by Olivia Bragg
Volume 1 (2006) of the IMCG/IPS open-access web journal Mires and Peat is now complete. It contains six papers originating from a range of academic disciplines and countries, and runs to 88 pages. Topics include peatland distribution (Article 01); chemical stratigraphy (Articles 02, 05); and mire formation and degradation processes (Articles 03, 04, 06). The Editor’s first Annual Report was submitted to the IPS and IMCG Boards in January 2007, and this contribution to the IMCG Newsletter is primarily an overview of that report. The journal arose from the joint IPS/IMCG meetings in Valencia (November 2002) and Amsterdam (October 2003) and it was officially launched by the two organisations nearly four years later, in Espoo (Finland, July 2006). So far, 22 new manuscripts have been submitted and subjected to rigorous peer review and editing, with a rejection rate for the first year of around 35%. Turn-around was initially slow, but once the journal’s web site was opened it became possible to make significant improvements. Whereas Articles 01–04 had been in hand for 60–70 weeks when published, the times from submission to publication for Articles 05 and 06 were 32 and 36 weeks respectively and the first paper of Volume 2, published on 01 January this year, was submitted on 05 September 2006 and published 17 weeks later.
Readership data are promising. During 2006, there were 12,337 ‘hits’ (page impressions) on the journal’s web site and 1,950 downloads of individual papers. Most papers have been downloaded ca. once per day since they were published; but Article 01, with its detailed colour maps showing the distribution of peatland across Europe, proved particularly popular with an average of more than 2 downloads per day during 2006 (see graph).
Interest escalated after the launch in July, when the journal was made accessible via the IPS (in addition to the IMCG) web site (see histogram). The colour flyers printed for the launch began their distribution around the world in the suitcases of delegates returning home from the IMCG field symposium. Further opportunities for global publicity were provided by the Fifth European Conference on Ecological Restoration in Greifswald (August) and the mire restoration sessions at the British Ecological Society meeting in Oxford (September), and the first paper on peatland restoration has recently arrived in the Editor’s mailbox.
Article 01, L. Montanarella, R.J.A. Jones & R. Hiederer (Italy/UK) The distribution of peatland in Europe. 10p, published 1 January.
Article 02, M. Malawska, A. Ekonomiuk & B. Wiłkomirski (Poland) Chemical characteristics of some peatlands in southern Poland. 14p, published 1 January
Article 03, L.G. Franzén (Sweden) Increased decomposition of subsurface peat in Swedish raised bogs: are temperate peatlands still net sinks of carbon? 16p, published 14 February
Article 04, D.E. Yeloff, J.C. Labadz & C.O. Hunt (UK) Causes of degradation and erosion of a blanket mire in the southern Pennines, UK. 18p, published 14 February
Article 05, M. Malawska, A. Ekonomiuk & B. Wiłkomirski (Poland) Polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons in peat cores from southern Poland: distribution in stratigraphic profiles as an indicator of PAH sources. 14p, published 21 June
Article 06, G. Gaudig, J. Couwenberg & H. Joosten (Germany) Peat accumulation in kettle holes: bottom up or top down? 16p, published 6 December
In November 2006, the full Editorial Board (EB) of Mires and Peat was officially appointed. The EB now includes the Editor (Olivia Bragg), Deputy Editor (Jack Rieley) Web Administrator (Michael Trepel) and 24 Associate Editors representing 12 countries and 5 continents. Current and planned new tasks under this new management include:
- increasing the submission rate of suitable manuscripts;
- widening the geographical and subject range of published papers;
- minimising review/editorial turn-around times without compromising quality or availability of the journal to authors and countries whose work would otherwise be inaccessible to the international community;
- establishing a mailing list to inform ‘subscribing’ readers of new articles and other developments relating to the journal (now implemented);
- providing an opportunity for public discussion of topics/content of published papers, probably in the form of a moderated forum operating for a fixed period of time following publication of each article (now implemented); and
- adding a section for selected (i.e. the most relevant) book reviews.
Volume 2 (2007) started well with publication on New Year’s Day of a beautifully illustrated comparison of the Russian and Finnish approaches to mire vegetation cartography from Olga Galanina and Raimo Heikkilä. This was followed in March by a contribution from Jos Schouwenaars and Margaret Gosen giving helpful insights into the hydrological constraints on Sphagnum carpets recolonising cutover peatlands in the Netherlands, and some new data from Gashaw Ayalew and colleagues (Ireland) on microwave dielectric properties of peat that is relevant to both the horticultural peat industry and remote sensing of peatlands.
Surf regularly to http://www.mires-and-peat.net during 2007 for these and at least some of the 10 further manuscripts that are already on the way.
Finally, if you have an academic paper to publish on any mire/peat-related topic, please consider seriously whether you could offer it to ‘our own’ journal. To support ‘our’ journal and make it better accessible for example through university library searches, you can recommend it to academic literature services – you can suggest it for the Thomson Scientific database at http://scientific.thomson.com/forms/isi/journalrec/
Your recommendation supports the goal of giving “Mires and Peat” an ‘impact factor’.
