Biology journal boards lack global representation

The makeup of editorial boards in environmental biology has not kept pace with the increasingly global nature of researchers in this field.

More than 70 per cent of environmental biology journal editors were based in the United States or the UK in 2014, according to a study published in PLOS Biology on 12 December. Most of the remaining 30 per cent were based in wealthy European countries.

Lower and middle-income countries that have large and productive groups of researchers—such as China, Mexico and Brazil—were barely represented on these editorial boards, reported the University of Florida, Gainesville study team.