Nova Hedwigia Vol.

106 (2018) Issue 1–2, 1–3

Stuttgart, February 2018
Editorial

Editorial:
Taxonomy and biogeography of bryophytes
A special issue in honour of Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Frey

John Engel1, Juan A. Jiménez Fernández2 and Roland Kirschner3

1
Department of Botany, The Field Museum, 1400 South Lake Shore Drive, Chicago,
IL 60605-2496, USA
2
Departamento de Biología Vegetal (Botánica), Facultad de Biología, University of Murcia,
Campus de Espinardo, 30 100 Murcia, Spain
3
Department of Biomedical Sciences and Engineering, National Central University, Zhongda
Rd. 300, Zhongli District, 320 Taoyuan City, Taiwan

On the occasion of his 75th birthday, the editors and publishers of Nova Hedwigia
would like to dedicate this special issue on bryology to Prof. Dr. Wolfgang Frey, the
former Editor-in-Chief of Nova Hedwigia. He compiled two special issues on bryology
in 2010, one for Nova Hedwigia and one for the Nova Hedwigia Beihefte. When he
was retiring in 2007, a Festschrift dedicated to him in the Nova Hedwigia Beihefte
appreciated his scientific merits with the title ''Wolfgang Frey – a scientist’s life between
deserts and rainforests''. Acting as Editor-in-Chief for this journal in compiling over 120
issues in over 30 years in close collaboration with the publishers, he improved upon,
as well as ensured, that the scientific and quantitative standards of Nova Hedwigia will
be sustained over time. In the meantime, the visibility of authors’ contributions has
been improved by uploading fast-track online versions of their accepted manuscripts
as ''prepubs'' on Ingenta Connect. In order to further increase the service for authors,
the publisher plans to establish a manuscript online submission and review system
during 2018.
Dr. Frey’s scientific accomplishments not only include alpha taxonomy of mosses,
liver- and hornworts and their molecular phylogeny, but he also has a research interest
in plant biology as is shown, for example, in his publications on the junction between
gameto- and sporophyte. His interests also cover the realm beyond the individual species
of a single systematic group as evidenced by his biogeographical and geobotanical
articles and textbooks. The13th edition of A.Engler’s Syllabus der Pflanzenfamilien,
published under the same auspices as Nova Hedwigia, is among his most important
recent editions.

© 2018 J. Cramer in Gebr. Borntraeger Verlagsbuchhandlung, Stuttgart, www.borntraeger-cramer.de

Germany. DOI: 10.1127/nova_hedwigia/2018/0469 0029-5035/2018/0469 $ 0.75
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