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Forestist is an international, scientific, open access periodical published in accordance with independent, unbiased, and double-blinded peer-review principles. The journal is the official publication of İstanbul University-Cerrahpaşa Faculty of Forestry and continues publication since 1951. Forestist is published biannually on January and July and the publication language of the journal is English. Forestist aims to contribute to the literature by publishing manuscripts at the highest scientific level on all fields of forestry. The journal publishes original articles, reviews, and brief notes that are prepared in accordance with the ethical guidelines. The scope of the journal includes but not limited to; forest, forestry, forestry based industries, landscape and environment. The target audience of the journal includes specialists and professionals working and interested in all disciplines of forestry.

A strong population of the terrestrial slug Arion ater s. l. is reported from the European and Asian parts of Istanbul, Turkey. This is the first confirmed report of this large, conspicuous taxon from Turkey and from Asia. Our samples from five synanthropic sites indicate that it is already well established. Partial sequences of the mitochondrial COI gene (cytochrome c oxidase subunit I) place the Turkish slugs in a small clade shared with a few specimens from western France, perhaps indicating the origin of the Istanbul population. The next closest haplotypes (9% difference) fall within the clade identified as Arion ater s. s. This fits with the genital morphology of the Turkish slugs, which is most similar to the ater-form of A. ater s. l. Our discovery also puts a new light on the recent report of the highly invasive pest slug Arion lusitanicus auct. non Mabille, 1868 (often called Arion vulgaris Moquin-Tandon, 1855) in Isparta, which was identified only on the basis of external morphology. As reliable morphological distinction of these two species requires examination of the genital anatomy, the specimen from Isparta should be reinvestigated.