Journal OA Switches - Google Docs

"Our understanding is that Diversity and Distributions is planning to transition from the previous traditional subscription model to an author-paid article-processing-charge-based open access model. We certainly applaud the desire to transition to open access, as we share the philosophy that scientific literature should be freely available to the broadest possible audience, including researchers, educators, and students in both developing and developed countries, in wealthy as well as resource-challenged institutions, and so on. Certainly, some open access model represents the future of scholarly publishing in our field.

Nonetheless, we are very concerned about the article processing charge funding model that is planned for your open access transition (we understand to be in the range of US$1000-3000 per paper). As you will have appreciated, the community of authors that supports your journal with quality and innovative papers, as well as expert peer-reviews, is impressively diverse, coming from all corners of the globe and from institutions of many types and levels. As such, while some of the current community of authors will be able to afford such publication charges, many will not, especially in countries with the greatest biodiversity."