VCS: Volume 6 (2025) completed, and Volume 7 started

Prepared by Jürgen Dengler (on behalf of VCS Chief Editor)

Vegetation Classification and Survey (VCS) has successfully completed its 6^th volume. The year 2025 did not only see the publication of the first Journal Impact Factor (JIF) of a remarkable 3.0, but also an increased CiteScore of 3.6 (after 2.5 in the previous year). Meanwhile (as of February 2026), the CiteScoreTracker has even reached 4.7. In parallel, 2025 was the first year since the foundation of the journal when it needed no subsidies but even produced a small profit for its mother organisation, IAVS.

In each of the four quarters, the Chief Editors selected one paper as the Editors’ Choice: Joelson et al. (2025) in the first quarter, Monteiro-Henriques (2025) in the second quarter, Marshall et al. (2025) in the third quarter and Rinne et al. (2025) in the fourth quarter. Motifs from these four papers were then used to create the cover image of the volume (see above). Among the four selected papers, Natalia Joelson got the Editors’ Award 2025 for her first authorship in a comprehensive analysis of Patagonian forests in Argentina. Congratulations! She will receive a certificate and a small prize from the publisher.

We have opened the seventh volume with an annual editorial by the Chief Editors. Willner et al. (2026) explain why synoptic tables are essential for the presentation of vegetation classification systems and what makes synoptic table informative. In January 2026, we also appointed Jian Zhang (China) as a new Associate Editor, as well as Svitlana Iemelianova (Ukraine), Esteban Muldavin (United States), Pavel Novák (Czech Republic), Gianmarco Tavilla, and Massimo Terzi (both Italy) as new Editorial Review Board members. Welcome to the team! Lastly, we would like to highlight that for the first time, VCS is organising a “twin special issue” together with another IAVS journal. Under the leadership of Sandra Mesquita, Journal of Vegetation Science (JVS) and VCS will produce in parallel a special feature/collection on the “History of vegetation science”. The call for abstracts is still open; see the blog post.

References

• Joelson, N.Z., Simon, A., von Lampe, F., Loguercio, G.Á., Zerbe, S., Leuschner, C. & Walentowski, H. (2025) Floristic patterns in the Andes of northern Patagonia’s forests, Argentina: towards integrating ecological responses with expert-based and unsupervised classification methods. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 37–56. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.134621, see also https://vegsciblog.org/2025/04/22/vcs-editors-choice-first-quarter-2025/ and https://vegsciblog.org/2025/05/05/floristic-patterns-in-the-andes-argentina/
• Marshall, Z., Wood, C., Mountford, E., Rodwell, J., Strachan, I., Pescott, O., Tatarenko, I., Hodgson, J., Walker, K., (…) & Smart, S.M. (2025) A National Vegetation Plot Database for Great Britain. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 181–190. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.160378, see also https://vegsciblog.org/2025/10/23/vcs-editors-choice-of-the-third-quarter-of-2025/
• Monteiro-Henriques, T. (2025) TDV-optimization: A novel numerical method for phytosociological tabulation. Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 99–127. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.140466, see also https://vegsciblog.org/2025/07/25/vcs-editors-choice-the-second-quarter-2025/ and https://vegsciblog.org/2025/07/26/twelve-years-with-diffval-and-tdv/
• Rinne, L, Meyer, S. & Bergmeier, E. (2025) Soil and season shape less intensively managed agro-ecosystems of a Mediterranean island—Insights from Lemnos (Greece). Vegetation Classification and Survey 6: 253–271. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.164437, see also https://vegsciblog.org/2025/12/27/vcs-editors-choice-of-the-fourth-quarter-of-2025/ and https://vegsciblog.org/2026/01/13/from-field-trip-to-first-paper-lemnos-greece/
• Willner, W., Biurrun, I. & Dengler, J. (2026) The art of synoptic tables. Vegetation Classification and Survey 7: 1−8. https://doi.org/10.3897/VCS.184722