Online Submissions
Already have a Username/Password for Oecologia Australis?
Go to Login
Need a Username/Password?
Go to Registration
Registration and login are required to submit items online and to check the status of current submissions.
Author Guidelines
Overview
Oecologia Australis publishes manuscripts in Ecology and related topics, with complete open access content to all readers. Submission of articles is electronic, running directly from our website (https://revistas.ufrj.br/index.php/oa) via submission form. Manuscripts are accepted in three languages: Portuguese, English and Spanish. All accepted manuscripts are charged for publication. The amount is for publication costs only. For ABECO members the value is R$180,00 per article published and for non-members R$280,00.
The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence. Topics of interest include:
1- Organismal ecology (ecophysiology, animal behavior, natural history, evolutionary biology of organisms)
2- Population ecology
3- Community and metacommunity ecology
4- Macroecology
5- Biogeography
6- Ecosystem ecology
7- Limnology
8- Oceanography
9- Conservation biology
10- Landscape ecology
11- Species Management
12- Environmental education
13- Environmental management
14- Species list and geographic distribution expansion records
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. Submissions that do not adhere to these guidelines will be returned to authors.
_ The contribution must be original and unpublished, and must not be under review in any other journal;
_ It is mandatory to formally declare that experiments involving humans or laboratory animals were conducted according to institutional and national ethic guidelines that standardize it in scientific studies. Authors should also report in the methods section license numbers and permits from competent institutions;
_ Manuscripts not written in the native language of authors must be reviewed by a native speaker before submission. In addition, the editor may request manuscripts to be reviewed by a native speaker before publication;
_ Before submitting, consider the range of interest of your manuscript. Original Articles, Opinions, Reviews and Scientific Notes addressing broad topics in Ecology need maximum permeability in scientific groups to reach their full potential. If this is your case, consider submitting an English version of your manuscript;
_ Pay attention to submission process deadlines. Before accepted articles are published, authors receive proof versions that should be reviewed and returned to editors within 48 hours. At this stage, authors should review the manuscript searching for inconsistencies regarding text layout, figure and table positioning, as well as typos. After this period, changes are not allowed. After the corresponding author returns the corrected proof to the editor, new corrections will not be considered;
_ Name as an author just who has made intellectual contributions to your manuscript. Oecologia Australis discourages excessive number of authors. Field assistants, technicians and research group fellows should not be included in the authorship just by being part, e.g., in research projects. This configures scientific production artificial inflation and it is against Oecologia Australis ethical principles. These people should be acknowledged for their help in the properly section of the manuscript.
_ The manuscript and figure files must not be larger than 2Mb during submission. If the manuscript is accepted, the editor will contact the authors and request figures to be sent in high resolution by e-mail; in this case, files can be larger than 2Mb, but files larger than 20Mb will note be accepted.
Author guidelines
To start the process, the corresponding author should register and follow guidelines for submission.
The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter clearly stating that:
(1) all authors have seen and approved the submitted manuscript; all authors should sign the letter;
(2) the manuscript has not been published;
(3) the manuscript has not been submitted simultaneously in other journal(s);
(4) all authors agree that the article will only be published upon payment of the cost of the manuscript according to the value indicated on the Oecologia australis page; and
(5) provide names along with institutional affiliation and contact details of 5 (five) independent referees.
The letter must be sent as digital file to the journal, by using “supplementary files” field in the submission form. The cover letter indicates that authors acknowledge the authorship of the manuscript and agree with the rules presented here. The submission will not be considered without the inclusion of the cover letter.
All submitted manuscripts will be evaluated in a double-blind peer-review process. If accepted, the article will be published in the following issues, following a schedule established by the editors considering topic relevance, article type, and submission/acceptance order. The content of Opinions does not reflect the point of view of Oecologia Australis; it is civil and intellectual responsibility of authors. Published articles are free of charge for readers and fully available/indexed in Google, Google Scholar, Scopus / Elsevier, SEER / IBICT, Scientific Commons, Dialnet Latindex, Zoological Record and BIOSIS Previews databases.
Sections
1. Original Articles
Original articles should present novel results of ecological research. Emphasis is placed on concise, clear articles presenting important ecological phenomena, hypothesis testing, development of new techniques, and new approaches. We discourage submission of articles that are purely descriptive. The insertion of geographical coordinates is mandatory. How the species were identified must be explicit in the Material and Methods section, and preferably aided by the inclusion of photos. The sample effort carried out for each group or taxon should be according to the size of the sampled area and analysis such rarefaction curves or other estimators must be provided. Hypothesis or objectives must be clearly stated.
Manuscripts for this section should be divided into Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References. We will not accept manuscripts with the results and discussion written together as a single section. Original articles do not have a separated section Conclusion. Maximum length allowed is 6,000 words (Introduction to References, Figures and Tables legends, and Tables). Abstracts should have up to 300 words.
2. Short communications
Scientific Notes report species lists, narrow or regional ecological results, with local application or restricted theoretical and/or practical consequences. Species list must contain a discussion about the ecological relevance of its records and variation in species richness and composition. The sample effort carried out for each group or taxon should be according to the size of the sampled area and analysis such rarefaction curves or other estimators must be provided. The insertion of geographical coordinates is mandatory, such as the number of voucher specimens for records of geographical expansion or first records.
Except for Abstract, Acknowledgements and References, the text does not have section divisions. Manuscripts should have between 1,500 and 3,000 words and a short Abstract up to 150 words.
3. Reviews
Reviews should be comprehensive, synthetic papers that establish new benchmarks in Ecology. Authors should bring critical and interpretive views of a particular subject, fundamental to the understanding of ecological principles. Reviews should be more than simple ‘state of the art' articles. Rather than focusing only on the recent literature and highlighting trendy topics, Reviews should reflect the development of a topic and encompass relevant natural history, observational and experimental data, analyses, models, and theory. Author(s) may also present future directions for the research field; it is expected that authors can bring their own view or novel interpretation to the research field.
Reviews should not exceed 8,000 words. The review must have Introduction, Material and Methods and Conclusion. Additional sections are optional (e.g. Results, Discussion). Material and Methods should clearly describe how the literature seach was made. Abstracts should have up to 300 words.
4. Opinions
Opinions must bring to readers novel insights and opinions regarding current and controversial topics in Ecology.The main objective of this section is to promote a broad discussion among researchers.
Manuscripts in this section have no division. Acknowledgement and Reference sections can be used, if appropriate. Manuscripts should have between 1,500 and 3,000 words . Abstracts should have up to 150 words.
General rules
Authors must format the manuscript at the time of submission following the general rules below.
First page:
1. Title:
Up to 20 words (capitals, no italics, 13-point font, bold, Times New Roman, centralized).
2. Authors and affiliations
Avoid excessive number of authors. All names of authors should be written in full (name, middle name and surname), in lower case, 12-point font, Times New Roman, italic, centralized. Identify authors with superscript numbers corresponding to institutional affiliation. Separate names with commas, except for the last two, which may be linked with an “&”.
Affiliation should be placed immediately below, in lower case, 8-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, double-spaced. Affiliation information should be filled with institution, research division, department, graduate program, research group or laboratory, street, PO box, postal code, city, state (acronym), country, in this order. Include all authors' names, as well as e-mails, and mark the corresponding author name with an asterisk.
- 3. Running title
Please provide a short running title up to 65 characters (with spaces). Use lower case except in the first letter of each noun, 12-point font, Times New Roman, italic, centralized.
Example first page:
Gender equality in Oecologia Australis
IS OECOLOGIA AUSTRALIS PROMOTING GENDER EQUALITY IN ITS REVIEW PROCESS?
Camila dos Santos de Barros1*, Nuria Pistón1, Ana Cláudia Delciellos2 & Melina de Souza Leite3
1Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Biologia, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia, Av. Carlos Chagas Filho, 373, Cidade Universitária, CEP 21941-590, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
2Universidade do Estado do Rio de Janeiro, Instituto de Biologia Roberto Alcântara Gomes, Programa de Pós-Graduação em Ecologia e Evolução, Rua São Francisco Xavier, nº 524, Maracanã, CEP 20550-900, Rio de Janeiro, RJ, Brazil.
3Universidade de São Paulo, Instituto de Biociências, Departamento de Ecologia, Rua do Matão 321, Travessa 14, São Paulo, SP CEP 05508-090, Brazil
E-mails: camilasdebarros@gmail.com (*corresponding author) ; nuriapiston@gmail.com; anadelciellos@yahoo.com.br; melina.leite@ib.usp.br
Second page:
1. Abstract
Please provide the abstract of your manuscript. Manuscripts written in Portuguese or Spanish require a second title and abstract in English. See “Sections” above to word limit. Use 11-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, double-spaced.
2. Keywords
Up to five keywords in alphabetical order must be provided, separated by semicolon. These must be different from those in the title and the abstract of the manuscript
Example: landscape ecology; metacommunity; Rodentia; small mammals.
Next pages:
1. Titles, subheadings, sub-items, and text
Set all margins at 2 cm width. The text, including quotations, figure and tables legends, and references, should be in lower case, double-spaced, with 11-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, and no spaces between paragraphs. Page footnotes are not allowed. Do not hyphenate; names and phrases in Latin or foreign languages should be italicized, not underlined. Manuscripts (text, tables, figure legends, etc) must be submitted as Word file, except figures. Pdf files will not be accepted.
Oecologia Australis accepts up to three (3) levels of organization in the manuscript (title, subheadings and sub-items). Separate the three levels with a line space;
- The TITLE OF THE ARTICLE should be in capital letters, Times New Roman, size 13, bold and centered. Separate authors' names and title with a two-line space;
- SUBHEADINGS (e.g. INTRODUCTION) should be in capital letters, Times New Roman, size 11, bold, left aligned;
- Sub-Item I (e.g. Study area) must be in lower case, Times New Roman, size 11, italic, left aligned.
- Sub-Items II (e.g. Study area 1) may be present and must be in lower case, Times New Roman, size 11, underlined, and left aligned.
2. Manuscript sections
Introduction: The topic of the study should be succinctly described in appropriate context along with the study questions, well-defined objectives and expectations/hypotheses to be evaluated.
Material and Methods, Results: Please describe the study area, all procedures used, including statistical methods (justifying its use with references) and the software used for statistical analyses. For example, if 2-way Analysis of Variance (ANOVA) was used to assess the effects of sex and season, it should be mentioned in Material and Methods, and only the outcomes of those analyses F (with df as subscripts) and p-values should be stated in the Results. All details of statistical outcomes should be provided, and degrees of freedom must be reported as subscripts of test statistics. When using other statistics, such as model selection, inform and justify the models and their choice as well as the complete report of the statistics AIC, Wald, and others. Authors should state the permit numbers for specimen collection and biological inventories in this section. Research equipment should have the notation® in superscript.
Discussion: A broad discussion of ecological implications of the study results should be included as well as the limitation of the study. Please reiterate the main objectives and hypotheses and highlight the main conclusion (take-home message). A separated section Conclusions is required only for Reviews.
Acknowledgments: Should be included before reference list section, 11-point font, Times New Roman, justified, single-spaced. Use this section to thank anyone who helped you in any way other than in writing, in the theoretical complexity and conclusions of your study. Please, enumerate sources of funding (names in full), including process numbers.
3. References
Paragraphs should have 0.5 cm hanging indent. We encourage the use of bibliography manager software (for example, Mendeley desktop, http://www.mendeley.com/). References should include, whenever possible, the DOI numbers at the end of citation. The use of the issue number in parenthesis is mandatory. The "–" symbol should be used instead of "-" to separate the number of pages. Remove all hyperlinks.
Articles
Einstein, A. 1905. On the electrodynamics of moving bodies. Annalen Der Physik, 17(4), 1–26. DOI: 10.1088/0143-0807/27/4/007
Campbell, J. L., & Pedersen, O. K. 2007. The varieties of capitalism and hybrid success. Comparative Political Studies, 40(3), 307–332. DOI: 10.1177/0010414006286542
Watson, J. D., & Crick, F. H. C. 1953. Molecular structure of nucleic acids; a structure for deoxyribose nucleic acid. Nature, 171(4356), 737–738. DOI: 10.1038/171737a0
Accadia, T., Acernese, F., Alshourbagy, M., Amico, P., Antonucci, F., Aoudia, S., & Zhang, Z. 2012. Virgo: a laser interferometer to detect gravitational waves. Journal of Instrumentation, 7(03), P03012 – P03012. DOI: 10.1088/1748-0221/7/03/P03012
Books
Borges, J. L. 1999. Selected non-fictions. E. Weinberger (Ed.), New York: Viking: p. 559.
Dunnett, N., & Kingsbury, N. 2008. Planting green roofs and living walls. 2nd ed. Portland, OR: Timber Press: p. 328.
Hancké, B., Rhodes, M., & Thatcher, M. 2007. Beyond varieties of capitalism: conflict, contradiction, and complementarities in the European economy. B. Hancké, M. Rhodes, & M. Thatcher (Eds.), Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press: p. 438.
Book chapters
Mares, I. 2001. Firms and the welfare state: when, why, and how does social policy matter to employers? In: P. A. Hall & D. Soskice (Eds.), Varieties of capitalism. The institutional foundations of comparative advantage. pp. 184–213. New York: Oxford University Press.
PhD. Thesis and Master Dissertations
Master and PhD. Thesis may be cited, preferably those which digital format files are properly available from database at the thesis home University. In this case, web links must be informed in the References section.
Brennand, P. G. de G. 2010. Variação geográfica do gênero Hylaeamys Weksler, Percequillo, Voss (2006) (Cricetidae: Sigmodontinae) na Floresta Atlântica. Master thesis. Departamento de Sistemática e Ecologia da Universidade Federal da Paraíba. p. 214.
Loretto, D. 2012. Ecologia de pequenos mamíferos arborícolas: estado do conhecimento, métodos de amostragem e estudo populacional, com ênfase no bioma da Mata Atlântica. Doctoral thesis. Departamento de Ecologia da Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. p. 197.
Technical reports
Ahlquist, J. S., & Breunig, C. 2009. Country clustering in comparative political economy. No. 9–5; p. 32. Cologne: Max-Planck Institute for the Study of Societies. Retrieved from www.mpifg.de/pu/mpifg%7B_%7Ddp/dp09-5.pdf
CSL search by example. (n.d.). Retrieved on December 15, 2012, from http://editor.citationstyles.org/searchByExample/
Soares, M.L.G. 2002. Diagnóstico de danos causados aos manguezais da baía de Guanabara pelo derramamento de óleo ocorrido em janeiro de 2000. Relatório Técnico. Secretaria Estadual do Meio Ambiente (SEMADS), Rio de Janeiro. p. 270.
Projeto PLANÁGUA SEMADS, & GTZ de Cooperação Técnica Brasil - Alemanha. 2001. Bacias hidrográficas e rios fluminenses - Síntese informativa por macrorregião ambiental. p. 741a. ed. SEMADS, Rio de Janeiro, RJ.
Normative acts, resolutions, regulations, among others
According to NBR 6023 ABNT, 2002 (Brazilian Technical Standards Association): "The essential elements are: jurisdiction (or entity header, if it is standards), title, number, date and publication data. In the case of Constitutions and its amendments, among the name of the jurisdiction and the title, the word Constitution, followed by the year promulgation of the year in parentheses should be added. "If available on the Internet, enter the url address and the date of access (month, day, year).
Brasil. 1943. Decreto-lei no 5.452, de 1 de maio de 1943. Lex: coletânea de legislação: edição federal, São Paulo, Brasil.
Brasil. 2003. Presidência da República. Grupo de Trabalho Interministerial. Bases para o enfrentamento da crise emergencial das universidades federais e roteiro para a Reforma Universitária Brasileira. Brasília, DF. (Retrieved on August 11th, 2017, from http://www.sintunesp.org.br/refuniv/GT-Interministerial%20-%20Estudo.htm).
Personal communication and unpublished data
Oecologia Australis discourages authors to use such reference, except in special cases, essential to the understanding of the manuscript results and conclusions. When necessary, personal communications or unpublished data must be informed in the text only as follows: "[...] J. D. Santos (personal communication)" or "[...] J. D. Santos (unpublished data)."
Software and Models
The valid reference is the published paper that originally explains how to use the software, or describes the model. In the body text, inform the article reference. In the reference list, include the complete reference following the style already described above. Example: "[...] used the software SAM (Rangel et al. 2006)."
Abstracts published in congresses and other types of scientific meetings
Unpublished material as reference, such meeting communications and conference proceedings, will not be accepted.
4. In-text citations
In-text citations to the literature should be cited first chronologically and then by author's surname followed by year of publication, lower case, for example: Walstad et al. (1970), Odum (1983), Margulis & Sagan (2002). Use a comma to separate different citations, for example: (Tencaten 1989, Silva & Costa 1993, Carmo et al. 2009) and different citations of the same author (e.g. Wetzel 1990, 1995). When references are made to more than one published study in the same year by the same author, use lower case letters to distinguish them (e.g. Wetzel 1983a, 1983b).
Literal Transcriptions
These citations, of any extension, must be delimited by double quotation marks followed by the data and the reference consulted, i.e., name(s) of author(s), year of publication, page. The transgression of this rule implies plagiarism.
Example: "Despite all the controversies, biologists continue to generalize. Not only in textbooks but also in specialized journals, biological generalizations and implications are presented and discussed all the time. It is evident, therefore, that empirical generalizations play important roles in research and scientific understanding of the biological world "(El-Hani 2006, p. 19).
Indirect transcriptions
Avoid it. However, Oecologia Australis may accept indirect citation of original material, unavailable to consultation, and essential to manuscript conclusions. In these cases, the Latin word apud must be used. Include only the consulted study in literature section, in the example's case, Gall & Crandell (2008).
Example: "The results suggest that the current distribution of honeybees in the New World reflects niche breadth of originally introduced subspecies (Wales 1939 apud Gall & Crandell 2008)."
Acronyms and Abbreviations
The meaning of acronyms should be informed the first time it appears in the text. Avoid using abbreviations. Where necessary, make sure to follow typical native speakers use. In Table and Figure legends present it unabbreviated, with acronyms and abbreviations in parentheses. Use the abbreviation "vs." in italics, both the text and figures and tables, to mean versus.
5. Figures and tables
Authors wishing to include figures, tables, or text passages that have already been published elsewhere are required to obtain permission from the copyright owner(s) and to include evidence that such permission has been granted when submitting their papers. Reference to original source should be include
Privacy Statement
The names and address informed in this journal will only be used for the services provided by this journal and therefore will not be disclosed to any other finality or to any other third part.
