At the 2017 Joint Meeting of Ichthyologists and Herpetologists (JMIH) in Austin, Editor Chris Beachy and I began discussing the possibility of a gradual editorial transition by the end of the calendar year. During the fall of 2017, Chris began assigning me the job of full editor on a few papers here and there while training me in the steps involved with my transition from Associate Editor to the Editor-in-Chief. By the middle of December, I had relieved Chris of most of his duties and been appointed as the Editor by President Carole Baldwin. As of May 2018, Chris is still handling the last few revisions of papers that he was the originally assigned editor.
Chris Beachy was the 16th Editor-in-Chief of Copeia, and he served from September 2011 until December 2017. In his inaugural editor report, Chris noted that one of his main goals was to “keep the wheels on the bus.” He not only met his goal, but he far exceeded it by implementing a series of improvements to the electronic and print version of the journal. Under his tenure, Chris made a large number of important changes, and I would like to highlight some of them here. Chris has always been a proponent of encouraging and championing the next generation of ichthyologists and herpetologists. To this end, he began encouraging student presentation award winners to publish their award-winning research in Copeia with the first Storer Award Contribution being published in the fourth issue of 2016. Additionally, Chris oversaw the development of a system for recognizing the best papers in Copeia that included herpetological and ichthyological awards for the best paper by a student, the best paper by young scholar, and the best paper overall in the pages of our Society journal. To drive additional interest in publishing in and reading Copeia, Chris actively sought the inclusion of review articles, symposium proceedings, and articles with more color images. To date, three invited review articles and four symposium proceedings have been published, which have greatly increased the breadth of the herpetological and ichthyological articles published in Copeia. With a revised “subsidy” model for publishing images, Chris greatly increased the number of color images in the journal. Unlike most journals, Chris’s system accurately reflected the relative production costs of grayscale vs. color images, which had disproportionally penalized color images historically. The final major class of changes that Chris implemented to improve Copeia were associated with its electronic resources. First, Chris undertook the difficult transition to making articles “online-early” so that finalized Copeia manuscripts appear in final form online up to three months before being printed, and these “online-early” articles are now fully compliant with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. In addition to “online-early,” Chris recognized that Copeia authors now need to be able to deposit their data in a stable repository and to include supplemental information, so he oversaw the development of a Copeia supplement website that offers these services without cost to Copeia authors. All of these changes and the overwhelming theme of Chris’s time as Editor focused on making the process of publishing in Copeia as positive as possible. In an era where some large journals do not allow authors to review proofs of their studies, do not have proper copy editing, or require authors to pay for the use of a data repository, Chris ensured that the services provided by Copeia complemented the efforts and time authors put into their research. As he would say, he wants Copeia to be more of a “boutique” journal, and I feel fortunate to be following in Chris’s footsteps after he has made so many meaningful changes to the journal. Personally, and on behalf of the Society, I would like to thank Chris for everything he has done for ASIH and Copeia. Thank you, Dr. Beachy.
It is a somewhat daunting feeling to become the new Editor of Copeia because of my desire to continue its long history and tradition of excellence. Fortunately, I will be working with the long-time production editor, Katie Smith. Katie and I have been part of the editorial office since Editor Scott Schaefer hired us 13 years ago. Katie, and me to a much less degree, have been involved with the day-to-day production of the journal since 2005, which greatly reduces the learning curve on the technical side of my job. Katie handles the overwhelming majority of the work on the production of the journal and makes the non-scientific components of the job comparatively easy for the Editor. Our hope is that having the Editor and Production Editor in the same household will only improve our service to the authors of Copeia.
I have only been Editor for a short time, so I do not have strong feelings for what changes might be next for Copeia beyond the continued march forward from both an intellectual and service perspective. I am somewhat concerned with the trend of fewer published papers over the last three years (although 800 pages per year is about “right”), so I have already begun implementing a few changes with the hopes of improving the visibility of the journal. The most noteworthy change is that when an author publishes a paper in Copeia, we now provide them with access to their PDF that they can download and share. The link (webpage) we provide will be active for 50 days from the date of creation. We encourage Copeia authors to provide this link to their co-authors, collaborators, peers, acknowledged institutions, social media, and any other venues to promote their research. We believe that this direct link that does not require sign-in or in verification will facilitate early spread of the manuscript, which should increase downloads and citations to the research. Additionally, this provides an additional benefit to our authors that most other journals are not providing. This action also allows us to track general interest in our publications by allowing us to quantify article downloads in their first 50 days. In the first 125 days of this link offering, we had just under 4,000 downloads of Copeia papers from our direct links. These downloads were dominated by one paper that was downloaded over 3,000 times (2018: 94–119) after being written about by Smithsonian Magazine. This freely available download allowed a freelance writer who did not have had access to Copeia articles behind a paywall to learn and write about this new discovery in Copeia. This story eventually led to it be covered by a diversity of news sources and is an example of the opportunity that we hope this 50-day-open link will facilitate.
In addition to the change in Editor, there were three additional personnel changes among the Associate Editors. Following the 2017 JMIH meeting, Chris appointed Matthew Craig to replace Thomas Near as a General Ichthyology Associate Editor and Matthew Davis to replace me as a Genetics, Development, and Morphology Associate Editor. Additionally, Jacob Schaefer resigned his position as an Ecology and Ethology Associate Editor. On behalf of Chris, myself, and the Society, I thank Drs. Near and Schaefer for the service to Copeia. I also want to take this opportunity to welcome Matthew Craig and Matthew Davis to the team! Until you become Editor, you may not realize how stellar the Associate Editors of Copeia are. They are an extremely thoughtful group of scientists that are truly dedicated to the Society. I thank them for continuing to set high standards for Copeia.
At the end of 2017, Copeia’s impact factor was 0.980 (2016, 1.144; 2015, 1.034; 2014, 0.901; 2013, 0.670). This score places the journal slightly to the worse side of the center of the zoology journals that Copeia is properly compared to. Of the 162 zoology journals that receive an impact factor, Copeia ranked 86th. In last year’s report, Copeia was ranked 70 out of 160. For comparison, the impact factors of the following related journals are: Herpetological Monographs–2.500; Journal of Fish Biology–1.519; Herpetologica–1.333; Ichthyological Research–1.258; Ichthyological Exploration of Freshwaters–0.953; Journal of Herpetology–0.911
In 2017, 821 pages of Copeia were published across four issues: April (209 pages), July (229 pages), October (166 pages), and December (212 pages). These represent a decrease of 173 pages (i.e., down 17.4%) from 2016, which had 994 pages. The 2017 volume included 70 research, symposium, and review papers (687 pages or 83.7% of the volume). The remaining pages (16.3% of the volume) were distributed across three historical perspectives, three obituaries, 21 book reviews, editorial notes and news, instructions to authors, summary of the 2017 annual meeting, award announcements, subject and taxonomic indices, and the contents of volume 105.
Of the 70 research and review papers published, 37 (52.9%) were ichthyological and 33 (47.1%) were herpetological. For comparative purposes, these statistics for the past several years (% ichthyological/% herpetological) are 34/65 for 2016, 62/38 for 2015, 53/47 for 2014, 49/51 for 2013, and 46/54 for 2012. This proportion represents which manuscripts make it to acceptance for publication; it is not a goal of the editorial office to balance the taxonomic distribution.
This was the sixth year of recognizing some of the excellent papers published in Copeia. All of the papers that did not include a member of the Executive Committee as an author were considered by a panel, selected by the Editor, of Editorial Board members and ASIH members, to be the best papers published in 2017 (volume 105). Six papers are recognized each year: three in herpetology and three in ichthyology. There are three categories: Best Paper Overall, Best Paper Young Scholar, and Best Student Paper. The Best Paper Overall is chosen without regard to rank. The Best Paper Young Scholar is chosen when the lead author is a postdoc, untenured, or the equivalent at the time of submission. The Best Student Paper is chosen when the lead author is a student at the time of submission.
HERPETOLOGY
Best Paper: Edward Fernandez, Frances Irish, and David Cundall. 2017. How a Frog, Pipa pipa, Succeeds or Fails in Catching Fish. Copeia 105:108–119.
Best Paper Young Scholar: Jennifer Y. Lamb. 2017. Sexual Isolation between Two Sympatric Desmognathus in the Gulf Coastal Plain. Copeia 105:261–268.
Best Student Paper: Clint L. Bush, Jacquelyn C. Guzy, Kelly M. Halloran, Meredith C. Swartwout, Chelsea S. Kross, and John D. Willson. 2017. Distribution and Abundance of Introduced Seal Salamanders (Desmognathus monticola) in Northwest Arkansas, USA. Copeia 105:678–688.
ICHTHYOLOGY
Best Paper: Jacqueline F. Webb and Jason B. Ramsay. 2017. New Interpretation of the 3-D Configuration of Lateral Line Scales and the Lateral Line Canal Contained within Them. Copeia 105:339–347.
Best Paper Young Scholar: Tiago P. Carvalho, Roberto E. Reis, and Mark H. Sabaj. 2017. Description of a New Blind and Rare Species of Xyliphius (Siluriformes: Aspredinidae) from the Amazon Basin Using High-Resolution Computed Tomography. Copeia 105:14–28.
Best Student Paper: David C. Fryxell and Eric P. Palkovacs. 2017. Warming Strengthens the Ecological Role of Intraspecific Variation in a Predator. Copeia 105:523–532.
There were 243 new and revised submissions in 2017. Of these, 139 were new submissions, a decrease of 24% from 2016 (or a 14% decrease compared to 2015). This is an average of 20.25 new and revised submissions per month. There were 19.6 in 2016, 24.4 in 2015, and 19.2 in 2014. In terms of new submissions, May (24 new submissions) was the most active month, while December (3 new submissions) was the slowest month. Of these new submissions, 92 were from the United States and the rest were received as follows: Australia (2), Brazil (12), Canada (4), China (3), Colombia (2), Croatia (1), Ecuador (1), Egypt (1), Germany (1), India (4), Italy (1), Japan (2), Kuwait (1), Mexico (3), Portugal (1), Singapore (1), South Africa (1), Sri Lanka (1), Thailand (4), and United Kingdom (1).
Generally, performance statistics for editorial staff were similar but slightly slower for 2017 compared to 2016. For comparison, performance statistics for 2017 are followed by values for 2016 in brackets. The median time from submission to Associate Editor assignment was 15 [11] days, securing of first reviewer by the Associate Editor was 15 [6] days, securing of final reviewer by the Associate Editor was 26 [19] days, days in review was 44 [38] days, days from last review to Associate Editor recommendation was 7 [5] days, and days from Associate Editor recommendation to Editor decision was 7 [19] days. In total, all new submissions required an average of 66 [56] days to initial decision (i.e., accept, reject, or further revision).
Associate Editor workload and average duration (from receipt of submission to decision by Associate Editor for manuscripts that were received after Jan. 1 and reached initial decision by Dec. 31) under each Associate Editor or Guest Symposium Associate Editor were as follows for 2017: C. Beachy (6 new, 52 days), C. Bevier (5 new, 51 days), D. Buth (23 new, 56 days), M. Craig (3 new, 33 days), D. Green (13 new, 45 days), T. Grande (3 new, 73 days), A. Hendry (8 new, 33 days), J. Kerby (7 new, 102 days), M. Lannoo (16 new, 40 days), J. Litzgus (12 new, 61 days), K. Martin (4 new, 62 days), R. Reis (8 new, 55 days), J. Schaefer (11 new, 57 days), D. Siegel (6 new, 40 days), L. Smith (8 new, 72 days), J. Snodgrass (13 new, 74 days), and B. Stuart (19 new, 95 days). All these data are similar to those from 2016 except that the symposium organizers (Green and Hendry) were more rapid than elected Associate Editors. The following statistics are for a three-year cycle [It was agreed at the 2014 meeting of the Publication Policy Committee (PPC) that a three-year cycle better described the rejection/acceptance rates of Associate Editors]. For the three-year period of 2015–2017, rejection rates by Associate Editor were as follows: C. Beachy 9%, C. Bevier 7%, D. Buth 7%, M. Craig (only 2017) 0%, M. Davis (only 2017) N/A, T. Grande 7%, J. Kerby 26%, M. Lannoo 13%, J. Litzgus 7%, K. Martin 0%, T. Near (only 2015–2016) 20%, R. Reis 8%, J. Schaefer 23%, D. Siegel 24%, L. Smith 0%, J. Snodgrass 4%, and B. Stuart 23%. Several previous Editor Reports have noted the difficulty in accurately reflecting the rejection rates. The above numbers were comparable to the 2017 Board of Governors Editor Report and are calculated by summing the number of manuscripts rejected as the numerator and the number of manuscripts handled by each Associate Editor (treating revisions as an additional manuscript) as the denominator. This clearly reduces the rejection rate values relative to a calculation that only includes the number of independent manuscripts in the denominator. For the three-year period of 2015–2017, these revised rejection rates that only count independent submissions would be as follows: C. Beachy 10%, C. Bevier 8%, D. Buth 10%, M. Craig (only 2017) 0%, M. Davis (only 2017) N/A, T. Grande 10%, J. Kerby 36%, M. Lannoo 16%, J. Litzgus 10%, K. Martin 0%, T. Near (only 2015–2016) 20%, R. Reis 11%, J. Schaefer 27%, D. Siegel 29%, L. Smith 0%, J. Snodgrass 5%, and B. Stuart 26%.
For manuscripts that were submitted in 2017 and reached a decision date in 2017 (152), the rejection rate was 26.3%. The service of the Copeia reviewers is noted annually in the second issue of Copeia. There were 215 reviews in total from 187 reviewers, and the average length of review duration was 28.8 days (27.4 days in 2016).
As the costs associated with publishing and printing Copeia have been a point of discussion over the last several years, I have included the relevant costs paid to Allen Press below. In 2017, we paid Allen Press $94,375.32 for the production and distribution of Copeia as well as access to their AllenTrack manuscript submission and tracking system. The breakdown of these costs are as follows: printing Copeia: $33,003.84, type setting and figure processing (for both online PDFs and printing): $25,990.25, Copeia online: $15,659.74, mailing Copeia: $9,375.32, proof corrections: $5,473.88, AllenTrack: $4,261.67, and other publication costs: $610.62. The costs for the membership management and the physical storage of ASIH and Copeia materials at Allen Press are not reflected in these figures. Revenue from paper or electronic subscriptions, paper copies of the journal associated with memberships, page charges, extra image reproduction, and digital downloads are not reflected in these figures.
