Aquatic Toxicology 216 (2019) 105326
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Aquatic Toxicology
journal homepage: www.elsevier.com/locate/aqtox
Aquatic toxicology: History and future
Contamination of aquatic ecosystems with natural or manmade
chemicals is considered as one of the planet’s greatest threats of the 21st
century. With an estimated 140,000 chemicals in use, as well as
countless other industrial, agricultural and domestic sources of pollu-
tants, humanity’s mandate to protect and conserve earth’s aquatic
ecosystems represents one of great challenges of this century
(Landrigan et al., 2018; Basu et al., 2019). Generations of scientists
have devoted their careers to address this challenge by advancing the
science to further our understanding of the behaviour and mechanisms
of these chemicals and their effects on organisms in marine and fresh-
water systems. Aquatic Toxicology as a peer reviewed international
journal was established in 1981 by Donald C. Malins and Arne Jensen to
provide a platform for scientists that studied the impacts of natural and
anthropogenic chemicals on aquatic ecosystems. The primary vision of
Aquatic Toxicology, initially, was to publish research that furthers our
understanding of how chemicals enter aquatic systems and that in-
vestigates the effects of these chemicals on aquatic organisms at the
individual, population and community level (Malins and Jensen, 1981).
As the field of aquatic toxicology has expanded dramatically over the
years, the founding editors revised the aims and scope in 1992 with a
specific focus on understanding the mechanisms of toxicity in aquatic
environments and the response of organisms to toxic agents at different
organizational levels (Malins and Jensen, 1992). At that time, scientific
publishing heavily relied on mailing of hard-copies through the postal
system.
In 2006, Mikko Nikinmaa and Daniel Schlenk joined the journal as
Editors-in-Chief. With rapid advances in technology, the electronic
submission system EES (Elsevier's Electronic Submission system) was
introduced during the same period. The editorial speed was greatly
increased and well managed with the submission to first decision in 20
days on average. Daniel retired in 2011 and Ronald Tjeerdema joined
the journal as Co-Editor-in-Chief, in which role he worked with Mikko
for the past eight years.
With the effort of editors, editorial board members, authors and
reviewers over the past 38 years, the journal has evolved into one of the
leading outlets in the field and is performing well in quality and
quantity. By 2018, 4948 articles had been published in Aquatic
Toxicology, including 4824 original research papers, 70 reviews and
several other article types. In 2012, Aquatic Toxicology published its
first open access article, and since a total of 48 open access articles have
occurred in the journal (2012–2018 data included), which count for
0.97% of its volume (Scopus database). The journal’s history can be
categorised into three periods in chronological order. Prior to 2000
(establishing period) the journal published less than 100 articles an-
nually. Since then, the number of publications has increased from ap-
proximately 100 articles in 2000 to about 200 articles in 2010 (devel-
opment period) reaching 250–300 annual publications in recent years
https://doi.org/10.1016/j.aquatox.2019.105326
Available online 03 October 2019
0166-445X/ © 2019 Elsevier B.V. All rights reserved.
T
(stabilizing period) (Fig. 1, upper graph). The impact factor of the
journal increased parallel to publishing volume reaching 4 in 2017
(Fig. 1, lower graph). In 2018, the journal had an impact factor of
3.794, which was ranked 4th out of 108 journals in the category of
Marine & Freshwater Biology and 17th out of 93 journals in the category
of Toxicology.
Due to the sustained effort by generations of dedicated editors,
Aquatic Toxicology, as a platform for communication, has maintained
its quality and scientific discussion at the paramount. After 13 years as
Editor-in-Chief of Aquatic Toxicology, Mikko retired this year officially
from the journal as well as the university. Ron also decided to step
down as Co-Editor-in-Chief after dedicating the past eight years of his
time and expertise to the success of the journal. Aquatic Toxicology
would like to extend its heartfelt thanks to Mikko and Ron for their
exceptional services to the journal over the years. Furthermore, we
would like to acknowledge the tireless contribution of the Review
Editor Malin Celander and the Special Issue Editor Alex Ford for their
service, as well as thank our editorial board members that have sup-
ported the journal over the years.
Looking forward, the journal’s mission remains dedicated to serving
and enhancing science communication of the aquatic toxicology com-
munity with a new editorial team. Aquatic Toxicology is excited to
introduce its two new Editors-in-Chief (Paul K S Lam, City University of
Hong Kong and Markus Hecker, University of Saskatchewan) and three
Associate Editors (Willie Peijnenburg from Leiden University, Claudia
Wiegand from Université Rennes 1 and Qunfang Zhou from the
Research Center for Eco-Environmental Sciences, Chinese Academy of
Sciences). With this generational change in journal leadership the vi-
sion of the journal is evolving as well, adapting to new challenges while
maintaining a strong focus on contemporary issues in aquatic tox-
icology that have defined the scope of the journal over the past decades.
With the new team on board, the incoming Editors-in-Chief stated
the vision as follows:
Aquatic Toxicology publishes significant contributions that in-
crease the understanding of the impact of harmful substances (in-
cluding natural and synthetic chemicals) on aquatic organisms and
ecosystems.
Aquatic Toxicology considers both laboratory and field studies with
a focus on marine/ freshwater environments. We strive to attract high
quality original scientific papers, critical reviews and expert opinion
papers in the following areas:
• Effects of harmful substances to aquatic ecosystems across organi-
zational levels (molecular, cellular, sub-organismal, organismal,
population, community, and ecosystem);
• Mechanisms of toxicity;
• Genetic disturbances, transgenerational effects, behavioural and

Fig. 1. Number of articles published in Aquatic Toxicology since 1981 (upper graph) and evolution of the impact factor over the past 21 years (lower graph). Data
was generated by using the following searching quote on Scopus “SRCTITLE (aquatic AND toxicology) AND (LIMIT-TO (EXACTSRCTITLE, "Aquatic Toxicology"))”.
Data accessed 16:57, 28th July 2019. Impact factor was published by Clarivate annually.
adaptive responses;
• Impacts of natural and man-made contaminants on the structure,
function of and services provided by aquatic ecosystems;
• Mixture toxicity assessment;
• Statistical approaches to predict exposure to and hazards of con-
taminants
The journal also considers manuscripts in other areas such as the
development of innovative concepts, approaches, and methodologies,
which promote the wider application of toxicological datasets to the
protection of aquatic environments and inform ecological risk assess-
ments and decision making by relevant authorities.
The new editorial team is looking forward to serving the Aquatic
Toxicology community, and pledges to its readership and authors to
continue improving the quality and relevance of the journal, and to
ensure an effective and fair review process. To help us fulfilling this
pledge we ask for your continued high-quality submissions and active
participation in the review processes. Aquatic Toxicology will reward
our top authors and best reviewers for their contribution to the journal.
We are excited to embark on this next chapter of Aquatic Toxicology
together with you!
References
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⁎
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Aquatic Toxicology 216 (2019) 105326
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Lan Song
⁎
Environmental Science and Technology Portfolio, STMJ, Elsevier B.V., the
Netherlands
E-mail address: songl@sustech.edu.cn.
Paul K.S. Lam
State Key Laboratory of Marine Pollution, City University of Hong Kong,
China
Markus Hecker
School of Environment and Sustainability and Toxicology Centre, University
of Saskatchewan, Canada