The benefits of publishing in society‐owned scientific journals

Abstract

When looking for a suitable journal in which to publish manuscripts, we usually consider how the topic of the study matches the journal's scope, and how reputable the journal is, which is typically judged from the impact factor or a similar citation-based metric. However, we may pay little attention to who owns the journal. Does journal ownership really matter? Here we argue that it does, and it is one of the critical criteria that authors should consider. Historically, scientific journals were founded to facilitate communication between scholars. Since this communication was in the interest of scholars, the first scientific journals that emerged in the 17th century were published by scientific societies and funded by their members or wealthy philanthropists (Guédon, 2001). Later, some journals were also sponsored by government-funded institutions, but until the mid-20th century, scientific journals generally did not create profit. In the post-World War II period, the number of new scientific articles increased at an annual growth rate of 5.1% and a doubling time of 14 years (Bornmann et al., 2021). These numbers exceeded the capacity of scientific societies, whose members usually edited society journals on a voluntary basis. A publishing industry emerged with professional for-profit publishers to whom many societies turned over their journals. Subscription prices rose and became affordable only to large libraries and wealthy institutions, while many scientists lost direct access to publications. This was the case for Vegetatio, the journal founded in 1948 by the International Association for Vegetation Science (IAVS), and to some extent for Phytocoenologia, founded in 1974 by the same society. Disappointment with the publishers' policies led to the resignation of entire editorial boards of these journals in 1990 and 2019, respectively. To replace Vegetatio, the flagship journal of the IAVS, Eddy van der Maarel founded the Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS; van der Maarel, 1990) and Applied Vegetation Science (AVS; van der Maarel et al., 1998). Both journals were owned by the IAVS and published by Opulus Press, a small, low-profit publishing house founded for this purpose. However, various scientific publishers gradually merged into a few large companies that dominated the international market. It became clear that a small business could not compete with the large companies that offered subscription packages of hundreds of journals to universities and research institutions. Therefore, IAVS decided to move the publishing of both journals to Wiley-Blackwell Publishers (now Wiley) in 2009 (Wilson et al., 2009). It is important to emphasize that both JVS and AVS are owned by the IAVS and published by Wiley based on periodically renewed contracts between the Society and the publisher. This means that our Society can change publisher if the contract becomes unfavourable. Similar contracts exist, for example, for the Ecological Society of America, the British Ecological Society, and the Nordic Society Oikos, which all have their society-owned journals published by Wiley. There are many other national or international botanical or ecological societies that publish their journals with other private publishers. Scientific societies publish journals to facilitate communication among scientists (using peer-based quality reviews) and to advance their respective fields. Some universities, museums, research institutes and non-profit academic publishers also publish scientific literature with the same motivation. It is in their interest to keep costs as low as possible, both for authors in the case of open-access publishing and for readers in the case of subscription-based funding. In contrast, private companies publish journals for profit, and it is in their interest to keep article-processing charges (APCs) or subscription fees as high as possible. When a society-owned journal is published by a private company, a compromise must be sought between these two conflicting interests, resulting in a model in which journals make a profit that is shared between the owner and the publisher. Such a compromise model is used between Wiley and the IAVS. The IAVS currently receives more than 95% of its financial income from the profit generated by the publication of JVS and AVS. It receives it thanks to the academic service of the journal Editors, Editorial Review Board members, external reviewers, and also the authors who submit their best manuscripts to these journals. The Society uses these funds to support the development of vegetation science in a variety of ways, including early-career-supporting grants, travel grants to attend international scientific meetings for scientists with limited financial resources (many of whom come from developing countries), support for IAVS symposia and various activities of IAVS Working Groups and Regional Sections, awards for young scientists, publication of the IAVS Bulletin and the new journal Vegetation Classification and Survey, and last but not least, the services of the IAVS Secretariat. By publishing in JVS, AVS or journals of other scientific societies, authors indirectly support membership and networking activities. In doing so, they provide two types of benefits to the scientific community: first, by advancing knowledge through the publication of new research, and second, by supporting numerous activities that strengthen the scientific community of their field. In contrast, if an article is published in a journal owned by a private company, all the profits go into private hands, regardless of whether the journal charges open-access fees or subscription fees. Our take-home message is that authors should preferably publish in society-owned journals rather than in for-profit private journals, and this also concerns high-quality private journals. In particular, authors should avoid private publishers with aggressive marketing strategies, which establish open-access journals with “friendly” and fast reviews and initially with low APCs. Impact factors of some of these journals may become relatively high and attractive for authors; however, they are not earned by the hard work of authors, reviewers and editors following strict editorial policies, but often by self-citations provided by other journals within the same publishing house (Oviedo-García, 2021). When looking for a publication venue for your next manuscript, please, check not only the scope of the journal and its impact factor but also who owns it. Each year, the Chief Editors of Applied Vegetation Science select an article for the Editors' Award, often based on the recommendation from Co-ordinating Editors. The Editors' Award for 2022 goes to Leonie Mazalla for the article “Microclimate shapes vegetation response to drought in calcareous grasslands” (Mazalla et al., 2022). This article, co-authored by Martin Diekmann and Cecilia Duprè, focuses on the effects of the 2015–2018 drought events in Europe, which were extreme on the millennial scale (Büntgen et al., 2021). They resurveyed dry-grassland vegetation in northwestern Germany before and after the series of dry years. They observed contrasting responses due to topoclimatic differences between steep, south-facing slopes and flat or north-facing slopes. On south-facing slopes, characteristic species of dry grasslands were favoured by dry conditions before droughts but declined after several dry years. In contrast, ruderal species increased on these slopes after droughts. On flat or north-facing slopes, characteristic species of dry grasslands increased, but nutrient-demanding species also increased there. An important message from this study is that even dry-grassland specialists will not be supported by future droughts. They could escape local extinction by moving to topoclimatically suitable sites on nearby flat or north-facing slopes. However, in agricultural landscapes affected by eutrophication, these slopes are likely to be colonized by nutrient-demanding species that could outcompete most dry-grassland specialists. There were other nominations for the Editors' Award. Hábenczyus et al. (2022) compared the effects of the increasing abundance of the C4 grass Sporobolus cryptandrus in its native range in Montana, USA, and its non-native range in Hungary, where it is an alien invasive species. Declines in taxonomic diversity and changes in functional properties of the grassland community were greater in the non-native range than in the native range. This result points to a serious conservation problem. With the increasing drought, alien C4 grasses can spread into new areas and significantly alter native biodiversity and ecosystem functions. Another considered article is the contribution by Pañella et al. (2022), who studied the effects of management practices to increase the productivity of livestock pastures in Uruguay, namely overseeding native grasslands with alien legumes and phosphorus fertilization. They found that this management reduced native species richness and increased the dominance of an invasive alien grass. The seed bank in the overseeded grassland also had a high abundance of alien species. This suggests that overseeded and fertilized grasslands present a challenge for ecological restoration, as the reintroduction of native species must be preceded by the control of alien species. Meelis Pärtel (EE) retired as Chief Editor of the Journal of Vegetation Science and Applied Vegetation Science in 2022, having held that position since 2009. His careful and insightful editorial work had a major impact on both journals. Viktoria Wagner (CA) has been appointed as a new Chief Editor. In 2022, we recruited several new members of the Editorial Review Board, partly through an open call and partly by inviting colleagues who frequently provide high-quality reviews for the journal. We are pleased to welcome Irena Axmanová (CZ), Gianmaria Bonari (IT), Leonor Calvo (ES), Kwek Yan Chong (SG), Felícia M. Fischer (ES), Hamid Gholizadeh (IR), Anaclara Guido (UY), Ondřej Mudrák (CZ), Alireza Naqinezhad (IR), Ricarda Pätsch (CZ), Cord Peppler-Lisbach (DE), Markus Wagner (UK) and Jianshuang Wu (CN). We also welcome Robin Pakeman (UK) as a new Associate Editor. We are confident that these experienced and enthusiastic vegetation scientists will contribute greatly to further enhancing the quality of the journal. We also thank all the reviewers who helped evaluate and improve submitted manuscripts over the past year (Appendix 1). We thank the referees who served Applied Vegetation Science from 1 November 2021 to 30 November 2022. Those who reviewed more than twice are indicated by asterisks. Rodolfo Abreu Shalom Daniel Addo-Danso Munemitsu Akasaka Morodoluwa Akin-Fajiye Harald Albrecht Josu Alday Arshad Ali José Álvarez-Martínez Jay Angerer Lina Aoyama Inger Auestad Giovanni Bacaro Selene Baez Francielli Bao Augustina Barros Sándor Bartha Peter Bellingham Christian Berg Erwin Bergmeier Carolina Blanco Lisandro Blanco Haben Blondeel Dana Blumenthal Cecilia Blundo Gianmaria Bonari Zoltán Botta-Dukát Catherine Bowler Kari Anne Bråthen Andrea Britton Josef Brůna Jörg Brunet Helga Bültmann Melissa Burt Bradley Butterfield Leonor Calvo Maria Gabriela Camargo Giandiego Campetella Juan Antonio Campos Giulia Caneva Cameron Carlyle Fabrício Carvalho Jorge Castro Ana Cingolani Carles Comas Timo Conradi Stella M. Copeland Oscar Cruz* Anikó Csecserits Luc De Keersmaeker Daniela de La Fuente Balázs Deák Jürgen Dengler* Martin Diekmann Jingyi Ding Veronika Döpper Adrian G. Dyer James Dyer László Erdős Nikolai Ermakov Marianne Evju Jörg Ewald Alvaro Fajardo Edy Fantinato* Mohammad Farzam* Hannes Feilhauer Jean-Baptiste Féret Víctor Fernández-García Felícia M. Fischer* Francois Florens Hudson Fontenele Scott Franklin Enrique Garcia de la Riva Heath W. Garris Greta Gaudig Rosario Gavilán Antonio Gazol Gabriele Gheza* Itamar Giladi Melisa Giorgis Marina Golivets Rodolfo Golluscio Elise Gornish Sabine Greulich* Andre Grosse-Stoltenberg Riccardo Guarino Anaclara Guido* John Guretzky* Melinda Halassy Karen Harper Tibor Hartel Sean Haughian John D. Hay Meghan Hayden Kate He Thilo Heinken Jeňýk Hofmeister Daniela Hoss Pilar Hurtado Ravi Chaturvedi Paolo Cherubini Maidul I. Choudhury Thomas Ibanez Estela Illa Markus Immitzer Florian Jansen João Jarenkow Bogdan Jaroszewicz Renaud Jaunatre Borja Jiménez-Alfaro David Johnson Fernando Joner Jutta Kapfer Edgar Karofeld* Dave Kendal Sebastian Kepfer-Rojas Janez Kermavnar* Becky Kerns Rodrigo Kersten Réka Kiss Valentin Klaus* Yves Klinger Johannes Kollmann Martin Kopecký Lena Kretz Anna Kuzemko Emma Ladouceur Laura M. Ladwig Eric Lamb Soizig Le Stradic Attila Lengyel Jan Lepš* Frank Li Aleš Lisner Yinzhan Liu Priscilla Loiola Luis López-Mársico* Leda Lorenzo Zdeňka Lososová Frederique Louault Ivana Lozanovska Balázs Lukács Arantzazu Luzuriaga Anders Lyngstad* Simona Maccherini Mauricio Mantoani Luis Marconi Israel Marinho Pereira Rob Marrs Carolina Martínez-Ruiz Leonie Mazalla Noemí Mazía Jorge Meave Joao Meira-Neto Stefan Michalski Lucía Mochi Cecilia Molina Alejandra Moran Craig Morris Pamela Moser Ondřej Mudrák* Rodrigo Muñoz Aviles Seth Munson* Francesca Napoleone Alireza Naqinezhad Lena Neuenkamp* Carsten Neumann Pekka Niittynen Miki Nomura Alice Nunes Victoria Nuzzo Siri Lie Olsen Gastón Oñatibia Kristina Osen Gianluigi Ottaviani Gerhard Overbeck Robin Pakeman* Salza Palpurina Juli Pausas Vilém Pavlů Cord Peppler-Lisbach* Tomáš Peterka Tiffany Pillay Natashi Pilon Marco A. Pizo Lourens Poorter Sally Power Karel Prach Sebastian Preidl* Sorenson Quinn Christoph Raab Małgorzata Raduła Inayat ur Rahman Flavio Ramos Sébastien Rapinel Anne Reichmuth Alejandro Rescia Perazzo Daniel Rieker Davi Rossatto Eszter Ruprecht Håkan Rydin Andrew Sánchez Meador Victor M. Santana Colleen Seymour Merilynn C. Schantz Joachim Schmerbeck Joachim Schrautzer Nick Schultz Daniella Schweitzer Marcelo Simon Imelda Somodi Judit Sonkoly Judith Springer Nils Stanik Yue Sue Jian Sun Christopher Swan Amy Symstad Cajo ter Braak Massimo Terzi Pedro Tognetti* Csaba Tölgyesi Valeria Tomaselli Carolina Toranza Péter Török* Iván Torres Claire Tortorelli Béla Tóthmérész Ioannis Tsiripidis Zivanai Tsvuura* Valenti Turu Werner Ulrich Orsolya Valkó Elisa Van Cleemput Han van Dobben Sofia van Moorsel Kevin Vega Kris Verheyen Pascal Vittoz Goddert von Oheimb Markus Wagner Thomas Wagner Hui Wang Xuejin Wang Ronja E.M. Wedegärtner Karsten Wesche Sarah Wilkinson Wolfgang Willner Brian Wilsey Gao-Lin Wu* Jianshuang Wu Qiang Yang Emily Yeh Truman Young Igor Zelnik* Data sharing not applicable to this article as no datasets were generated or analysed during the current study.