The Australian Zoologist - successful opportunist in a changing environment?

Abstract

In the last 10 years, there has been a rapid proliferation of subdisciplines in the biological sciences. Such a burgeoning, especially in ecology and natural resource science, has been matched by the initiation of numerous specialist journals devoted to publishing articles in relatively restricted fields. But few of these new journals explicitly aim at seeking broad parallels in thinking and methodology among these subdisciplines or encouraging synthetic approaches at a time when environmental issues, for example, beg understanding of the big picture. It is therefore reassuring to find a journal (with a long history back to 1914 (Strahan 1994)) such as Australian Zoologist that continues to cater to specialists in zoology, but also published frequent articles of broad interest to all scientists. Better still, these papers are often topical and provocative, questioning dogma, pricking consciences, and seeking synthesis of larger issues and of most value is the creativity with which issues are addressed in Australian Zoologist.