Eight years have passed since the launch of PhytoKeys (Penev et al. 2010) – Pensoft’s
flagship journal in plant systematics – and six years from our last editorial commemorating
the second year of its existence (Kress et al. 2012). Today we are publishing the
journal’s 100th issue! There is no better occasion to look back and consider the development
and most significant achievements of PhytoKeys.
In a very short time period after its inception, PhytoKeys became one of the most
popular and appreciated Open Access journals in botany. The journal started with only
48 submissions in 2011; by 2017 that number quadrupled to 187 manuscripts submitted
annually (Table 1, Fig. 1). The number of published articles has grown as well, from
39 in 2011 to 112 in 2016, while the number of published pages increased from 75 in
2010 to 3141 in 2016. To date the journal has received in total 759 submissions and
published 532 articles, of which 21 are full monographs. The average acceptance rate
for the period 2011–2017 was 70%, which we believe is optimal and sustainable for
a taxonomic journal.
Figure 1.
Growth of submitted manuscripts and published articles in PhytoKeys from 2010 to 2018
(until 1.6.2018).
Table 1.
Total number of submitted manuscripts, published articles, and printed pages since
2010.
Year
Submitted manuscripts
Published articles
Published pages
2010
9
5
75
2011
48
39
397
2012
56
54
1042
2013
57
52
1494
2014
66
46
1342
2015
113
72
2035
2016
153
112
3141
2017
187
98
1973
2018*
70
54
1097
Total
759
532
12569
* Until 1.6.2018.
The journal indexes all nomenclatural changes and additions in the International Plant
Names Index (IPNI) (Penev et al. 2010, 2016). In all, one new tribe, 26 new genera
or subgenera, and 439 new species or infraspecies have been described in the journal
since its launch; this equates to 466 new taxa in total. In addition to new taxa,
more than 400 new combinations, replacement names, new status designations, and other
nomenclatural acts have been proposed in the journal since we began.
Over the years PhytoKeys has attracted a diverse range of botanical researchers from
all parts of the world, with the highest numbers coming from the United States of
America (193), Brazil (93), China (80), United Kingdom (53) and Germany (49). Altogether
939 scientists from 67 countries have published in the journal from its launch until
1 June 2018 (Table 2).
Table 2.
Total number of PhytoKeys authors per country.
Country
N
Country
N
Country
N
United States of America
193
Philippines
8
Taiwan
2
Brazil
93
Austria
7
Tanzania
2
China
80
Peru
7
Ireland
2
United Kingdom
53
Slovakia
6
Norway
2
Germany
49
Portugal
6
Mauritius
2
Belgium
39
Czech Republic
6
French Polynesia
2
Turkey
33
Ecuador
5
Hong Kong
1
Australia
27
Denmark
5
French Guyana
1
India
25
Sweden
5
Gabon
1
Netherlands
24
Poland
5
Ukraine
1
Spain
23
Korea, South
5
Uganda
1
France
22
Colombia
4
Cuba
1
Japan
19
Switzerland
4
Uruguay
1
New Zealand
17
Panama
4
Nepal
1
Vietnam
17
Paraguay
3
Lao PDR
1
South Africa
16
Cameroon
3
Uzbekistan
1
Thailand
14
Finland
3
Cambodia
1
Argentina
13
Myanmar
3
Kyrgyzstan
1
Canada
12
Papua New Guinea
3
Kenya
1
Mexico
12
Bulgaria
3
Hungary
1
Russia
10
Singapore
3
Costa Rica
1
Italy
10
Venezuela
3
Malaysia
8
Chile
2
In 2015 PhytoKeys was granted its first impact factor of 0.68, and it has gradually
increased in the subsequent two years and reached 1.11 in 2017. The increase can be
best explained by the stringent peer review of content, improved quality control,
and manuscript management. In 2014 the journal was also accepted for coverage by Scopus.
In December 2016 Scopus announced the introduction of CiteScore – a new journal level
metrics. Currently for 2017, the Cite Score value of PhytoKeys is 1.08.
Along with our overall editorial improvements and advancements, a number of new technological
solutions and features have been implemented in PhytoKeys in order to facilitate the
efforts of editors, reviewers and authors (see Table 3).
Table 3.
New technological solutions implemented in the journal.
Feature
For the benefit of
Link
Use
Automatic registrations of reviews at Publons
Reviewers and Editors
https://publons.com
Publons helps reviewers and editors get recognition of every review they make for
the journal.
Dimensions
Authors, editors, administrators, publisher
https://www.dimensions.ai
Powerful tracker of citations; provides ranking of given research in a given field
Scopus CiteScore Metrics
Authors, editors, administrators, publisher
https://www.scopus.com/sourceid/19700201507
Interactive tool providing information on journal’s performance
Export of published figures & supplementary materials to Biodiversity Literature Repository
at ZENODO
Authors, data scientists, community in general
https://zenodo.org/communities/biosyslit/?page=1&size=20
Increases visibility and traceability of article and sub-article elements
Hypothes.is
Authors, readers
http://hypothes.is
Annotations on selected texts from the published article
PhytoKeys content is integrated with a significant number of global indexers and archives,
such as PubMedCentral, CLOCKSS, Google Scholar, CAB Abstracts, DOAJ, Vifabio, BHL
Citebank, to name just a few. In the two years from 2015 to 2017 Pensoft journals
have been integrated with a number of global archives and data repositories that significantly
increase visibility and searchability of published content. All journals operating
on Pensoft’s innovative platform ARPHA, including PhytoKeys, have benefited from these
developments. The list of the online libraries and databases which harvest and manage
PhytoKeys content includes:
Library of Congress (USA)
CNKI (China)
CINIPIEC (China)
eLibrary (Russia)
ORCID (International)
Dryad Data Repository (International)
Open Citations Corpus (International)
Since 2016 PhytoKeys has been using Altmetric – a technology providing article level
metrics which enables authors to track the online shares and discussions of their
published articles. Figure 2 demonstrates the combined results of the social media
presence of PhytoKeys articles on Altmetric. The graph clearly shows an increase in
the presence and visibility of the published content in social media and popular outlets
since September 2016.
Figure 2.
Total number of PhytoKeys mentions in social media and popular magazines.
Pensoft continues to invest in the popularization of PhytoKeys via media campaigns.
Some examples of press releases on articles published in the journal that grasped
the attention of journalists and received large media coverage are listed in Table
4. Altogether the top ten articles with the highest number of unique views on PhytoKeys
site have received 147,865 views. Four species described in PhytoKeys – the flowering
tree named as a new genus
Sirdavidia
solannona
, the dragon tree
Dracaena
kaweesakii
, the orchid
Telipogon
diabolicus
and the bush tomato from northwestern Australia,
Solanum
ossicruentum
made it to the top 10 new species nominated by the State University of New York College
of Environmental Science’s International Institute for Species Exploration (IISE)
(Deutsche Welle, Daily Mail, Publico, CoolEarth, EurekAlert!).
Table 4.
The top ten PhytoKeys papers that attracted largest media interest.
Article
Press release
Media coverage
Schuette et al. (2018) The hidden
Heuchera
: How science Twitter uncovered a globally imperiled species in Pennsylvania, USA.
Science and Twitter join forces to uncover a globally imperiled plant species
Sverige Radio, Earth.com, PLOS Ecology, IFLScience
Caraballo-Ortiz and Trejo-Torres (2017) Two new endemic tree species from Puerto Rico:
Pisonia
horneae
and
Pisonia
roqueae
(
Nyctaginaceae
).
Two Caribbean bird-catcher trees named after 2 women with overlooked botanical works
Der Standard, Mongabay
Diazgranados and Sánchez (2017)
Espeletia
praesidentis
, a new species of
Espeletiinae
(
Millerieae
,
Asteraceae
) from northeastern Colombia.
New Colombian plant discovered by Kew scientist honors Colombian president
Express, El Tiempo, La Nacion
Kolanowska et al. (2016)
Telipogon
diabolicus
(
Orchidaceae
,
Oncidiinae
), a new species from southern Colombia.
Orchid or demon: Flower of a new species of orchid looks like a devil’s head
The Washington Post, FOX news, РИА Новости, El Mundo
Martine et al. (2016) New functionally dioecious bush tomato from northwestern Australia,
Solanum
ossicruentum
, may utilize “trample burr” dispersal.
Curious new bush species growing ‘bleeding’ fruits named by a US class of 150 7th
graders
Science News, AOL, ABC
Martine et al. (2016)
Solanum
watneyi
, a new bush tomato species from the Northern Territory, Australia named for Mark
Watney of the book and film “The Martian”.
New bush tomato species is the link between botany and an Oscar-nominated Hollywood
movie
Live Science, New York Daily News, Huffington Post
Leopardi-Verde et al. (2016)
Encyclia
inopinata
(
Orchidaceae
,
Laeliinae
) a new species from Mexico.
Serendipitous orchid: An unexpected species discovered in Mexican deciduous forests
Scientific American, National Geographic Indonesia, Газета.ru
Suetsugu and Fukunaga (2016)
Lecanorchis
tabugawaensis
(
Orchidaceae
,
Vanilloideae
), a new mycoheterotrophic plant from Yakushima Island, Japan.
Plants cheat too: A new species of fungus-parasitizing orchid
Asian Scientist, Nature World News, La Vanguardia
Couvreur TLP, Niangadouma R, Sonké B, Sauquet H (2015)
Sirdavidia
, an extraordinary new genus of
Annonaceae
from Gabon. PhytoKeys 46: 1-19.
A rare new plant inspires the first plant genus named after Sir David Attenborough
The Guardian, Los Angeles Times, Discover Magazine
Fernando E, Quimado M, Doronila A (2014) Rinorea niccolifera (
Violaceae
), a new, nickel-hyperaccumulating species from Luzon Island, Philippines. PhytoKeys
37: 1-13.
New species of metal-eating plant discovered in the Philippines
International Business Times, Russia Today, Asian Scientist
Over the eight years of the existence of PhytoKeys, the journal has positioned itself
among the world’s leading journals in systematic botany. Started by the editors primarily
as a taxonomically-oriented journal, the journal has since extended its scope to enable
publications across other botanical disciplines, such as plant ecology, genomics,
evolutionary biology, paleontology, bioinformatics, ethnobotany, etc.
As the chief editors of PhytoKeys we have worked hard to expand the journal’s editorial
board, which has grown significantly and today is comprised of more than 80 experts
from various scientific disciplines and geographical areas. The journal has achieved
an international reputation by publishing milestone works that will affect all botanists,
such as the changes to publication requirements made at the XVIII International Botanical
Congress in Melbourne (Knapp et al. 2011a, b), the report on the nomenclature section
of the 2005 XVII International Botanical Congress, Vienna (Flann et al. 2015) and
the Shenzhen Declaration on Plant Sciences endorsed by 7,000 plant scientists from
77 countries at the XIX International Botanical Congress held in Shenzhen, China (Kress
and Knapp 2017).
With its continuous technological innovation and support from subject editors and
reviewers, PhytoKeys continues to receive recognition by the international community
of plant researchers. This success would not have been possible without our authors,
reviewers, subject editors, production staff, readers, and supporters, to which we
express our sincerest gratitude and thanks! We cannot wait to see what the 200th issue
will look like!