Editorial

As Journal of Biologydraws close to the end of its first complete year of publication, we hope that readers can extrapolate from the range of subjects covered so far to appreciate that the journal aims to live up to its name and to include the whole of biology. Because our focus has been quality rather than quantity, we have to date published relatively few research articles and so cannot hope to have hit precisely on each reader’s favorite topic. The articles we have published range from the biophysics of single molecules to the evolutionary behavior of populations of bacteria, with a spread of cell-biological, whole-organism and system-level studies in between. So, while these articles - like our editorial board - can only hint at the range of subjects we hope to include in the future, we reiterate our intention to reflect within these pages the rich diversity of modern biological studies.

Each of the high-profile research articles we publish is accompanied by commentary: Research news by a journalist who can explain the article to a broad range of potentially interested readers, and/or one or more Minireviews by experts in the field who place the research in its scientific context and explain the nuances to those in related fields. There is a risk with this strategy that readers and potential authors assume we are selecting one or two themes per issue. We are not. We continue to take expert advice from peer-reviewers and our Editorial Board to help us select the most interesting and scientifically robust studies from among those submitted to the journal, regardless of the subject area within biology, and to publish each accepted article and its associated commentary online as soon as possible after acceptance. If you would like to see us cover your area of research, simply submit your best work.