Submissions

Author Guidelines

OVERVIEW

Oecologia Australis publishes manuscripts on all aspects of Ecology, 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$200.00 and for non-members R$300.00. If you would like to become a ABECO member, see https://abeco.org.br/ 

The journal welcomes the submission of manuscripts that meet the general criteria of significance and scientific excellence. Topics of interest include:

1. Organism ecology (ecophysiology, animal behavior, natural history, evolutionary biology of organisms, ecological development)

2. Population ecology                                                                                

3. Community and metacommunity ecology

4. Ecosystem ecology

5. Biogeography and macroecology

6. Evolutionary ecology

7. Limnology and oceanography

8. Conservation biology, environmental and species management

9. Landscape ecology

10. Environmental education

11. Species list and expansion of known geographic distribution, as long as it includes an ecological perspective

 

SUBMISSION PREPARATION CHECKLIST

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

1. The contribution must be original, unpublished and brings novelty to scientific knowledge. Manuscripts must not be under review in any other journal;

2. Make sure that the manuscript follows all the journal rules. Sections and text format must be in accordance with the Author Guidelines (see below). Manuscripts must be submitted as MS Word file (.doc or .docx format). Manuscripts in Portable Document Format (.pdf) will not be accepted. Before submitting, check if the word count and sections of your manuscript follow the journal rules:

	Maximum length¹	Max. length (Abstract)	Sections²
Original Articles	6,000 words	300 words	Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion
Short Communications	3,000 words	150 words	No division
Reviews	8,000 words	300 words	Introduction, Material and Methods, Conclusion
Opinions	1,500 words	150 words	No division

¹Word count includes Introduction to References, figure and table legends, and tables.

²All manuscripts should include Abstract, Acknowledgements, References and Figure/Table legends.

3. Cover Letter must be submitted as “supplementary material” in the online system in Portable Document Format (.pdf) following all mandatory content. Please, see the “Cover Letter” subsection below to find the template including the mandatory content of the letter. Also make sure that figures and supplementary material files are submitted through the online system.

4. Carefully fulfill the submission metadata, which is a file that includes all information for each listed co-author. Make sure all information is provided in each author's profile: name, e-mail, affiliation, country and ORCID iD. Affiliation information should be filled in this order: with institution, research division, department, graduate program, research group or laboratory, street, PO box, postal code, city, state, country, ORCID. Do not include any acronym.

5. Manuscripts not written in the native language of authors must be carefully reviewed before submission. In addition, the editor may request manuscripts to have the writing reviewed before publication. There is always the option to send the manuscripts in Portuguese or Spanish. Manuscripts written in Portuguese or Spanish require a second title and abstract in English. Tables and figures from articles written in Portuguese or Spanish requires a second legend in English.

6. 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 not be accepted. Tables should be at the end of the manuscript and must be in an editable format. Figures should be sent as a supplementary material, please include figure legends at the end of the manuscript (just before tables).

7. 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.

 

AUTHOR GUIDELINES

1. To start the process, the corresponding author should register itself on our website: Register (ufrj.br);
2. Download the template of the cover letter (see link in section 1. Cover letter), and submit it as a pdf format. See below the mandatory information that need to be included in the cover letter.
3. Carefully fulfill the submission metadata, which is a file that includes all information for each listed co-author;
4. Carefully read the “General Rules and Manuscript Formatting” section below, and prepare your manuscript following the provided instructions;

 

Note that:

 

• Manuscripts should be sent in a .doc or .docx format. Manuscripts in pdf files will not be accepted.
• 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 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 authors and fully available/indexed in Google, Google Scholar, Scopus / Elsevier, SEER / IBICT, Scientific Commons, Dialnet Latindex, Zoological Record and BIOSIS Previews databases.

 

1. Cover Letter

The manuscript should be accompanied by a cover letter, following the template:

Download Cover Letter Template

The submission of the cover letter is mandatory.

 

2. Sections

2.1. 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. Inventories can be published as original articles if they include comprehensive data analyses and ecological discussion. If the manuscript reports only a species list and richness indices, we recommend that it should be submitted as short communication.  In both cases, the manuscript must include a discussion of ecological relevance comparing with other studies. How the species were identified must be explicit in the Material and Methods section, and preferably aided by the inclusion of photos. We will not accept manuscripts with the results and discussion written together as a single section.

-      Manuscripts for this section should be divided into Abstract, Introduction, Material and Methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements and References. Figure legends, Tables and Table legends should be included at the end of the manuscript.

-      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.

 

2.2. Short communications

Scientific Notes report narrow or regional ecological results, with local application or restricted theoretical and/or practical consequences. The insertion of geographical coordinates is mandatory, such as the number of voucher specimens for records of geographical expansion or first records. The sample effort carried out for each group or taxon should be according to the size of the sampled area and analysis such as rarefaction curves or other estimators must be provided.

-      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.

2.3. 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. Material and Methods section should describe how the literature search was made (describing the keywords used, the platforms used for the search and the period searched).

-      The review must have Introduction, Material and Methods and Conclusion. Additional sections are optional (e.g. Results, Discussion).

-      Reviews should not exceed 8,000 words. 

-      Abstracts should have up to 300 words.

 

2.4. Opinions

Opinions must bring to readers novel insights and opinions regarding current and controversial topics in Ecology. Manuscripts in this section have no division. Acknowledgement and Reference sections can be used, if appropriate. The main objective of this section is to promote a broad discussion among researchers.

-      Maximum length allowed is 1,500 words.

-      Abstracts should have up to 150 words.

 

3. General Rules and Manuscript Formatting

Authors must format the manuscript at the time of submission following the general rules below.

Manuscripts should be in a .doc or .docx format. Page margins are 2.5cm up and down and 3.0cm left and right. For all the text use 11-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, double-spaced, except for figures and tables legends and for the first page (see the guidelines for the first page). For figures and tables legends use 10-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, single-spaced.

3.1. First page

3.1.1. Running title

Please provide a short running title up to 65 characters (with spaces). Use lowercase (except for title first letter and proper nouns), 12-point font, Times New Roman, italic (with exception for scientific species name and foreign language words), centralized.

3.1.2. Title

Up to 20 words in capitals, no italics (with exception for scientific species name and foreign language words), 13-point font, bold, Times New Roman, centralized).

3.1.3. Authors and affiliations

Avoid excessive number of authors. All names of authors should be written in full (name, middle name and surname), in lowercase, 11-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 are linked with an “&”. Mark the corresponding author name with a superscript asterisk.

Affiliation should be placed immediately below, in lowercase, 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, country, in this order. Do not include the any acronym.

Include all authors' e-mails. Corresponding author’s email should be followed by “(*corresponding author)”.

 

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

 

3.2. Second page

3.2.1. 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 of each type of manuscript.

3.2.2. Keywords

Up to five keywords in alphabetical order must be provided, separated by semicolon. These must be different from those in the title of the manuscript.

Example:

Keywords: ecology journals; gender bias; minority representation; sex bias.

 

3.3. Next pages:

3.3.1. Titles, subheadings, sub-items, and text

Page footnotes are not allowed. Do not hyphenate; names and phrases in Latin or foreign languages should be italicized, not underlined. 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, bold, italic, left aligned.
• Sub-Items II (e.g. Study area 1) may be present when necessary and must be in lower case, Times New Roman, size 11, underlined, bold and left aligned.

3.3.2. 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: Please describe the study area.  Include the georeferenced (including the datum of the areas). Describe all procedures used, including statistical methods (justifying its use with references) and the software or environment 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. Include the sample number used for the analyses.  Authors must include in this section the appropriate licenses for studies with animals, plants and/or humans, including authorization number. See more information about research ethics standards in About the Journal. Registered research equipment should have the notation® in superscript.

Results: Describe the results obtained. Do not repeat in the text the information provided in the tables and figures.

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 the reference list section.  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 (do not forget to include this information on financial support in the metadata).

 

3.4. References

Paragraphs should have 1 cm hanging indent. We encourage the use of bibliography manager software (e.g., Mendeley desktop, http://www.mendeley.com/) but make sure that references follow the correct format according to one of the reference types below. References should include, whenever possible, the DOI numbers at the end of citation. The use of the issue number in parenthesis is mandatory. Remove all hyperlinks.

 

3.4.1. 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

 

3.4.2. 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. Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press: p. 438.

 

3.4.3. 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.

 

3.4.4. PhD. Thesis and Master Dissertations

Master and PhD. Thesis may be cited, preferably those which digital format files are properly available at the database from the thesis home University. In this case, web links must be informed in the References section. Note: Undergraduate theses are not accepted as reference.

Brennand, P. G. de G. 2010. Variação geográfica do gênero Hylaeamys Weksler, Percequillo, Voss (2006) (Cricetidae: Sigmodontinae) na Floresta Atlântica. Master thesis. 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. Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro. p. 197.

 

3.4.5. 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.

 

3.4.6. 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).

 

3.4.7. 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)."

 

3.4.8. 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)."

 

3.4.9. Abstracts published in congresses and other types of scientific meetings

Unpublished material as reference, such meeting communications and conference proceedings, will not be accepted.

 

3.5. 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).

 

3.5.1. 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).

 

3.5.2. 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 the reference section.      In the example's case, include only Gall & Crandell (2008) in the reference section.

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)."

 

3.5.3. 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’ usage. 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.

 

3.6. 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 included in the legend and into the reference list.

Tables and Figures should be labelled with lowercase, bold letter of the roman alphabet (e.g., a).

Legends should be presented in the original language of the article (10-point font, Times New Roman, left aligned, single-spaced). Tables and Figures from articles written in Portuguese or Spanish must have a legend in English 10-point font, Times New Roman, italic (except words in foreign language and scientific names), justified and single-spaced. Tables are labelled in the top while Figures are on the bottom. Do not include notes below tables; all information must be included at table legend. Text within figures should be 10 to 14-point to ensure legibility. Authors may indicate where tables and figures are to be placed in the text. Please, verify if the figures will still have clear information after being shortened to fit the article final format.

There is not a limit for the number of Figures, but only strictly necessary material may be accepted. Figures should be submitted as individual files on supplementary files in TIFF or PNG format. Figures in JPEG format in high resolution (e.g., greater than 800 x 800 pixels and 600 dpi) can be accepted. Figures have no outer margins or lines. If the figure has outer margins or lines, authors will be required to correct them. Colored figures are published at no cost. Authors must be aware that figure symbols must be large enough to be readable after reduction in size in the final publication. If the manuscript is accepted, figures in high resolution will be requested and the files must be sent by e     mail if they have more than 2MB. Files with more than 20Mb will not be accepted.

Tables should be editable and not exceed 16.5 x 24.0 cm. Use 10-point font, Times New Roman, justified or centralized for table contents. Insert tables at the end of the manuscript with the legend, and built it using the “Table” option of text processor. Tables must contain only horizontal borders at the beginning and end of the table and to separate headings from data. Do not use vertical lines. It is important that the information be presented in an organized fashion, and, in this respect, horizontal lines must be used sparingly.

Do not use passive and indicative sentences when referring to Tables and Figures in the text. Instead of "As we can see in Figure 2, the number of [...]" use "The rainfall was higher between September and March (Figure 2)." Figures and Tables should bring information with minimum dependence to the text, legends should be self-explanatory, and that information should not be, under any circumstances, redundantly described in the text.

 

3.7. Appendices and supplementary material

 The Supplementary material is not essential to understand the manuscript and must be submitted in a separated file and will not be diagrammed. Additional information not essential for understanding the study, but that brings important or complementary information (vouchers number, geographical coordinates list, etc) can be submitted as Appendix (e.g., Appendix 1, Appendix 2) at the end of the manuscript with their respective legends.

 

3.8. Scientific names and units

The scientific names should be highlighted with italics. The first appearance of a species name in the text should be followed by Order and Family names into parenthesis. Other situations should follow the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (http://iczn.org/code) or the International Code of Nomenclature for Algae, Fungi, and Plants (http://www.iapt-taxon.org/nomen/main.php). After the first appearance, the generic epithet can be abbreviated. At the beginning of sentences, tables and figures the species name should be spelled out, especially in subtitles, making them independent of body text. Do not add the name and year of species authorship both in text and tables.

The format of all numbers and units adopted by Oecologia Australis follow the International Metric System and the Brazilian National Standards Organization (http://www.bipm.org/utils/common/pdf/si_brochure_8_en.pdf). P-values are shown as “p”; degrees of freedom = df; sample size = N; standard deviation = SD. Geographic coordinates must be in degrees, minutes and seconds, followed by datum (e.g., 22º11`33.5``S, 44º11`33.5``W, datum SAD69). For hours do not use AM and PM, but provide hours and minutes as follows: 20:40 h; 02:31 h; 12:50 h; 14:40 h.

 

4. Accepted Articles

Pay attention to submission process deadlines. Before accepted articles are published, authors receive proof versions that should be reviewed and returned to editors until the reported deadline. 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.

 

CONTACT

If you have any question, please send an email to: oecologiaaustralis@gmail.com