Journal of Experimental Botany, Vol. 53, No. 366, pp. 0,
January 1, 2002
© 2002 Oxford University Press
Preface
Lancaster
2002 promises to be another exciting year for JXB. The journal has never been more popular, with over 650 manuscripts submitted during 2001. This is a 40% increase in submissions over only the last 5 years and comes at a time when all journals are working hard to raise their profiles in an increasingly competitive market. This big increase in submissions has caused us some problems with handling and publication times. To reduce the length of time between receipt of manuscripts and acceptance and to avoid a backlog of papers accepted for publication but waiting for printing, we have worked hard to speed up the handling time of manuscripts. In 2001 we made changes to personnel and procedures. We have:
- * appointed Dr Raquel Gonzales to the staff in the JXB office. Raquel will have special responsibility for manuscript handling
- * moved to a method of refereeing that is partially web-based, with Associate Editors able to access papers from a protected web site so that referees can be chosen with the minimum of delay
- * added 400 extra pages to the annual page budget
- * started to set in place procedures which will enable us to publish accepted manuscripts online ahead of the printed version
- * moved to a method of refereeing that is partially web-based, with Associate Editors able to access papers from a protected web site so that referees can be chosen with the minimum of delay
All of these changes and more are aimed at making JXB more user-friendly for authors and subscribers. We are also moving to enhance the synergism between JXB and SEB, our parent Society and title-holder. One proposal is to offer inexpensive on-line subscriptions which will include no-cost membership of SEB.
This year we will publish two Themed Issues of JXB which have arisen from SEB-sponsored meetings or from sessions held at the main Easter SEB meeting, which last year was held in Canterbury. These issues are Antioxidants and Reactive Oxygen Species and Nitrogen Assimilation: from field to genome. Our hope is that these Themed Issues provide information for specialists working in the field and also provide more general information for non-specialists, teachers and students. JXB has provided financial support for these meetings and this has enabled organizers to invite some of the very best people to contribute.
In this issue of the journal we start a new feature for the JXB. We are publishing a collection of short papers on a single, tightly focused issue. Long-distance signalling in plants is a topical issue which has received considerable attention in recent years. There is still controversy about the importance of this kind of signalling and certainly there is still much debate about the nature of the signals involved. In this issue of the JXB we focus on the nature of the signalling process and a role for hormones and inorganic ions in the control of plant growth and functioning in response to variation in nutrient supply, soil drying and soil compaction. These papers show the power of an investigative approach using classical plant physiological techniques combined with the extra power provided by molecular techniques, new mutants and transgenics. In the next issue of JXB we will publish two more papers in this series which deal with hydraulic signals and with CO2 as a long-distance signal in plants. Finally, Mike Jackson considers how chemical information can be changed to constitute a signal in the plant and provides evidence of chemical signalling in flooded plants. All seven papers will be re-bound with a record of the discussion at the meeting and will be made available as a TEXBOT later in the summer.
TEXBOTs have been very well received by teachers and researchers alike and have been distributed widely as a service to the plant science community. The TEXBOT series is provided free of charge to libraries of countries in the FESPP family, even where the library does not have a JXB subscription. Back issues of JXB are also provided on request to libraries in developing countries.
In recent years, we have worked hard to enhance the on-line provision of the JXB. If your organization has a full-price subscription then you should be able to access the on-line version of the journal on your PC. If you are having trouble with on-line availability, please contact the JXB office. We would be pleased to hear from you if you have any comments about the journal and suggestions for future developments.
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