The History of the American Midland Naturalist

Read: The American Midland Naturalist: The Life History of a Journal by former Editor, Dr. Robert P. McIntosh.

The American Midland Naturalist was founded in 1909 by Reverend Julius A. Nieuwland, C.S.C., and has been published since by the University of Notre Dame. It is a refereed, broad-spectrum journal publishing basic research in diverse disciplines in biology and varied taxa. The historic name is no longer precisely descriptive, as it includes materials from all of North America and, occasionally, from other areas. An editorial survey identified major topics, as are evident in its list of associate editors, for animal, vegetation and plant population in ecology, mammalogy, animal behavior, herpetology, ornithology, aquatic ecology, parasitology, ichthyology, plant physiology and biological statistics. Articles include field and laboratory studies of life history, distribution, growth, reproduction, behavior, physiology, diet, habitat and myriad other topics of interest to biologists. Approximately one-fourth of the articles published in the American Midland Naturalist are experimental. It is among the most frequently cited journals in publications as diverse as Ecology and Oecologia, Journal of Mammalogy, Herpetologia, Copeia, Journal of Parasitology, Hydrobiologia, Journal of Wildlife Management and numerous others. Its history has been described in The American Midland Naturalist: The Life History of a Journal. American Midland Naturalist, 123:1-31, 1990.