Editorial

Notes from the editor, mid-2010 update

Publication statistics

The journal continues to increase in size in terms of number of submitted and published papers. This year to date (July 22, 2010) we have received 516 submissions, which puts us on pace for over 900 submissions! Last year, 2009, was the previous high with 692 submissions. It is great to get more good papers, but one consequence of this increase is that the rejection rate of submissions has climbed. This year it is 68% compared with 53% last year. Therefore, the papers that get published in

Outstanding Reviewer Award 2010

As for reviewers, we have an extensive reviewer database and appreciate all the positive responses we receive from reviewers. During the past year, we sent 4747 reviewer invitations to 3091 unique reviewers. In all, 1648 reviews were accepted by 1229 different reviewers. You can see that one issue that we have is that it takes almost 3 invitations to get one acceptance. This slows down the review time and adds extra work for everyone. So, please consider again before declining to review.

A few

Journal scope

As stated above, one consequence of handling the additional number of paper submissions is to be a little stricter on the first filter of papers regarding whether or not they are within the scope. When the journal first appeared in 1975 it was common to accept papers in hydrology, economics, engineering, etc. but in the meantime many more journals have arisen that deal specifically with those topics so Ecological Modelling is not the best fit for such papers. It is better to submit them

Conferences and society activity

The journal continues its long standing support for activities of the International Society of Ecological Modelling (www.isemna.org). ISEM held a very successful conference in Quebec City, Canada in October 2009 under the deft organizational skills of Guy Larocque and the organizing committee. There were over 230 participants and 158 oral presentations during the 3.5-day meeting. Papers from the conference will be appearing in an upcoming special issue with Dr. Larocque as guest editor. During