Research needs in insect conservation and diversity

Abstract

As the newest addition to the Senior Editors of Insect Conservation and Diversity (ICD), it is a great pleasure for R.K.D. to be able to lead off this first issue of the journal for 2010. Throughout the second year of operation, our new journal has been growing and developing beyond all expectations, with continued high quality submissions by authors, and effective and timely handling of manuscripts by an exceptional team of Associate Editors. This success has been attributable, in no small measure, to the hard work and commitment of Brad Hawkins as aS enior Editor over the last 2 years, and it is with great reluctance that we bid farewell to Brad from the journal and wish him every success in his future role as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Biogeography. With Brad’s support, we saw a substantial increase in the number of submissions of high quality manuscripts to the journal in 2009, and a dramatic increase in the dissemination and uptake of ICD articles by the wider scientific community. Online access to articles increased 70% over 2008 values, with an impressive annual average of over 200 abstract views and almost 150 downloads per article in 2009 (as estimated from data for January–September 2009, at the time of writing this editorial). Citation rates of article so n Thompson Reuters ISI Web of Science also increased dramatically in 2009, and although it is perhaps too early to judge how these will equate to future citation metrics for the journal, it is highly encouraging that current rates are approximately 65% higher than those achieved for articles in comparable journals, such as the Journal of Insect Conservation, at the same point in their citation history. This strongly suggests to us that the wider fields of insect conservation and diversity are burgeoning areas of scientific research, and that ICD is meeting the need for a high quality platform for authors to highlight their findings, and express their views. Although the journal is only in its infancy, it should be possible (at least to some extent) to determine the main research areas driving this dramatic increase in 2009 metrics based on the most downloaded and most cited articles of 2008. In this regard, we have been interested to note the emerging strengths that readers are drawing from ICD. The top four papers contributing directly to the ‘foetal’ h-index (Hirsch, 2005) of our emerging journal, and collectively amounting to 50% of the total journal citations