As you will see in the coming months and years, while Nature Microbiology is an online only journal, it retains many features of a more traditional publication. For instance we will still publish monthly issues that contain research and review articles, as well as what we in the journal trade refer to as a ‘front half’ content i.e. Editorials, Comments, News & Views and more.

Of course, this approach does place certain constraints on how we can communicate with our microbiologist readership and so we are always looking to explore other avenues. For instance as editors we regularly travel to conferences and visit institutions to spend time speaking with researchers, learning about on-going work and listening to any concerns. We also engage through social media. For example, we may have only just published our first issue but we have been engaging with microbiology tweeters since our launch was announced last spring.

Continuing this exploration, I am delighted to be able to welcome you to the Nature Microbiology Community. We hope that this space will provide a forum for the sharing and discussion of ideas and opinions about microbiology.

The community is freely open to anyone to join, to post content, to share information and to discuss ideas. All members can blog, post videos and images and engage with each other and with us. Nature Microbiology’s editors will be actively taking part in the community pages and you should feel free to ask us anything, anytime.

I am very much looking forward to interacting with you all as this community site grows and develops – do let me know what you think of it as we go along.

Andrew