Inaugural meeting of Biological Diversity successfully held

On 1 April 2024, the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences (SCBG, CAS) and Wiley, a leading publisher of academic journals, held an inaugural meeting to launch the journal Biological Diversity in Guangzhou, China. Held in a combination of offline and online formats, the meeting was attended by the Editors-in-Chief, Associate Editors, Editorial Board Members, Editors, Vice President and Editors of Wiley Publisher, the Directors and the Heads of the relevant departments of the SCBG, and the participants also discussed the development of the journal, and the meeting was a complete success.

At the inaugural meeting, Prof. Hai Ren, the Director of the South China Botanical Garden and Editor-in-Chief of the journal, Prof. John Seymour (Pat) Heslop-Harrison, Co-Editor-in-Chief of the journal, and Shawn Morton, Vice President of Wiley, delivered inaugural speeches on the inauguration of the journal. In their speeches, they presented the theoretical research and practical progress in the field of biodiversity, and emphasized the academic mission of Biological Diversity, which is to adhere to strict peer-reviewed standards, publish in an open-access manner, encourage the publication of interdisciplinary research results and cutting-edge advances, and provide a platform for international and high-level academic exchanges, so as to promote the progress and development of the field of biodiversity research on a global scale. Meanwhile, they expressed their sincere gratitude to the experts, scientists, Editorial Board Members and readers who have supported the launch and development of Biological Diversity. Moreover, they called on researchers and practitioners to actively submit and review manuscripts and to jointly promote the publication of high-quality academic papers to serve scholars and readers around the world and lead the innovative development of biodiversity research.

Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Hai Ren, Associate Editors Prof. Qing Ye and Prof. Ming Luo, and Wiley Publisher representative Ms. Yue Wang jointly inaugurated the journal. Editor-in-Chief, Prof. Hai Ren and Associate Editor, Prof. Qing Ye presented certificates to the Editorial Board Members who participated in the offline meeting.

Dr. Wei Zhang, Editor of Biological Diversity, gave a detailed report on the preparation process, positioning and development goals of the journal. Biological Diversity is a peer-reviewed, open access, international journal published by the South China Botanical Garden, Chinese Academy of Sciences. It is published and distributed worldwide in collaboration with Wiley, an internationally renowned publisher. Focusing on the conservation of biodiversity and sustainable use of resources, the journal aims to publish original, pioneering and applied results and cutting-edge advances in the field of biodiversity research, in particular to encourage the publication of interdisciplinary research, and to provide an international platform for high-level academic exchange for scientists in the field of biodiversity research, in order to jointly promote the progress and development of the field of biodiversity research and to build a comprehensive international flagship journal in the field of biodiversity research. Then five Editorial Board Members, Prof. Dafeng Hui, Prof. Pengfei Fan, Prof. Jin Zeng, Prof. Zhanfeng Liu and Prof. Shi-Xiao Luo, respectively shared their thoughts on biodiversity research from their own research direction and editorial board experience, as well as suggestions on the future development of the journal, contributing wisdom and strength to the high-quality development of the journal.

The four authors of the articles in the first issue, Prof. Limin Lu, Prof. Li-Wei Zhou, Prof. Wei-Guo Du and Prof. Hui Liu, introduced the contents of their papers, including the genetic diversity of seed plants in China, the conservation of macrofungi, the effect of edible centipedes on the growth of a lizard, and the homeostasis of gut microbiomes, as well as the relationship between plant functional traits and biodiversity, and the in-depth interpretations of these authors demonstrated the innovative ideas of the papers and research results.

Finally, Associate Editor Prof. Qing Ye summarized the meeting. On behalf of Biological Diversity, he expressed his sincere gratitude to the experts and scientists who have supported the development of the journal and to Wiley Publisher. He stressed the importance of interdisciplinary cooperation and called on the Editorial Board Members and the experts and scientists to continue to contribute to the development of the journal and to work together to devote to open a new chapter in the research on biological diversity.