The journal has since developed into an arguably more conventional format, in which empirical research papers, termed Research Articles, constitute the majority of the papers, alongside, Perspectives, Reviews, Correspondence, Book Reviews and the occasional Editorial. We aim to provide a low-cost, gold, open access option for biogeographers operating within a broad array of recognised schools of thought and methodologies, pure and applied. We accept papers on any taxa, on short- or long-temporal scales, and on diverse spatial scales of analysis. The journal is currently starting its 17^th volume, and has attracted authors from around the world, publishing on a great range of topics.

The current (2023) Scopus CiteScore of 4.3 is one existing metric of the attention already being paid to work published in Frontiers of Biogeography. Whatever our personal views on citation indices may be, it has become an expectation in scientific publishing that academic journals are recognised by and included in the major citation and listing systems. Inclusion in such systems leads to enhanced connectivity and ease of discovery of published work. It is therefore pleasing to be able to report that we have recently been informed by Clarivate that Frontiers of Biogeography has been selected for inclusion in the Web of Science™. Articles published from 2022, beginning with volume 14, will be included in the following products: Emerging Sources Citation Index, Zoological Record, Biological Abstracts, and BIOSIS Previews. This is a significant milestone for the journal and will contribute to the improved visibility of articles published in the journal.

While Frontiers of Biogeography has developed and grown as a scientific journal, the science publishing world has been through a period of rapid and sustained innovation and change. There is now a bewildering array of publication options, mostly on-line only, typically emphasising the importance of data curation and data publication, and increasingly following open-access (rather than subscriber pays) models (Dawson et al. 2017; McGill et al. 2018; Peterson et al. 2019). This Open Access model shifts the financial burden of the cost of publication from the reader to the author, potentially limiting the ability of authors without institutional funding to publish in many journals. Indeed, “Article Processing Charges” in scientific journals often exceed $2,000 per paper and they can be significantly higher than this.

The International Biogeography Society (TIBS), is a non-profit society founded in 2001 whose purpose is to support the study, understanding, communication and application of biogeography. TIBS established the vision for and mission of the journal and provides a financial subsidy for the running costs of the journal, appoints the chief editors (who, alongside the rest of the editorial board, provide their services to the journal gratis), and oversees the operation and performance of the journal through reports to the TIBS board via a newly established publications committee. Moving forward, this committee will also be responsible for reviewing (annually) the journal’s APC, discounts, and waivers policy to best balance the need to balance the costs to the society of subsidising the journal while minimizing the financial barriers to society members of publishing in Frontiers of Biogeography. As the budget available for APC subsidies and waivers is finite, we encourage those authors who do not require discounts to pay the default APC, as this will enable TIBS to support more discounts and waivers for those who lack appropriate sources of funding. Any change to these policies will be announced towards the year end and will apply to papers submitted in the following calendar year.

Frontiers of Biogeography has hitherto been published for TIBS by e-Scholarship, which is the University of California’s Open Access Publications platform. e-Scholarship provided the perfect platform for the early years of development of the journal. They have supported the journal by providing, without charge, a secure platform, and a manuscript review system, both of which have proved to be robust and reliable: key properties of any such system entrusted to the curation of scientific information. We are deeply grateful to our colleagues at e-Scholarship for supporting the development of the journal over these many years and for continuing to curate the papers already published in the journal.

While the journal has continued to develop and to publish important contributions within biogeography, we have yet to see the growth in submissions and increase in output that we had hoped for, and which formed a key part of the business plan for the journal. The benefits of moving to a more sophisticated publication platform have been considered by TIBS for several years. Potential benefits include more efficient editorial management systems, platform cross-integration, data publishing options, and journal promotion by the publisher. It was thus decided that it was time to relaunch the journal to enhance its prospects to grow and become a leader in the field. Of course, this will depend on researchers submitting good papers for publication, and on the willingness of our editorial board and reviewer community to provide the essential scrutiny and constructive input to select and ready papers for publication.

Hence, in order to take the next steps in developing the journal, TIBS has entered into an agreement with Pensoft Publishers, an exclusively open-access, well-established publisher of natural sciences journals and books. With effect from 1^st July 2024, Frontiers of Biogeography switched its manuscript review and publication package to Pensoft’s ARPHA platform. As part of this move, the journal has switched from publication in four issues a year to continuous publication, meaning that each paper will be published in final form as soon as possible after acceptance and proofing has been completed. We therefore closed volume 16 (published via the e-Scholarship platform) after the first two issues. All subsequent 2024 papers will form volume 17. Thereafter, each new volume will start at the beginning of each calendar year.

Pensoft is an innovative publisher and is a leader amongst publishers in facilitating publication of biodiversity data into the Global Biodiversity Information Facility (GBIF). GBIF, and its marine counterpart the Ocean Biodiversity Information System (OBIS), use and develop international standard for data and metadata. These standards and protocols mean thousands of datasets are integrated into one data system so users can then search and download any selected taxa, places or time periods of their interest in a standard format. This removes the need for researchers to reformat data and makes data more reusable. Putting data into Supplementary Material or other systems may technically be “open data” but avoids using data and metadata standards and so is less reusable than publishing into GBIF and OBIS. The integration of large volumes of data on the distribution of hundreds of thousands of species is revolutionary for studies in biogeography. See the journal’s new platform for information about the ARPHA system, the journal’s broad biogeographical remit, article formats, APC, discounts policy, and data publication guidelines (Frontiers of Biogeography (pensoft.net)).

As chief editors of the journal, and on behalf of The International Biogeography Society, we invite all members of the biogeographical community, whether members of the society or not, to submit manuscripts to Frontiers of Biogeography.