths in biodiversity data publishing were a key factor in the decision. The publisher is a leader in facilitating the publication of biodiversity data into the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF), and its marine counterpart, the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS). These systems use and develop international standards for data and metadata, allowing thousands of datasets to be integrated into a single searchable infrastructure. Researchers can query and download information on any selected taxa, places or time periods in a standard format, removing the need to reformat data and making it far more reusable than data deposited merely as supplementary material.

For a discipline like biogeography, which depends fundamentally on the distribution of organisms across space and time, this data infrastructure is transformative. The integration of large volumes of data on the distribution of hundreds of thousands of species opens new analytical possibilities, from modelling range shifts under climate change to reconstructing historical biotic exchanges. The journal’s editorial team argues that while depositing data in supplementary files may technically constitute open data, it avoids the standards and protocols that make data genuinely interoperable and reusable, a distinction that matters increasingly as large-scale synthetic studies become the norm.

The economics of open-access publishing also shaped the relaunch. The open-access model shifts the financial burden of publication from readers to authors, potentially limiting the ability of researchers without institutional funding to publish in many journals. Article processing charges (APCs) in scientific publishing often exceed $2,000 per paper and can be significantly higher. TIBS is committed to low-cost, gold open-access publishing for biogeographers and provides a financial subsidy for the journal’s running costs. The publications committee will review the journal’s APC, discounts and waivers policy annually, seeking to balance the costs to the society of subsidising the journal while minimising financial barriers for society members.

Because the budget available for APC subsidies and waivers is finite, the journal encourages authors who do not require discounts to pay the default APC, enabling TIBS to support more discounts and waivers for those who lack appropriate funding sources. Any changes to these policies will be announced towards the end of the year and will apply to papers submitted in the following calendar year. This approach reflects a broader tension in scientific publishing between the ideals of open access and the practical realities of sustaining a journal without excluding early-career researchers or those in less-funded institutions and regions.

The chief editors, writing on behalf of The International Biogeography Society, have invited all members of the biogeographical community, whether society members or not, to submit manuscripts to the relaunched journal. The success of the venture, they note, depends on researchers submitting strong papers and on the willingness of the editorial board and reviewer community to provide the scrutiny and constructive input needed to ready papers for publication. With its new platform, continuous publication model, Web of Science inclusion and integrated data publishing infrastructure, Frontiers of Biogeography enters its seventeenth volume with the ambition of becoming a leader in the field it serves.

Subject of Research: Scientific publishing and open access

Article Title:  Frontiers of Biogeography relaunched with Pensoft Publishers

Article References: Whittaker, R. J., Franklin, J., & Costello, M. J. (2024). Frontiers of Biogeography relaunched with Pensoft Publishers. Frontiers of Biogeography, 17, Article e132542. https://doi.org/10.21425/fob.17.132542

Image Credits: AI Generated

DOI: 10.21425/fob.17.132542

Keywords: Frontiers of Biogeography, Pensoft Publishers, International Biogeography Society, open access, biodiversity data, GBIF, Web of Science, scientific publishing, Frontiers, Biogeography, relaunched, Pensoft