EDITORIAL

ePROTIST

Within only three years Protist has become the highest impact journal in the fields of protistology, protozoology, and phycology worldwide. The publisher and the editors take this opportunity to thank the protist research community for their encouragement, support and trust in the new journal. We intend to build on this and will strive to serve the protist researcher even better in the future. Towards this end, Protist has taken a further step into electronic publishing. At the start of this year, the journal has linked up with Ingenta (www.ingenta.com), the global research gateway serving the information needs of over 1.4 million visitors a month and providing free access to over 2,500 journals. Institutional and personal subscribers to Protist can access - through Ingenta - full-text Protist articles at no extra cost and ahead of publication schedule of the printed version. In addition, the editors have updated the "Instructions to Authors" (see this issue) to allow electronic submission of manuscripts (as PDF files). Use of this option further reduces communication and reviewing times for manuscripts. Finally, we have introduced a new regular section "PROTIST WEB ALERT" in which selected web sites relevant to protist researchers are introduced and discussed. If you wish to share your favorite web site with other readers of this journal, you should send relevant information to the editor of the new section, Larry Simpson (simpson@hhmi.ucla.edu).

With all the changes introduced, readers and authors of Protist can be reassured that the journal remains dedicated to the publication of the most significant research results in any area of protist research, both in a timely fashion and using the highest quality reproduction methods available. I look forward to welcoming you to the growing number of researchers who turn to Protist first, when they look for relevant information about their favorite organisms.

Michael Melkonian, Editor

Cologne