Submissions

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Submission Preparation Checklist

As part of the submission process, authors are required to check off their submission's compliance with all of the following items, and submissions may be returned to authors that do not adhere to these guidelines.

  • The submission has not been previously published, nor is it before another journal for consideration (or an explanation has been provided in Comments to the Editor).
  • The submission file is in OpenOffice, Microsoft Word (.DOC not .DOCX), or RTF document file format.
  • The text is single-spaced, one column; uses a 10-point font (or adjust to the template); employs italics, rather than underlining (except with URL addresses); and all illustrations, figures, and tables are placed within the text at the appropriate points, rather than at the end.
  • The text adheres to the stylistic and bibliographic requirements outlined in the Guidance for Authors.
  • Most of the references come from current scientific journals (c. 80% published in the last 10 years), except for taxonomic papers.
  • Where available, DOIs for the references have been provided.
  • When available, a certificate for proofreading is included.

Author Guidelines

The first corresponding author must be accompanied with contact details:



  • E-mail address

  • Full postal address (incl street name and number (location), city, postal code, state/province, country)

  • Phone and facsimile numbers (incl country phone code)


All necessary files have been uploaded, and contain:



  • Keywords

  • Running titles

  • All figure captions

  • All tables (incl title and note/description)


Further considerations



  • Manuscript has been spell & grammar-checked. Better, if it is revised by a professional science editor or a native English speaker

  • References are in the correct format for this journal

  • All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text, and vice versa

  • Colored figures are only used if the information in the text may be losing without those images

  • Charts (graphs and diagrams) are drawn in black and white images; use shading to differentiate