Editorial 2026

Heading into 2026, Molecular Ecology Resources remains a leading publication for broad resources in the field of molecular ecology. This is supported by various citation-based metrics, which continue to rank the journal highly in the related fields of Evolutionary Biology and Ecology. Our current Impact Factor (IF) of 5.5 places the journal 6th out of 53 in Evolutionary Biology and 21st out of 201 in Ecology in the Clarivate rankings. Other notable metrics additionally provide a positive picture for the journal, including the 5-Year IF (8.0 compared to 7.8 in the previous year) and Scopus CiteScore (15.2 compared to 15.6 in the previous year). During 2025, Molecular Ecology Resources has responded to the continuously changing publishing landscape, details of which are described in this editorial; however, our mission in 2026 remains the same, which is to publish high-quality resources that are of broad impact and pertinence to the community. To achieve this goal, we strive to offer a rigorous review process while supporting our authors with a fair and responsive experience. We wish to take this opportunity to express our enormous gratitude to Shawn Narum, whose tenure as Editor-in-Chief of Molecular Ecology Resources will end at the close of 2025. Since taking on the role in 2014, Dr. Narum has been instrumental in shaping the journal's direction, guiding it into a highly respected resource for the molecular ecology community. Over the past decade, Shawn has ensured that the journal keeps pace with rapid developments in the field, including advances in environmental DNA methodologies (Rodríguez-Ezpeleta et al. 2021) and genome assembly (Whibley et al. 2021), thus enabling the journal to remain at the forefront of innovation. We are pleased that Shawn will continue to be part of the team as he takes on a new role as Senior Editor for Molecular Ecology. Ben Sibbett, current co-Editor-in-Chief, has the privilege of leading the journal into 2026. In support of Ben Sibbett, we are thrilled to share that Joanna L. Kelley (University of California Santa Cruz) and Alana Alexander (University of Otago) have accepted the newly created position of Senior Editor. Joanna and Alana transition to this role from their respective positions of News and Views Editor and Associate Editor. As Senior Editors, Joanna and Alana will have significant influence on the strategic direction of the journal and will advise the Editor-in-Chief on new initiatives and matters of journal scope. Further, Joanna and Alana will lead our efforts to develop and publish special issues in emerging topics of broad interest to our readers. Together with Joanna Freeland (Trent University), who continues as Reviews Editor in 2026, Joanna and Alana form the Senior Editorial Board of Molecular Ecology Resources. Molecular Ecology Resources and Molecular Ecology acknowledge the importance of a strong social media presence. With this in mind, we are pleased to share that Angel G. Rivera-Colón has been appointed Social Media Editor for both journals. Angel has previously been a key member of the journal's Junior Editor Board and will now spearhead our efforts to engage with the community and highlight the excellent research published in the journals. We congratulate Angel on this appointment. In addition to changes to the Senior Editorial Board, we recognise that the peer review process is facing new and ongoing challenges, placing greater time demands on our Associate Editors. With year-on-year growth in scholarly content, it is unsurprising that it has become increasingly difficult to obtain expert assessment of submitted manuscripts. Furthermore, we realise that additional resource is required to ensure we remain vigilant against growing threats in the industry, such as the accelerating risks of fraudulent material in the form of paper mills and entirely AI-generated manuscripts. To address these challenges, particularly maintaining robust and timely peer review, we will be pivoting to the use of professional editors at Molecular Ecology Resources from 2026. Professional editors joining the editorial board will be highly qualified, with PhDs in a relevant field and strong peer review experience and will work under the strategic direction of the Editor-in-Chief. While we acknowledge the need for this change, we take this opportunity to express our profound gratitude to our current Associate Editors who will step down at the end of 2025. By committing their valuable time and expertise to Molecular Ecology Resources, our departing Associate Editors have been instrumental to the success of the journal over many years, and we sincerely thank them for their service. A shift from the hybrid model (both open access (OA) and subscription content) to purely OA has been a serious topic of discussion at the journal since 2022 (Narum et al. 2023). In 2022, we acknowledged that an OA future looked highly likely for the journal, and since then, we have continued to see impressive growth in the proportion of content published OA versus subscription (proportion of content published OA: 2022 = 52%, 2023 = 60%, 2024 = 68%). Due to this, and the gathering pace of OA in ecology and evolutionary biology, we decided to make this transition in 2025. Consequently, all accepted articles submitted from August 27, 2025, will be published open access, ensuring the scientific content is immediately available to read and share without being confined behind a paywall. The advantages of publishing open access for our authors are clear, with a study showing articles published open access have greater readership (3.5× views compared to subscription articles), are cited more (33% more citations compared to subscription articles), and receive greater Altmetric attention (almost 4× compared to subscription articles) (Wiley [White Paper], n.d.). With an increasing number of funder/institutional mandates for OA publishing, this transition ensures our authors remain compliant with such requirements and also allows authors to retain copyright over their valuable work. More broadly, global access to research findings drives forward innovation and collaboration, and we are pleased that this move aligns with our commitment to open science. We are excited to witness the above-listed benefits come to fruition. While thinking about OA, an important discussion point at Molecular Ecology Resources has been the article publication charge (APC), which can create a barrier to publishing for authors. We are especially mindful that available funds for APCs differ around the globe, thus disadvantaging authors from certain geographical locations. In this respect, we are pleased that our publisher, Wiley, has been finding ways of supporting authors while the industry adapts to OA. One important support pathway is the signing of new Transformational Agreements. These agreements migrate existing subscription spending to fund OA publishing, meaning authors covered by an agreement can often publish OA without direct cost. In addition, from January 2025, Wiley has been piloting a new programme that aims to support authors based in the Latin America region. This programme, termed the Open Access Pricing Power Parity Pilot, covers authors from 33 different countries and provides specific discounts based on Purchasing Power Index. Moreover, the continued partnership with Research4Life ensures eligible authors, including from across Africa, Asia and the Pacific Islands, are offered automatic waivers or discounts. Despite the growing support for APC payment, we acknowledge there is still work to be done, and we will continue to advocate for further directives and support mechanisms. Finally, it is important to emphasize that the transition to OA will not impact the editorial standards of the journal. Manuscript evaluation, the peer review process, and our publishing ethics will remain independent and unchanged. Top resources published in Molecular Ecology Resources in the last year include key contributions across multiple subject areas. Articles may receive extra attention through publication as a ‘From the Cover’ article that is intended to be published in each issue along with a Perspective article. These articles were coordinated by News & Views Editor, Joanna Kelley. In the last year, articles on the cover of Molecular Ecology Resources focused on multiple new resources for the community including: tools that identify misassemblies and annotate sequences of interest (Klumpy; Madrigal et al. 2025) as well as repeats and putative centromeres (RepeatOBserver; Elphinstone et al. 2025), advances in eDNA approaches to estimate species abundance using segregating sites (Ai et al. 2025), an evaluation of the performance of genomic offset approaches (Lind and Lotterhos 2025), a strategy for metagenomics that uses unassembled reads from low-coverage genomes and available reference genomes to construct genomic reference databases for biodiversity monitoring (Callens et al. 2025), imputing missing genotypes using self-organising maps (Mora-Márquez et al. 2025), and a method for obtaining historical DNA from museum samples (Holmquist et al. 2025). Editors also nominated additional high-impact articles published in 2025 to be highlighted with perspectives. Those articles included a method for increasing precision of effective population size estimates (Waples et al. 2025) and new tools to estimate diversity using microsatellites from eDNA (Liggan et al. 2025). Invited reviews continue to make important contributions by summarising up-to-date information and identifying knowledge gaps on a wide range of topics. In 2025 we published an Invited Review that provided an overview of different methods for calculating aging in natural populations based on epigenetic data (Newediuk et al. 2025). The ‘Mini Review’ category continued to provide a useful option for topics or emerging methodologies that merit a more concise summary, and this year we published Mini Reviews on genomic approaches for samples preserved in formalin (Holleley and Hahn 2025), the potential for genome skimming as a tool for generating data from environmental DNA (Lu et al. 2025), and rapid DNA/eDNA-Based ID tools aimed at improving Chondrichthyan monitoring and management (Alvarenga et al. 2025). Additionally, a review of CRISPR-Cas technologies in ecological studies is in press (Plewnia et al. 2026). The workload involved with all types of reviews and syntheses is substantial and we are very grateful to the authors that have provided informative summaries of topics that increasingly incorporate complex molecular data and analyses. Suggestions for review topics are always welcome; please contact the reviews editor ([email protected]) if you have ideas for future reviews. Molecular Ecology Resources also publishes special issues, aimed to showcase emerging and topical research areas in the field. In 2025, the journal published two special issues. The first, titled ‘skúkum tílixam: Uniting to Support Indigenous Contributions to Molecular Ecology’ (Volume 25, Issue 2) provides an impressive collection of papers that highlight and acknowledge the trailblazing research contributions of Indigenous scientists and emphasise the value of Indigenous Research Methodologies (Ramos et al. 2025). The second special issue of 2025, ‘Advancing Species Conservation and Management Through Omics Tools’ (Volume 25, Issue 5) compiled 34 papers demonstrating the uses and applications of omics tools for management and conservation strategies across the tree of life (von der Heyden et al. 2025). We thank the large number of individuals who contributed to the journal in 2025. The following list contains people who have supported the journal and its community by reviewing articles for the journal between October 1, 2024 and September 30, 2025. Please note this list only contains names of reviewers who reviewed for the journal in our former ScholarOne system and does not include individuals who have provided reviews in our new Research Exchange platform, whom we hope to be able to acknowledge in next year's editorial. Akita, Shingo Allard, john Alvarez Costes, Sebastian Anderson, Eric Andersson, Bea Andres, Kara Anslan, Sten Antognazza, Caterina Antonino, Jose Dijair Arvestad, Lars Barkan, Roy Barteri, Fabio Bayer, Philipp Benham, Phred Bennington, Stephanie Bian, Chao Bickham, John Blackman, Heath Bohmann, Kristine Bolaj, Ayo Bombarely, Aureliano Borges, Luisa Bourlat, Sarah Bovo, Samuele Brandão-Dias, Pedro Brandvain, Yaniv Brejon Lamartinière, Etienne Budd, Alyssa Campagna, Leonardo Campelo, Felipe Caro-Quintero, Alejandro Carrera-Martínez, Roberto Carugati, Laura Castellanos-Labarcena, Jessica Cecchetto, Matteo Chafin, Tyler Chang, Xianmin Chang, Ying Chatzinotas, Antonis Chen, Stephanie Chen, Zhong-Hua Chiappa, Giacomo Cooke, Ira Costantini, Federica Crochet, Pierre-Andre Cuff, Jordan curik, Ino Curto, Manuel da Silva, Jessica de Brito, Reinaldo de Carvalho, Clarissa de Flamingh, Alida De Sanctis, Bianca Delomas, Thomas Deng, Yanming Deutsch, Kaitlin Díaz-Jaimes, Pindaro Dierckxsens, Nicolas Dietrich, Christopher Ding, Shou Wei Duan, Jun Dunshea, Glenn Dunthorn, Micah Eisele, Marius Ekrem, Torbjørn Elkrewi, Marwan Elliott, Tyler Ellis, Vincenzo Elphinstone, Cassandra Ely, Taylor Encinas-Viso, Francisco Eriksson, Charlotte Escalona, Merly Fagernäs, Zandra Fan, Longjiang Fan, Qiang Fathi, Mohammad Reza Fauver, Joseph Fedosov, Alexander Ferdosi, Mohammad Fernández, Sara Fieberg, John Fiumera, Anthony Flanagan, Sarah Fontaine, Albin Furneaux, Brendan Galen, Spencer Garcia-Erill, Genís Gerber, Livia Giachello, Simone Gill, Mandev Girard, Elsa B. Girard, Simon Goesser, Fabian Gomez-Acata, Selene Gossmann, Toni Goulding, Tricia Green, Eleanor Grozinger, Christina Grzebelus, Dariusz Guhlin, Joseph Guo, Fei Guo, Zixiao Hablützel, Pascal Hao, Yan Harder, Avril Hardy, Olivier Harrison, Hugo Hayward, Kristen He, Xiaoping Hedtke, Shannon Herbold, Craig Hernandez-Triana, Luis Hiillos, Anna-Lotta Höglund, Jacob Holsinger, Kent Horvath, Steve Huang, Kaichi Huang, Kang Huber, Gwendolyn Isabel Vester, Kristen Janes, Jasmine Jansen, Lara Jarman, Simon Jiang, Yu Jo, Toshiaki Johnson, Kevin Johnson, Mark Juhel, Jean-Baptiste Kane, Nolan Kartzinel, Tyler R. Kellner, Kenneth Kikuchi, Kiyoshi Kireta, Dona Kizis, Dimosthenis Kjesbu, Olav Klymus, Katy Knott, Karelyn Kocot, Kevin Köninger, Julia Krabbenhoft, Trevor Kuelheim, Carsten Kulkarni, Siddarth Lan, Tianming Lara, Enrique Laroche, Olivier Latch, Emily Le Gac, Mickael Lee, Cheng-Ruei Leempoel, Kevin Lentendu, Guillaume Lepais, Oliver Leugger, Flurin Levis, Nicholas Lewanski, Alexander Li, Chenhong Liao, Ben-Yang Lin, Yuling Lind, Brandon Lindner, Melanie Littlefair, Joanne Liu, Fang Liu, Jian-Feng Liu, Shanlin Liu, Xingyue Lloyd-Jones, Luke Lockwood, Julie López de Heredia, Unai Lopez, Mark Louie Lovell, John Lynggaard, Christina Ma, Wen-Juan Maiello, Giulia Mairal, Mario Malenfant, René Mao, Kangshan Marcellino, Jose Marin, Mario Alejandro Martin, Claudia Martin, Michael Martínez Portela, Paulino Maruki, Takahiro McDevitt, Allan McDonald, Ian McKernan, Kevin McTaggart, Alistair Meier, Rudolf Meiklejohn, Kelly A. Melo-Ferreira, José Mendez Monroy, Paul Erick Mercier, Céline Merten Cruz, Marcelo Meyermans, Roel Mikhailov, Ivan Mikryukov, Vladimir Minamoto, Toshifumi Monlong, Jean Mooney, Jazlyn Morales, Ariadna Munguia-Vega, Adrian Munian, Kaviarasu Nakajima, Souta Nanni, Loris Newton, Joshua Nijland, Reindert Nilsson, Henrik Novotny, Vojtech Octavia, Sophie Oggenfuss, Ursula Oleksyk, Taras Olofsson, Jill Ottewell, Kym Panahi, Bahman Pang, Rui Paradis, Emmanuel Paris, Margot Parle-McDermott, Anne Patterson, Gilia Pearman, William Pekarik, Ladislav Peng, Bo Penna, Anna Perl, Bina Perry, George Pezzi, Pedro Pierella Karlusich, Juan José Pinol, Josep Pioltelli, Emiliano Plewnia, Amadeus Pohjoismäki, Jaakko Pont, Didier Porth, Ilga Price, Ben Prondzinsky, Paula Ramos, Seafha Rawlence, Nic Recknagel, Hans Richmond, Robert Ringbauer, Harald Robinson, John Robledo-Ruiz, Diana Rollins, Lee Rondeau, Eric Roossinck, Marilyn Rossel, Sven Rout, Ajaya Kumar Saitou, Marie Sales, Naiara Sanchez, Daniel Sandkam, Benjamin Şapcı, Ali Osman Berk Schöneberg, Yannis Schroeder, Anna Scott, Peter Seaborn, Travis Seashols-Williams, Sarah Seersholm, Frederik Sepulveda, Adam J. Sessegolo, Camille Seto, Kensuke Seymour, Mathew Shafer, Aaron Shu, Kai Shum, peter Silva-Arias, Gustavo Smith, Martin Snyder, Elise Solari, Katherine Soto, Álvaro Sousa, Vitor C. Speller, Camilla Srivathsan, Amrita Steel, Debbie Stelbrink, Björn Stoeck, Thorsten Stoof-Leichsenring, Kathleen Stothart, Mason Suchan, Tomasz Tangili, Marianthi Tao, Xiang Taylor, Katherine Tedersoo, Leho Thalmann, Olaf Thompson, Anne Tibone, Maddalena Trujillo-González, Alejandro Turon, Xavier Twyford, Alex van der Heyde, Mieke van der Reis, Aimee Vaughn, Andrew Vaulot, Daniel Velsko, Irina Vences, Miguel Vernesi, Cristiano Vieites, David Vierstraete, Andy Villoutreix, Romain Vogler, Alfried VV, Sven Michael Taylor Peter Charlotte J. Paul Ying The authors of The authors have to

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