Attention successful grantees

of the

CEPF Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot

The Critical Ecosystem Partnership Fund (CEPF) and Wildlife Information Liaison Development (WILD) Society introduce an opportunity for publishing results of your CEPF project from the Western Ghats Biodiversity Hotspot in an open-access, peer-reviewed journal on wildlife, conservation, taxonomy and ecology.

The Journal of Threatened Taxa (JoTT) is a monthly journal, available on-line and in print, that aims to promote conservation of threatened taxa and their ecosystems <www.threatenedtaxa.org>. As one component of a CEPF grant to the Wildlife Information Liaison Development Society (WILD) in Coimbatore, the Journal of Threatened Taxa will establish a special section on biodiversity and conservation in the Western Ghats each month. This section provides an opportunity to CEPF grantees to publish the scientific results and conservation experience generated by their projects rapidly and in a format accessible to conservation practitioners in India and globally.

The JoTT is a monthly (aiming to be more frequent), online, open access, free access, peer-reviewed journal on wildlife, conservation, taxonomy, ecology and all aspects contributing to the science and action thereof. The objective of JoTT is to publish timely, articles of importance for promoting conservation and encouraging wildlife studies in the biodiversity-rich countries of the world. The lag time after final acceptance of manuscripts from January 2009 has been two months or less depending on the completeness (in content and format) of submissions by authors and timely return of galley proofs.

The JoTT is not restricted to taxa (phyla, groups, families, orders, species, subspecies, varieties, forms or populations) that are threatened with extinction as defined by the IUCN Red List. The term “threatened” is used broadly to include all forms of taxa and their ecosystems, with the premise that the natural world today is threatened and therefore its taxa. Taxa could be threatened in several different ways and not only in their status in the wild. Lack of knowledge about a species or subspecies or a population is a threat as priorities could be compromised due to deficiency in data. Taxa scientifically described for the first time are under threat from data deficiency in their distribution, status, ecological needs, etc. Any taxon could be under threat in a location due to the changes in habitat or quality.

Ecological changes, changes in land use, socio-economic changes, human influenced changes, alien introduced species, wrong reintroduction practices, new emerging diseases, social and political unrest, improperly planned national and international wildlife and conservation legislations, constant changes in taxonomy, global climate change, and other factors that keep our environment and ecosystems in a constant flux can have widespread or localized impacts on taxa. In some instances even the so-called “Least Concern” species could be impacted locally or widely due to the above factors.

The JoTT is global in its coverage and is a direct progression from eight years of experience with Zoos’ Print Journal (ZPJ), whose coverage was South Asia. Once manuscripts are reviewed and finally accepted and the authors have submitted all relevant files, attachments and documents, including the final galley proof, publication lag time will be a maximum of two months.

The categories of articles published in JoTT include Research Papers, Research Communications, Short Communications, Conservation Tools, Reviews, Notes, Opinions, Book Reviews and Comments. Conservation, Taxonomy, Assessments, Distributions, Ecology, Biogeography, Checklists, Behaviour, Natural History, History of Natural History, Policy, Legislation, Livelihoods, Zoo, Botanic Gardens, Veterinary, Biology, Biography, Bibliography and anything of conservation value on fauna, flora and fungi.

We encourage you to take advantage of this opportunity to publish the results of your work. If you have any ideas for papers, now or in the future, that may be suitable for publication in the special section on the Western Ghats, please contact the project coordinator, Sanjay Molur, also the Founder Editor of the Journal of Threatened Taxa at <herpinvert@gmail.com>. Details on submission procedure and formalities for article submission are available in the Article Submission Page on the Journal web site www.threatenedtaxa.org