The need for an International Society for Island Biology (ISIB) and a scientific journal
The need for a Society
The world’s oceanic islands occur in isolation from each other, yet they share many abiotic and biotic characteristics that separate them from continents. Although islands comprise only 5% of the world’s land surface, they support a disproportionately large fraction of the world’s biodiversity, including rare and recently-extinct species. Islands have likewise contributed disproportionately to the advance and consolidation of many scientific disciplines, including Evolution, Ecology, Biogeography, Phylogeography, and Conservation Biology: disciplines that have spawned scientific societies that organize international conferences and publish successful, international scientific journals.
Like islands, many of the world’s island biologists are scattered around the world in relatively remote and inaccessible places. These scientists face similar problems and apply similar approaches to address common scientific questions, yet their isolation limits opportunities for direct professional interaction. There is currently no scientific society for the study of island biology, even though many island biologists have discussed the need for such a society when meeting at island-focused workshops or symposia. For too long, too many of the world’s island biologists have lacked a venue to allow them to come together, exchange ideas, and develop collaborative approaches to research questions of common interest.
A growing group of island researchers, working on a variety of island groups and topics, consider that the moment for the launching of the International Society for Island Biology (ISIB) has arrived. With this aim we have united our efforts to publicize our intention to invite the world’s island biologists to found a society that will organize an international conference on Island Biology every four years, on different islands and archipelagos around the world.
The need for a Journal
It is clear for any researcher focused on oceanic islands sensu lato that there has been a great increase in the production of scientific papers on Island Biology in recent decades. For example, there have been spectacular advances in the (re)-construction of phylogenies of island taxa through the combined advances in molecular tools, techniques for dating of islands’ paleoecological specimens and rocks, and the use of multi-beam scan technology to produce accurate bathymetric maps of the ocean floor.
Until now, the research advances in Island Biology have typically been published in books or in thematic journals (e.g., Journal of Biogeography), where island papers are intermingled with others. Much good research on island biology has been published in local or regional journals, but these are by their very nature limited in geographic scope (e.g., Pacific Science). There is today no global, peer-reviewed, impact-factored journal devoted to Island Biology. We intend to launch, parallel to the Society, a scientific journal focused on research on the world’s islands, in fields such as biogeography, evolution, ecology, and conservation.
The way forward
At the Island Biology 2014 conference, organizational meetings will be held to establish the International Society for Island Biology (ISIB) and its scientific journal, Island Biology.
Contact: José María Fernández-Palacios jmferpal@gmail.com