The impact factor for Systematic and Applied Acarology (SAA) in 2017 was announced in the latest release (June 2018) of Journal Citation Reports (JCR) from Clarivate Analytics. I take this opportunity to comment on the growth of SAA's impact factor and recognize the top 10 most highly cited papers that contributed greatly it. I also introduce the James Allen McMurtry Award, recently instituted by the Systematic and Applied Acarology Society to recognize acarologists who have made outstanding contributions to systematic and/or applied acarology.
Impact factor. The newly released impact factor of SAA in 2017 is 1.696—just over 15% increase over that of 2016 (1.467, Zhang 2017). SAA's new impact factor lifts its rank among entomological journals from 31 of 91 in 2016 to 26 of 96 in 2017. The new impact factor reflects the average citations in 2017 of 227 items published in 2015 and 2016; the top 10 papers (Table 1) account for 15.6% of the total citations (366) and have an average citation of 5.7. It is interesting to note that, with the exception of one paper on the life table of a phytoseiid species (Riahi et al. 2016), the most cited papers are systematics in nature and most (70%) of the highly cited papers on mite systematics deal with the order Trombidiformes (Table 1).
TABLE 1.
Top 10 papers from 2015/2016 with the highest numbers of citations* in Systematic and Applied Acarology in 2017.
James Allen McMurtry Award. Prof James Allen McMurtry passed away on 28 July 2017. His life and major contributions to systematic and applied acarology are summarized by Moraes & Johnson (2017). His last major paper, “Revision of the lifestyles of phytoseiid mites (Acari: Phytoseiidae) and implications for biological control strategies” (McMurtry et al. 2013) is the most cited paper in Systematic and Applied Acarology (Liu & Zhang 2016; Zhang 2018). Prof McMurtry is regarded as “the father of biological control of mite pests”. His biographers called him “an unforgettable man and professional”. In memory of this great acarologist, the Systematic and Applied Acarology Society decided to establish the James Allen McMurtry Award, designed to recognize a living acarologist who has made outstanding contributions to acarine systematics or applied acarology or both. The Society plans to allocate US$5,000 for the award in 2018 and will present this award every 4 years to coincide with the International Congress of Acarology. A selection committee was formed from acarologists around the world (Qinghai Fan of New Zealand, Farid Faraji of The Netherlands, Tetsuo Gotoh of Japan, Gilberto José de Moraes of Brazil, Eric Palevsky of Israel, Heather Proctor of Canada, Owen Seeman of Australia, Eddie Ueckermann of South Africa, Xiaoyue Hong of China, and Zhi-Qiang Zhang of New Zealand). The biographical accounts of the nominees will be published in SAA (this issue includes the first one on Prof Eddie Ueckermann by Theron & Moraes 2018). We hope that recognising outstanding contributions to acarology is not only a tribute to giants in our science but will also inspire a new generation of young acarologists to follow their steps in advancing acarology.
Acknowledgement.
To Anne Austin (Manaaki Whenua — Landcare Research) and Qinghai Fan (Ministry for Primary Industries) for reading and commenting on the manuscript.
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