Gavilán, Rosario

Jiménez-Alfaro González, Francisco de Borja

English

Repositorio Institucional de la Universidad de Oviedo

1Mediterranean Botany 39(1) 2018: 1-2
Mediterranean Botany
ISSNe 2603-9109
http://dx.doi.org/10.5209/MBOT.59039
Mediterranean Botany: plant sciences for the Mediterranean biomes
Rosario G. Gavilán1 and Borja Jiménez-Alfaro2
Introduction
We are honored to announce Mediterranean Botany as the new era of the botanical journal Lazaroa. Starting 
with this issue (39-1), the Complutense University of Madrid is re-launching the journal to provide a wider 
international forum for plant studies on Mediterranean regions worldwide. Mediterranean Botany is published 
in OPEN ACCESS (Creative Commons license), as an effort of the publishing service Ediciones Complutenses 
to publish for everybody, i.e. without any cost for authors and readers. The new format and the improvement 
of the peer-review process should also increase the quality of published papers and the impact of the journal 
in the scientific community.
Figure 1. Mediterranean biomes of the world encompassing the Mediterranean Forests, Woodlands, and Scrub 
terrestrial ecoregions defined by the WWF (www.worldwildlife.org). Map uses Eckert IV projection. Latitudinal 
lines are placed at 45 degrees above and below the equator.
Thanks to 40 years of Lazaroa
Lazaroa was founded by Salvador Rivas-Martínez in 1978 to publish papers dealing with botany in a broad sense. In 1979, 
the Department of Plant Biology of Complutense University (Faculty of Pharmacy) launched the first issue of Lazaroa. 
Rivas-Martínez and many others from the Editorial Board and the Editorial Office made a great effort in spreading the 
results of Iberian botanical studies but also those of nearby countries of Europe and North Africa. We want to thank all 
of them for the work that has been done in the last 40 years, resulting in the inclusion of Lazaroa in the Journal Citation 
Reports in 2017 (2016) with a first impact factor of 0.407. We also want to thank all authors and referees that served the 
journal during those years, making it possible to establish a reference journal for plant sciences in Europe.
1 Departamento de Farmacología, Farmacognosia y Biología Vegetal, Facultad de Farmacia, Universidad Complutense. E-28040 Madrid, Spain.
2 Research Unit of Biodiversity (CSIC, UO/PA) Oviedo University, campus de Mieres, edificio de Investigación, 5ª planta, C/Gonzalo Quirós s/n. 
E-33600 Mieres, Spain.
EDITORIAL
2 Editorial. Mediterranean Botany 39(1) 2018: 1-2
Key features of Mediterranean Botany
Scope of the Journal
Although the scope of the journal has been always broad and covers all scientific areas traditionally related 
to Botany, Lazaroa mainly focused on plant systematics and vegetation ecology of vascular plants. While 
preserving these topics as the main value of the journal, we also want to extent the scope of the journal to related 
disciplines such as biogeography, evolutionary biology, ecophysiology, community ecology, ethnobotany and 
conservation biology, also incorporating studies on algae, mosses and lichens, and also on related fungal and 
microbial biology.
We think that our role in a super-diversified research community is to provide a forum for the understanding 
of plant diversity in Mediterranean biomes worldwide. Thus, Mediterranean Botany is focused on plant diversity 
of regions influenced by Mediterranean-like climatic areas: Eastern Mediterranean Basin, South Africa, Western 
Australia , West of North America and South America (see Figure 1). However, we will accept papers for areas 
interacting with the Mediterranean biomes in a broad sense. This approach follows the example of other botanical 
journals focused on specific biomes or regions, such as Alpine Botany (focused on mountain regions worldwide) or 
Preslia (with a geographic focus on central Europe).
Journal sections
The standard sections of the journal are ‘ARTICLES’, ‘REVIEWS’ and ‘RESEARCH NOTES’. New insights bring 
us to open another section called ‘BOTANICAL CHECKLISTS’ for the contribution of comprehensive lists of 
flora and vegetation types. We have already published some papers related to this subject: Meddour & al., 2017: 
Lazaroa 38(2): 127-163 for vegetation and Pérez-García & al., 2018: Mediterranean Botany 39(1): 35-49 for flora. 
Following the tradition of Lazaroa as a repository plant and vegetation classification, ‘Notes on plant and vegetation 
classification’ will publish consistent updates of nomenclature. 
Mediterranean Botany will promote the publication of ‘SPECIAL ISSUES’. At the moment we have two special 
features that will be published in 2018: ‘Mediterranean Plant Biology Conservation’ as a participation in the SEBICOP 
(Spanish association for Plant Biology Conservation) meeting held in Madrid in 2017; and ‘Diversity patterns across 
communities in the frame of global change: conservation challenges’, for the 26th European Vegetation Survey 
meeting held in Bilbao in 2017. Other features can be faced in future attending the suggestions of editors or authors.
Fast peer-review and on-line publication
To face this new phase and the broader scope of the journal we have enlarged the editorial board to create an 
international and multidisciplinary group of editors. We welcome the new members that will help the journal to 
achieve new challenges in the following years, with the general aim of reaching a permanent position in the JCR 
journals indexed in Plant Sciences.
Submissions for Mediterranean Botany can be made in the Open Journal System (OJS), an online Manuscript 
Submission, Review and Tracking System to make submissions, reviewing and editing. One of central aims of the 
editorial board will be to guarantee short times in the review process, with a maximum of six weeks between first 
submission and first decision. 
Mediterranean Botany is a full on-line publication that will reduce the time between acceptance and publishing. 
With a minimum of two issues per year, the editorial process will be optimized to publish the papers regularly within 
each year. This guarantees a maximum of eight months between final acceptance and on-line publication with DOI 
and final page numbers.


Mediterranean Botany: plant sciences for the Mediterranean biomes

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Mediterranean Botany: plant sciences for the Mediterranean biomes

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