Acarologia

Open Science
in Acarology

# Editorial

Serge Kreiter IDª, Alain Migeon IDᵇ

## Editorial

Welcome to a new step in the *Acarologia* history: the first issue of the *New Acarologia* only in electronic format!

Long-time readers know that *Acarologia*, founded in 1959 by Marc André and François Grandjean (André, 1959), is the longest publishing journal devoted exclusively to the Acari. Professor Marc André was the first editor-in-chief (1959-1966) and then, it was Max Vachon that took the torch as editor-in-chief of the journal, from 1966 to 1979. He was then succeeded by Yves Coineau (1980-1996), followed by Michel Bertrand who led *Acarologia* into the 21st century (1997-2009). Throughout these years, the editors have maintained the quality of the research presented and the initial objectives of the journal. Their motivation, enthusiasm, hard work and passion for acarology have ensured the survival of the journal and helped to keep acarology alive as a scientific discipline.

The journal began a new era in 2010! *Acarologia* celebrated its golden anniversary with the publication of its 50th issue (Kreiter, 2010). Fifty years is a long life span for any journal and the previous format of *Acarologia* was definitely showing its limits. Science has moved on, bringing with it an explosion of knowledge on mites and ticks, both in the sheer numbers of known taxa and in the development of new methodologies and technologies that have revealed previously unsuspected levels of complexity and biological details. We were thinking about renewing *Acarologia* when Michel Bertrand announced his wish to retire. We decided that this would be the perfect occasion to build up the new *Acarologia*.

As many of you may know, the current editorial team of *Acarologia* has been constituted under the presidency of Serge Kreiter and its change has coincided with the publication of this 50th anniversary volume (Kreiter, 2010). The new managing editorial team is supported by a scientific international editorial board composed of eminent acarologists from all over the world.

The editorial committee was enlarged several times and the scientific international editorial board has changed three times during these 15 years. And the journal changed drastically its format. The new format was Diamond Open Access, totally free of charges for the authors and free of charges for access to journal articles and download.

In 2013, we obtained again an impact factor for the journal which has increased since.

In 2016, all papers since 1959 were numerised and added in order to be available online for all acarologists of the world.

In 2017, all accepted papers started to be published in html format in addition to the publication of pdf format.

In 2018, a new design for the covers of issues and the published papers have been adopted.

The challenge for the new *Acarologia* was to respond to rapid communication and fast-pace technological advances with a journal that was both responsive in publishing new research and widely available to acarologists from across the globe. And, as written by Dr. Vikram Prasad in the International Journal of Acarology: *Acarologia* has recovered its old glory (Prasad, 2011)!

After 15 years of Diamond Open Access, 2025 is a new step in the evolution of your journal. With a considerable reduction of subscriptions for hard copies nowadays, and consequently a significant shortage of funds, we have decided to stop publishing hard copies and to publish articles only online, in electronic format, free of any charges as before.

Published 17 January 2025

Corresponding author
Serge Kreiter ID:
serge.kreiter@supagro.fr

https://doi.org/10.24349/mqrc-x183

ISSN 0044-586X (print)
ISSN 2107-7207 (electronic)

<figure><img src="image_1.png" /></figure>

Kreiter S. and Migeon A.

Licensed under
Creative Commons CC-BY 4.0

<footnote>ªCBGP, Institut Agro Montpellier, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France.</footnote>

<footnote>ᵇCBGP, INRAE, CIRAD, IRD, Institut Agro Montpellier, Univ Montpellier, Montpellier, France.</footnote>
We hope that in the future *Acarologia* will continue to distinguish itself by publishing
high quality research from a variety of modern disciplines. In this way, we hope to follow the
example set by Michel Bertrand and show that acarology is a modern science and that the study
of mites can be used to illustrate and illuminate all the major problems in biology.

We are honoured and proud to introduce you to this New *Acarologia* format.

In the name of the managing editorial team and the international editorial board, we also
would like to give our warmest thanks to the Acarology Community for trusting in *Acarologia*,
and for their enthusiasm and support of the journal over the last 64 years. Now, and for the
years that follow, we would also like to extend our gratitude to all authors who support, and
will continue to support, *Acarologia* through their contributions of high quality scientific
manuscripts.

*Acarologia* is and will remain a leader in open science, held by the community of acarologists, for the Acarology Community.

Enjoy the reading!

Serge KREITER, Editor-in-Chief of *Acarologia*, and Alain MIGEON, Manager and Editor,
on behalf of the Managing Editorial Board anager, on behalf of the Managing Editorial Board

ORCID

Serge Kreiter https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9233-6438

Alain Migeon https://orcid.org/0000-0003-4041-5158

References

André, M. 1959. Avant-propos. Acarologia, 1(1): 1-3. https://www1.montpellier.inrae.fr/CBGP/acarologia/article.php?id=4091

Kreiter, S. 2010. Welcome to the new Acarologia. The 50th anniversary volume. Acarologia, 50(1): 3-4. https://doi.org/10.1051/acarologia/20101959

Prasad, V. 2011. Acarology News, National and International Meetings. International Journal of Acarology, 37(4), 355-358. https://doi.org/10.1080/01647954.2011.583509