Our cover image is courtesy of the authors of a fascinating article on the structure of the ‘tunic’ of Clavelina species (Sakai et al., Reference Sakai, Kakiuchida, Harada, Nishikawa and Hirose2019). It reminds me that despite the longevity of the study of marine organisms we still have much to discover about the flora and fauna of the oceans. The theme is also picked up in two other papers in this issue with the first report of the brooding of eggs in the deep sea polychaete Anguillosyllis (Fukuda & Barroso, Reference Fukuda and Barroso2019) and descriptions of the larvae of Thalassocaris lucida (Landeira et al., Reference Landeira, Yang, Komai, Chan and Wakabayashi2019). For marine scientists understanding of organisms is fundamental to understanding the functioning of this key global ecosystem. The oceans face a variety of pressures and in common with other ecosystems a consequent loss of biodiversity, with unknown consequences to humanity (Cardinale et al., Reference Cardinale, Duffy, Gonzalez, Hooper, Perrings, Venail, Narwani, Mace, Tilman, Wardle, Kinzig, Daily, Loreau, Grace, Larigauderie, Srivastava and Naeem2012). We welcome publication of works detailing the minutiae of marine life and support the need to continue to work rapidly to document the wealth of our marine resources.
In the process of publication, the Journal of the Marine Biological Association (JMBA), as most other scientific journals, relies not only on the submission of high quality manuscripts by authors, but also on the scholarly contributions of reviewers. The process of reading, consideration, suggestion of revisions and editing of manuscripts prior to inclusion in the journal is a key part of the publication process. Therefore, as we complete this year's volume, I would like to thank the considerable number of reviewers who have contributed to the successful production of the JMBA this year. It is entirely appropriate to recognize these ‘unsung’ contributions and in this issue a list of reviewers for the year is included (with their permission).
Finally, eagle-eyed readers will have noticed that we are drawing to the close of volume 99 of JMBA. Since 1887 the Marine Biological Association has published a journal and next year sees the milestone of Volume 100. In celebration of this we will be publishing a series of reviews on subjects that have been foci of activity published in the Journal over the years. We welcome review articles and if you have topics that you think are ripe for revisiting please do submit these for consideration.
