Making the most of the news and update section: share your views on the most recent research in biogeography

Abstract

editorial ISSN 1948‐6596 editorial Making the most of the news and update section: share your views on the most recent research in biogeography The aims of Frontiers of Biogeography include dis‐ seminating research in biogeography to a broad audience 1 and being a leading forum for bio‐ geographers. Now published with eScholarship 2 , we have consolidated our affordable open‐access status while providing an easy, modern and pro‐ fessional setup throughout all steps of the edito‐ rial process. Here we highlight a key section in the journal—news and update—as a forum for the community: providing a place for finding and dis‐ cussing the latest advances and trends in bio‐ geographical research. The news and update 3 section provides a way to keep up to date with the increasingly large literature published across the diverse field of bio‐ geography. Of particular importance are the up‐ date articles, which highlight recent research (specific papers, special issues or recent advances in a particular field) that can be of general interest for anybody interested in biogeography, regard‐ less of his/her particular field of study. The edito‐ rial board of the journal contributes to a continu‐ ous flow of articles in this section, and Frontiers of Biogeography especially welcomes independent submissions of update articles. The more diverse these submissions are, the wider will be the cover‐ age of current trends in the literature provided by this section. The only limitation is that updates must not be written by the authors of the original articles being highlighted. Also, you may wish to check with the editorial team that no‐one else is working on an update on the same paper or theme. There are many reasons for providing a short digest of a given article or body of research. The most straightforward may be highlighting a paper you like or believe is of high relevance, or can become a cornerstone for a particular field or research topic (e.g. Hortal 2011). But updates can also be used to discuss a polemical paper (e.g. Beck 2011) or the current evolution of research on a given question or methodology (e.g. Blois 2012), to place recent advances into a wider theoretical context and show how they complement it (e.g. Parent 2012), to show how despite their novelty these advances are rooted in an already consoli‐ dated body of knowledge (e.g. Burridge 2012), or even to identify new lines of research (e.g. La Sorte 2011). Being short and concise reviews, up‐ dates can be good for training graduate students on scientific writing, and are thus an ideal out‐ come of journal clubs or discussion groups. Need‐ less to say, this section provides the opportunity to share the excitement about some fresh articles that you discussed with your peers over a beer or a coffee, or during lunch. If you have benefitted from discussing the most recent high‐quality or mind‐boggling research then others will, too— especially if it helps others of us see beyond the narrow confines of our specific topics. Also within the news and update section, Frontiers of Biogeography publishes summaries of recent meetings, workshops or symposia. These articles can either provide a short account of the topics that were discussed (e.g. Martin et al. 2011) and the main outcomes of the meeting (e.g. Jen‐ kins and Ricklefs 2011), or provide a deeper dis‐ cussion on one or several of the issues raised dur‐ ing it (e.g. Kamino et al. 2012). These summaries can be submitted by either the organizers or any participant (or group of participants), so if you are involved in a meeting that may be of general in‐ terest for biogeographers, please consider con‐ tacting our editorial board and publishing a short digest in Frontiers. Importantly, this section also includes a pro‐ lific and regular series of book reviews on many topics related to biogeography (e.g. Dormann 1 http://escholarship.org/uc/search?entity=fb;view=aimandscope 2 http://escholarship.org/ 3 The instructions for authors for these specific sections can be found at http://escholarship.org/uc/search? entity=fb;view=submissionguidelines frontiers of biogeography 4.2, 2012 — © 2012 the authors; journal compilation © 2012 The International Biogeography Society