Editorial 2022

Molecular Ecology continues to be well cited, with an Impact Factor (IF) of 6.185 in 2020, ranking 7th out of 50 journals in evolutionary biology according to Clarivate's Journal Citation Reports. In terms of overall impact, Molecular Ecology ranks third among ecology journals and second among evolution journals as measured by Google Scholar's h5-index, which is the h-index for articles published over the past five years. This stems both from the large number of articles published in Molecular Ecology each year (386 in 2020), as well as the high median impact factor of our articles. Indeed, Molecular Ecology ranks second among ecology journals in Google Scholar's h5-median statistic and third among evolution journals by this measure. As discussed in last year's editorial we are now making open calls for Associate Editors. This approach has been successful, resulting in the recruitment of 10 new Associate Editors and helping to diversify the Editorial Board geographically. Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources wished to consider implementing double-blind peer review in order to increase the diversity of published authors. The current single-blind model may cause biases against authors based on race, ethnicity, gender, institution, career stage, or other factors. To gain the molecular ecology community's views, we conducted a survey of authors’ and reviewers’ preferences for single-blind, double-blind, and transparent peer review. Out of 165 respondents, 43% preferred double-blind peer review, 33% preferred transparent review, and 24% preferred single-blind review. Definitions of each review model and the most common reasons given for preferring each model are shown in Table 1. Early career researchers were more in favour of double-blind review and less in favour of single-blind review compared to more established researchers (Figure 1). Career stage did not affect preferences for transparent peer review (Figure 1). Although double-blind was the most popular review model, a high number of survey respondents commented that anonymising manuscripts is impractical. Doing so is a significant burden for authors, and reviewers are often able to deduce authors’ identities from the manuscript content. Furthermore, many manuscripts are released as preprints before journal submission, and anonymity would conflict with benefit-sharing statements and with open data policies where manuscripts cite data or scripts attributed to the authors. Despite being the second most popular review model overall, several survey respondents strongly opposed transparent peer review. Concerns included the risk of critical reviewers receiving retaliation from authors, which is a particular threat for early career researchers. Reviewers may therefore feel pressured to comment favourably, or may decline to provide a review. Furthermore, the extra effort required to submit publishable reviews is not acknowledged, while published review documentation may rarely be viewed. In light of the concerns around double-blind and transparent peer review, Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources will keep single-blind review but implement changes aimed at reducing potential biases. As preferences varied and were partly influenced by career stage, we also aim to introduce choice. Authors’ identities will be de-emphasised by removing their names from review invitation emails, and reviewers will be asked whether they wish to reveal their identity to the authors. Some Editors wish to be anonymous, and so Editors will be given the choice of whether to sign their decision letters. Editors’ names will be published on accepted articles to recognise their contributions to the review process. We also noted that a number of survey respondents commented that authors value Editors assessing reviews, ensuring that comments are constructive, and specifying which points should be responded to in order to improve the manuscript. These comments have been shared with the journal Editorial Boards, and we will provide Editors with training on standard practice for making decisions on manuscripts. Over the past two years, Molecular Ecology has built a healthy audience across social media. With over 5600 followers currently visiting @molecology and more than 40,000 in a month, the exposure of the work of molecular ecologists from all over the world has gained greater visibility (Figure 2). Members of the Junior Editorial Board (JEB) as well as authors and readers are sharing more than 350 tweets per month, which receive more than 1.5 million impressions (Figure 3). Future growth should ensure that members outside the scientific community will also be exposed to the work of molecular ecologists, thereby increasing their impact in society. The translation of complex work to a general audience is a challenging exercise, and Spotlight, the journal blog, aims to mediate such dialogue. Members of the JEB continue to post summaries of highlighted papers, and “interviews with the author,” particularly those of early career researchers (ECR), which help the broad audience to understand the inception of ideas, implementation of experiments, and interpretation of results. The audience to Spotlight is growing (Figure 4), with visits to both old and new posts, suggesting that the personal experiences of researchers represent a legacy for new members of the scientific community. We expect to slowly grow the output of Spotlight and diversify its portfolio. A major focus of Molecular Ecology is to act as a catalyst of researcher development, particularly those starting their careers. In its third year, the JEB has become an important asset for the journal and is continuing to extend its reach as new cohorts of young researchers join its ranks. We saw the first cohort depart in 2021. Dr. Megan Smith, Dr. Nick Fountain-Jones, and Dr. Luke Brown started their tenure three years ago and we are grateful for their creativity and hard work in helping establish many of the protocols currently employed across the journal. Besides contributing to the Social Media presence of Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources, the JEB plays a role in preprint invitations, adjudicating the Harry Smith Prize, and spearheading Special Issues. More recently, the JEB has taken leadership over Reviews and Synthesis under the guidance of several members of the senior editorial board of Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources. The JEB’s involvement in this new role is expected to increase the diversity of reviews we publish in the journals. The Molecular Ecology Prize is awarded annually to “an outstanding scientist who has made significant contributions to molecular ecology,” as selected by an independent award committee. In 2021, the prize was awarded to Dr. Fuwen Wei, Professor of Animal Ecology and Conservation Biology in the Institute of Zoology, Chinese Academy of Sciences. Dr. Wei is a pioneer in conservation genomics and metagenomics of endangered animals, focusing mainly on giant and red pandas. He has applied genetic and genomic techniques to assess the past, present and future of giant panda populations, infer their evolutionary and demographic processes, and reveal their adaptive mechanisms for feeding on their specialized bamboo diet. He also has proposed and elaborated targeted strategies for the long-term survival of pandas, which were featured in Science as “Hope for Wild Pandas”. With 5 books and over 270 peer-reviewed journal articles, he is a global leader in molecular ecology and conservation genomics. He has trained numerous students and postdocs, and fostered international cooperation among zoologists and conservation biologists. His impressive accomplishments have earned him numerous awards and recognition, for instance, the Lifetime Achievement Award for Giant Panda Research and Conservation and the Outstanding Science and Technology Achievement Prize of Chinese Academy of Sciences. A biography of Dr. Wei and his contributions to the field of molecular ecology can be found on pages 31–36 of this issue. The Harry Smith Prize recognizes the best paper published in Molecular Ecology in the previous year by graduate students or early career scholars with no more than five years of postdoctoral or fellowship experience. The winner of the 2021 Harry Smith Prize was Yann Dorant at the Université Laval in Québec for his paper titled ‘Copy number variants outperform SNPs to reveal genotype-environment association in a marine species’ (Dorant et al., 2020). The paper shows how reduced-representation sequencing can cost effectively detect both copy number and SNP variation, in this case applied to the analysis of local adaptation in the American lobster. In a similar vein, runner-up Kaichi Huang at the University of British Columbia demonstrated how reduced-representation sequencing can be use to identify inversions segregating in natural populations – in this case between dune and non-dune sunflower ecotypes – and assess their role in ecotype formation (Huang et al., 2020). Second runner-up Tom Booker, also at the University of British Columbia, employed a combination of computer simulations and empirical data to demonstrate that recombination cold spots have a longer-tailed distribution of FST values than regions with higher recombination rates, leading to an excess of false positives in the former and a deficit in the latter (Booker et al., 2020). Dorant, Huang, and Booker have joined our JEB as part of the prize. The prize is named after Professor Harry Smith FRS, who founded the journal and served as both its Chief and Managing Editor during the journal's critical early years. He continued as the journal's Managing Editor until 2008, and went out of his way to encourage early career scholars. As in past years, we are grateful to our many referees, who are listed at the end of this editorial, for the contribution of their time to the journal and to the discipline. In lieu of a scientific society for molecular ecologists, Molecular Ecology offers an intellectual home for the molecular ecology community. This includes our social platform (see above), which focuses on research published in Molecular Ecology and Molecular Ecology Resources, our News and Views section, special issues, reviews, and so forth. We also support the Molecular Ecologist blog (http://www.molecularecologist.com/), which covers research and news reported in venues beyond Molecular Ecology, and with an eye to the interests of people who are not necessarily experts in the field. Lastly, we use our annual editorial to highlight scientific advances published over the past year in the journal (below). The News and Views section of Molecular Ecology highlights some of the year's most noteworthy papers as From the Cover manuscripts. In 2021, these 10 articles showcase the innovative approaches being taken to advance the field of molecular ecology. From the Cover pieces in 2021 all share the common theme of examining drivers of biological diversity, adaptation, and selection processes, using creative and innovative methodological approaches to tackle important outstanding questions in the field. Metabarcoding has revolutionized our ability to survey biological diversity in a number of previously intractable habitats. Taking advantage of this tool, a From the Cover manuscript by Arribas et al. (2021) used haplotype-level community metabarcoding to examine soil arthropod diversity in three regions of the Iberian mountains, gleaning data from >1000 species and 3000 haplotypes. The authors used this rich dataset to explore turnover of community assembly across and within habitats, finding strong differentiation at both spatial scales. These results indicate that dispersal limitations are an important driver of soil arthropod diversity and suggest we may be underestimating global diversity of this taxonomic group. When considering how symbiosis drives diversity, examples of co-speciation between symbiotic lineages are often cited, yet a From the Cover paper by Dal Forno et al. (2021) provides a fascinating example of how rapid radiation of one symbiotic partner can occur without complementary diversification of the other. The authors used genetic sequence data to examine the diversity of fungal (mycobiont) and cyanobacterial (photobiont) partners that form Dictyonema lichens. While recent work has shown Dictyonema mycobiont diversity to be extremely high, with more than 200 species described so far, Dal Forno et al. find cyanobacterial diversity to be far lower, identifying just three main lineages. Consequently, the same Dictyonema photobionts are shared across long-diverged fungal lineages, supporting the analogy of lichens as fungal “farmers” that circulate amenable photobiont “crops” amongst themselves. Major environmental shifts can drive – or devastate – biodiversity. In a From the Cover article, Stiller et al. (2021) explored how historical changes in sea level shaped modern population dynamics of sea which the of The authors first the species’ historical during and the last across the modern sequencing to population and The combination of approaches Stiller et al. to provide a of how sea level and with demographic and in sea resulting in the complex of diversity we have how and the such A From the Cover by et al. (2021) to light on the that drive this diversity, using the species a over the of three years, the authors found strong and but also genetic and between from and habitats. The authors used to in on under selection between many of which such as and As (2021) in the the work of et al. an in molecular ecology and in its to the and of the between diversity, and adaptation is important in the of and this can be for which are and often have complex In a From the Cover article, et al. 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We the large number of who have to the field of molecular ecology by manuscripts for the journal. The people who articles for Molecular Ecology between and 2021. Booker, Tom Yann Luke Dal Tom Megan Tom Tom Luke Huang, Huang, Huang, Wei Megan Luke Megan Megan Tom Smith, Smith, Megan Smith, Smith, Megan Megan Yann Wei,

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