Greetings from the Managing Editors and Editorial Board of Mycorrhiza!

The Editorial Board met at the Fifth International Conference on Mycorrhiza (ICOM5) in Granada and discussed some of the changes to and status of the journal. After 5 years of distinguished service, Andrew Smith is stepping down as Co-Managing Editor, and Randy Molina is his replacement. We profoundly thank Andrew and his assistant Sandra Dickson for all their hard work in maintaining the high standards and quality of Mycorrhiza.

This change in Managing Editor also lines up with new online submission for Mycorrhiza manuscripts. Springer has implemented the online manuscript and tracking system “Editorial Manager.” It is a database-driven, web-based system for managing manuscripts through the journal workflow process. It allows authors to submit manuscripts via the internet, provides online peer review services, and tracks manuscripts through the review process. We expect this change to significantly accelerate the manuscript review and publication process. In this new system, Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson will handle all arbuscular mycorrhiza manuscripts, and Randy Molina will handle manuscripts dealing with ectomycorrhiza and other types.

Mycorrhiza was also announced as the official journal of the new International Mycorrhiza Society (http://www.mycorrhizas.org/), which was officially launched at ICOM5. Special individual subscription rates are available to the members of the society.

After steadily increasing from 1997 to 2003, the impact factor for Mycorrhiza has remained more or less constant at 1.753 in 2005. Mycorrhiza ranked fourth out of 17 mycology journals listed in 2005 by the Institute of Scientific Information. We aim to improve the impact factor of Mycorrhiza over the next few years. One way to accomplish this is by publishing timely reviews, syntheses, and special issues. We encourage mycorrhiza scientists to consider new review topics and special issues for publication in Mycorrhiza and discuss possibilities with Editorial Board members.

Finally, we hope that you like the new cover layout for Mycorrhiza.

Vivienne Gianinazzi-Pearson

Randy Molina

(Managing Editors)