Editorial

Annals of Biological Sciences has been open for submissions for a year. We’d like to take this occasion to reflect on the previous year and express our gratitude to everyone who has contributed to the journal.

For the editorial staff of Annals of Biological Sciences, the year since we opened for submissions has passed in a blur. We’ve received more submissions and, although many of our papers are still making their way through the peer review process. Meanwhile, we are busy working toward the goals set out in our launch editorial: to be an inclusive, multi-disciplinary journal for all andrologists and to provide the best author service we possibly can.

We are happy to say that we are on the right track. Our published papers cover ield in Agric. Engineering and Technology, Agronomy, Anatomy, Behaviour, Biochemistry, Biological Sciences, Biometry, Biosciences, Biomechanics, Psychology, Botany, Cell Biology, Clinical Sciences, Conservation and Management of Ecosystems, Crop Sciences, Cytology, Development and Differentiation, Ecology, Environmental Sciences, Evolutionary biology, Fisheries and Aqua-Sciences, Food and Nutrition Sciences, Forestry, Genetics, Horticultural Sciences, Human biology and Science, Human Exercise Physiology, Immunology, Microbiology, Molecular Biology, Morphology, Pathology, Pest, Pharmacology and Toxicology, Physiology, Plant Breeding, Soil Sciences, Special Cultivation Technology, Stress Breeding, Taxonomy and Veterinary Sciences.

Our in-house editors and Editorial Board Members have worked hard to meet our goals of delivering timely decisions and maintaining communication with our authors throughout the editorial and review process. And where we have fallen short of our goals, we strive to do better. But we wouldn’t be anywhere today without our authors, reviewers, and readers. We have had the privilege to publish truly outstanding, high-quality papers that, judging by the response of our reviewers and readers, are important contributions to their respective fields of research. We want to take this moment to thank all of our authors for entrusting us with their discoveries.

We are grateful to the reviewers who have contributed to the success of our journal and the quality of the final published papers you read on our pages. Our reviewers, like our authors, come from all over the world-representing more than 20 countries and all career stages. We believe that to truly have an inclusive journal, our reviewers and editors should reflect the broader scientific community, and we keep this guiding principle in mind in everything that we do.

Our editors consider all forms of diversity when inviting potential reviewers and routinely ask invited reviewers to consider gender balance, ethnic and geographical diversity, and career stage diversity when suggesting alternative reviewers if they must decline our invitation. Despite these efforts, we find that only 26% of our reviewers are women; we are actively working toward increasing this proportion. As part of this effort, we call on our authors to consider diversity when suggesting reviewers for their submitted papers.