Phytocoenologia : the leading journal with a focus on vegetation classification

This annual Editorial of 2017 summarizes the developments of the journal Phytocoenologia in the two years following its re-launch in 2015. Both the Editorial Team and the topics and regions of publications are very diverse. Starting with 2015, Impact Factors and CiteScores profoundly improved compared to the previous years, which, together with some other measures, has rendered Phytocoenologia an increasingly attractive publication venue. Narrowing the scope of Phytocoenologia explicitly down to “vegetation survey and classification” was arguably one of the cornerstones of recent success. The bibliometric analyses have also allowed us to demonstrate that both in absolute numbers and with regard to the proportion of such papers, Phytocoenologia can now be considered the leading journal in the field of vegetation classification worldwide. The citation network of Phytocoenologia includes a wide array of journals, although many remain to be covered in the Web of Science, to the bibliometric disadvantage of Phytocoenologia. We shortly present the four Editors’ Choice articles of 2016 and a selection of some other outstanding contributions of that volume. The Editors’ Award 2016 goes to Rui B. Elias and colleagues for their combination of vegetation classification and distribution modelling to derive a map of the natural vegetation of the Azores. In conclusion, the Editors aim to provide a service to vegetation ecologists worldwide by maintaining and further improving the qualities of Phytocoenologia.