Information for Authors

About the journal

Neotropical Biodiversity is an international, peer-reviewed, open access journal that publishes high quality original research. For information on the journal's focus and peer review policy, please see the journal's aims and scope.

Open access means that you can publish your research so that it is freely available online as soon as it is published, meaning that anyone can read (and cite) your work.

Please note that this journal publishes manuscripts in English only.

Neotropical Biodiversity accepts the following types of articles: original articles, short communications and review articles.

Language

Manuscripts should be written clearly and concisely in English. Authors who are not fluent in idiomatic English are encouraged to seek assistance in preparing the manuscript prior to submission. Reviewers are not expected to correct grammatical errors and any deficiencies in this area may detract from the scientific content of the paper and lead to delays in acceptance or rejection.

Article types

The journal aims to publish three types of contributions in the form of original articles, short communications and review articles.

Original articles: Articles that represent in-depth research in various scientific disciplines.
Short communications: These should be full manuscripts of significant importance. However, their length and/or depth does not justify a full paper. The total number of figures and tables should not exceed 4 and the number of words should not exceed 3,000.
Review articles: They should normally be less than 10,000 words, include an unstructured abstract and updated references. Meta-analyses are considered as reviews. Special attention will be given to the didactic value of review articles. Manuscripts should be written clearly and concisely in English. Authors who are not fluent in idiomatic English are urged to seek assistance in preparing their manuscripts prior to submission. Reviewers are not expected to correct grammatical errors and any deficiencies in this area may detract from the scientific content of the paper and lead to delays in acceptance or rejection.

Before the presentation

Make sure that your manuscript meets the following criteria

Your manuscript is original and has not been published or is currently under review in another journal or conference proceedings.
Your work meets all research ethics requirements. The manuscript must include a separate "Ethical Approval" section if the work involves humans or animals.
The English of the manuscript is acceptable and must be free of grammatical and spelling errors.
The manuscript should be edited according to the template ............. (Manuscript Template).
Your figures are of acceptable quality and uploaded as separate files.
Your references are correctly formatted according to the latest version of the American Psychological Association (APA).
Only manuscripts of sufficient quality to meet the aims and scope of the journal will be considered.
Manuscripts should comply with the following journal guidelines.

Submissions that do not comply with these guidelines will be rejected or returned to the author prior to peer review.

Authors should declare all possible interests in a "Conflicts of Interest" section, explaining why the interest may pose a conflict. If none exist, authors should state "The author(s) declare that there is no conflict of interest with respect to the publication of this article". Submitting authors are responsible for ensuring that co-authors declare their interests.

Authors should declare current or recent funding (including article processing costs) and any other payments, goods or services that may influence the work. All funding, whether conflicting or not, should be declared in the acknowledgements.

Declared conflicts of interest will be considered by the editor and reviewers and included in the published article.

Manuscript preparation

Authors should submit their manuscripts to the Editorial Office in Word format (Word 2007 or higher) via the online system.
The original manuscript should be formatted in Times New Roman font (10 pt), double-spaced and fully left and right justified.
Text should be single-spaced with justified margins. Bold, italics, subscripts and superscripts should be used where appropriate.
To avoid unnecessary errors, authors are strongly encouraged to use the spell-check and grammar-check functions of their word processing programs.
All pages of the manuscript should be numbered.
Use the Equation Editor or Math Type for equations.
Use the table function to create tables.
Use the decimal heading system with no more than three levels, e.g. 1, 2, 2.1, 2.1.1, 2.1.1, ...etc.

Online submission

Manuscripts must be submitted by one of the authors via the online Manuscript Tracking System (MTS), following the on-screen instructions. Only Word files (.doc, .docx, .rtf) can be submitted via the MTS and there is no page limit. Submissions from anyone other than one of the authors will not be accepted. The submitting author assumes responsibility for the manuscript during submission and peer review. If for technical reasons it is not possible to submit the manuscript via MTS, the author may contact neotropical.biodiversity@ikiam.edu,ec for assistance.

Initial evaluation

All submitted manuscripts are reviewed by the editorial staff to ensure that they are properly prepared and comply with the ethical guidelines of the journal. All submitted manuscripts will be checked for plagiarism using the Turinitin software tool or any other institutional tool available for this purpose. Manuscripts that do not comply with the journal's ethical policy or do not meet the journal's standards will be rejected prior to peer review. Incomplete manuscripts that are not prepared in the recommended style will be returned to the authors without scientific review. Following these checks, the Editor will consult with the Editor-in-Chief of the journal to determine whether the manuscript is within the scope of the journal and scientifically sound. Manuscripts that do not have sufficient priority for publication will be rejected immediately. Please write your text in good English (American usage is acceptable). The editor reserves the right to reject a manuscript on the grounds of poor linguistic quality. Rejection decisions at this stage will be reviewed by the Editor-in-Chief.

Submission and review statement

Submission of a manuscript implies that the work described has not been previously published (except as an abstract, published conference paper or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the competent authorities where the work was carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or any other language, including electronically, without the written consent of the copyright holder. All manuscripts submitted to Neotropical Biodiversity will be checked for originality using the Turinitin software tool or any other institutional tool available for this purpose.

Structure of the article

The manuscript should be structured in the following order:

Title page
Abstract, key words
Introduction
Materials and Methods
Results and Discussion
Conclusions
Acknowledgements
Conflicts of interest
References
Figures
Tables

1. Title Page

The cover page must include the following in English and Spanish

Title: The title should be short, concise and descriptive. It should not contain bibliographic references, compound numbers or non-standard abbreviations. It should be centred, typed in Times New Roman 14 point and in bold.

Authors and affiliations: Include full names and surnames for complete identification. They should be centred below the title and typed in Times New Roman 11 point, not italicised and in bold. Use lowercase letters in superscript to indicate the various affiliations, which should be as detailed as possible and include department, faculty/college, university, city with postal code or post office box, and country. Each author's primary affiliation should be with the institution where he/she has done most of his/her work; if an author has subsequently moved, the current address may also be given. Addresses will not be updated after publication of the article.

Corresponding author: Should be indicated by an asterisk and contact details (telephone, fax and e-mail address) should be given in a footnote. If available, the corresponding author's 16-digit ORCID.

Title, authors and affiliations in Spanish should be provided in the same order as above, on a separate page in the same file.

Short title with a maximum of 80 characters.

2. Abstract, Key words

The abstract should be self-contained, without citations, and should not exceed 300 words. The abstract should briefly describe the purpose of the study, how the research was conducted, the main findings, and the main conclusions drawn from the findings. Non-standard or unusual abbreviations should be defined in the first mention within the abstract. The abstract should be typed in Times New Roman, 9 points, no italics or bold.

Keywords: Authors are asked to provide (4 to 6) keywords, separated by semicolons, in Times New Roman, 10 points, no italics or bold.

3. Introduction

This section should be brief and without subtitles. The author(s) should endeavour to define the significance of the work and the justification for publication. Background information should be brief and limited to relevant material.

4. Materials and methods

This section should be sufficiently detailed to allow all procedures to be repeated. It may be divided into subsections if more than one method is described. Authors should be as concise as possible in the experimental descriptions. The experimental section should include all information necessary to ensure reproducibility. Previously published methods should be cited and only relevant modifications should be described. For chemicals, reagents, strains, etc., full details of the supplier, including company, city and country, should be given. For statistical analysis, the appropriate test(s) and a hypothetical p-value or significant level (e.g., 0.05) should be provided.

5. Results and discussion

They should be summarised. The results of the study should be clear and concise. Limit the use of tables and figures to presenting data that are essential to the message and interpretation of the study. The results should be presented in a logical sequence in the text, tables and figures. The discussion should explore the significance of the results of the paper, not repeat them. Include in the discussion the implications of the results and their limitations, how the results fit into the context of other relevant work, and directions for future research.

6. Conclusions

The main conclusion(s) of the study should be presented in a brief concluding statement, highlighting the aims of the study and its significance. State new hypotheses if warranted. Include recommendations, if appropriate.

7. Acknowledgment(s)

All acknowledgements (if any) should be included at the end of the manuscript, before the references. Any person who has contributed to the research or manuscript but is not listed as an author should be mentioned (with permission).

8. Conflicts of interest

Authors should declare all relevant interests that might be perceived as conflicting. Authors should explain why each interest may constitute a conflict. If there are no conflicts, authors should declare them. Submitting authors are responsible for ensuring that co-authors declare their interests.

9. References

References should be written according to the latest version of the American Psychological Association (APA).

10. Figures

Figures and tables should not be submitted as separate files. If the article is accepted, authors will be asked to provide the source files of the figures. Each figure should be submitted as a separate electronic file. All figures should be cited in the manuscript in sequential order. Figures should be submitted in vector format (Illustrator, EPS, WMF, FreeHand...),

CorelDraw, PowerPoint, Excel, etc.) or bitmap format (Photoshop, TIFF, GIF, JPEG, etc.). Bitmap images must have a minimum resolution of 300 dpi, unless the resolution is deliberately set lower for scientific reasons. If a bitmap image has labels, the image and labels should be embedded in separate layers. Figures should be referenced as Figure 1, Figure 2, Figure 3-5 using Arabic numerals. Ensure that all tables, figures and diagrams are cited in the text in numerical order. Parts of figures should be identified using lower case letters (a,b,c,...etc).

11. Tables

Tables should be cited consecutively in the text. Each table should have a descriptive title and, if numerical measurements are given, the units should be given in the column heading. Do not use vertical rulers. Captions for figures and tables should be in Times New Roman 9 point, bold and not italicised. Only the first word of the caption should be capitalised at the beginning. Figure captions should be placed below the figures and table captions should be placed above the table, fully right- and left-aligned.

Nomenclature and units

All measurements and data should be given in SI units wherever possible, or in other internationally accepted units in brackets throughout the text. Conventional units should be used in figures and tables, and conversion factors should be given in legends or footnotes.

Statements

The following statements should be included in the submitted manuscript under the heading "Statements". It should be placed after the References section. Please note that proposals that do not include the required statements will be returned as incomplete.

Funding

Describe the sources of funding that have supported the work. The statement should include details of any grants received (name of funding body and grant number).

Examples of statements:

"This work was supported by [...] (grant numbers [...] and [...]). The author A.B. has received research grants from company A".

"The authors declare that they have received no funding, grants or other support during the preparation of this manuscript.

"This work was funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council [grant numbers xxxx, yyyy]; the National Science Foundation [grant number zzzz]; and a research project grant from the Leverhulme Trust". If the research was not specifically funded but was carried out in the authors' employment, give the name of the employer. If the funder was involved in the writing, editing, approval or decision to publish the manuscript, state this.

Competing interests

Authors must disclose any financial or non-financial interests that are directly or indirectly related to the work submitted for publication. Interests in the last 3 years from the start of the work (conducting the research and preparing the work for submission) should be disclosed. Interests outside the 3-year period should be disclosed if they could reasonably be perceived to influence the work submitted.

Examples of declarations:

"Financial interests: Authors A and B declare no financial interests. Author C has received speaker fees and consultancy fees from company M. Dr C has received speaker fees and research funding from company M and company N. Author D has received travel support from company O. Non-financial interests: Author D has served on advisory boards for company M and company N."

"The authors have no relevant financial or non-financial interests to disclose.

See the Competing Interests section for more information on how to complete these sections.

Authors' contributions

Authors are encouraged to include a statement indicating each author's contribution to the research and preparation of the manuscript.

Example of a statement:

"All authors contributed to the conception and design of the study. Materials preparation, data collection, and analysis were performed by [full name], [full name], and [full name]. The first draft of the manuscript was written by [full name], and all authors commented on earlier versions of the manuscript. All authors have read and approved the final manuscript.

Data availability

This journal encourages authors to include an optional data availability statement with their article. Data availability statements should include information on where the data supporting the results reported in the article can be found, including, where appropriate, hyperlinks to publicly archived datasets analysed or generated during the study. Data availability statements may also indicate whether data are available on request to the authors and, if so, whether data are unavailable.

Examples of statements:

"The data sets generated and/or analysed during this study are available in the repository [NAME], [PERSISTENT LINK TO DATA SETS]".

"The datasets generated and/or analysed during this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request".

See the Research Data Policy and Data Availability section for more information on how to complete this section.

In addition to the above, manuscripts reporting the results of human and/or animal studies should include the following statements

Ethical approval

Authors of research involving humans or animals should include a statement confirming that the study has been approved (or exempted) by the appropriate institutional and/or national research ethics committee (including the name of the ethics committee and reference number, if available). In the case of research involving animals, their data or biological material, authors should provide detailed information on the ethical treatment of their animals in their submission. If a study was exempted or did not require ethical approval, this should also be stated in the manuscript.

"This study was conducted in accordance with the tenets of the Declaration of Helsinki. It was approved by the ethics committee of University B (date.../no....)".

"This is an observational study. The XYZ Research Ethics Committee has confirmed that ethical approval is not required".

Detailed information on the relevant ethical standards and criteria can be found in the sections 'Research involving human participants, their data or biological material' and 'Research involving animals, their data or biological material'.

Consent to publication

Individuals may agree to participate in a study but object to having their data published in a journal article. If your manuscript contains data about an individual in any form (including personal data, images or videos), you must obtain the consent of the individual or, in the case of children, their parents or legal guardians. This is especially true for case studies. A statement confirming that consent for publication has been obtained from all participants must be included in the manuscript.

Example of a statement:

"The authors confirm that the human research participants gave informed consent for the publication of the images in Figure(s) 1a, 1b and 1c".

Proofreading

A set of proofs (in PDF format) will be emailed to the corresponding author. Please use these proofs only to check the composition, editing, completeness and accuracy of the text, tables and figures. We will do our best to ensure that your article is published promptly and accurately. It is therefore important that you ensure that all corrections are returned in a single communication within 48 hours. Proofreading is your responsibility. Please note that if no response is received, the editor may proceed with publication.

Revised manuscripts

Authors should submit revised versions of their submissions within one month of receiving the editorial decision. Revision does not mean that the manuscript will be accepted for publication, as revised submissions may be sent for re-evaluation. In responding to reviewers' comments, authors should ensure that each comment is followed by their revision and/or response. In cases where an author disagrees with a reviewer's comment or suggestion, please provide a justification. Any related changes to the manuscript should be highlighted in the revised form of the manuscript to facilitate the re-evaluation process.

After acceptance

Once accepted, your article will be exported to production for typesetting. Once the layout is complete, you will receive your galley proofs.

Peer Review

The journal is committed to the integrity of peer review with the highest standards of review. Each manuscript received is initially evaluated by the Editor to determine its suitability for the journal. Manuscripts are rejected by the editors if they are not sufficiently original, have serious scientific flaws, require major linguistic improvements, or do not fit the aims and scope of the journal. Manuscripts deemed suitable are sent to at least two external reviewers to assess their scientific quality. This journal uses a blind review process (the names and information of the reviewers are not disclosed to the author). The editors will decide based on the reviewers' reports and authors will receive these reports together with the editorial decision on their manuscript. Authors should be aware that even in the face of a positive report, concerns raised by another reviewer may fundamentally undermine the study and result in rejection of the manuscript.

Ethical guidelines

The following ethical guidelines should be followed in all human and animal research. For all experiments involving human subjects, all work should be carried out in accordance with the Declaration of Helsinki (1964). Manuscripts describing experimental work involving the risk of harm to human subjects must include a statement that the experiment was conducted with the understanding and consent of the human subjects, and a statement that the experiments were approved by the appropriate ethics committee. In the case of animal experiments, the authors should provide a full description of any anaesthetic or surgical procedures used and evidence that all possible measures have been taken to avoid animal suffering at each stage of the experiment.

Adherence to the ethics of experimentation

Ensure that all research submitted has been conducted in an ethical and responsible manner and complies with all relevant codes of experimentation and legislation. All original research involving humans, animals, plants, biological material, proprietary or non-public data sets, collections or sites must include a written statement in an Ethical Approval section that includes the following

The name of the ethics committee(s) or institutional review board(s) involved.
The number or identifier of the ethical approval(s).
A statement that human participants have given informed consent prior to participating in the research.
Animal research must comply with ethical standards relating to animal welfare. All original research involving animals must follow international, national and institutional guidelines for the humane treatment of animals.
Receive approval from the ethics review committee of the institution or practice where the research was conducted and provide details about the approval process, the names of the ethics committees or institutional review boards involved, and the number or ID of the ethics approval(s) in the Ethics Approval section.
Justify the use of animals and the species selected.
Provide information on housing, feeding and environmental enrichment, as well as measures taken to minimize suffering.
Provide the mode of aesthesia and euthanasia.

Human and animal studies

If the work involves the use of human subjects, the author should ensure that the work described has been carried out in accordance with the World Medical Association Code of Ethics for Experiments on Human Subjects (Declaration of Helsinki). The manuscript should conform to the Recommendations for the Conduct, Submission, Editing, and Publication of Scientific Work in Medical Journals and attempt to include representative human populations (sex, age, and ethnicity) according to these recommendations. The terms sex and gender should be used correctly.

Authors should include a statement in the manuscript that informed consent for human experimentation has been obtained. The privacy rights of human subjects should always be respected.

All animal experiments must comply with the ARRIVE guidelines and be carried out in accordance with the UK Animals (Scientific Procedures) Act 1986 and associated guidelines, the EU Directive 2010/63/EU on animal experiments or the National Research Council Guide for the Care and Use of Laboratory Animals, and authors should clearly state in the manuscript that these guidelines have been followed. The sex of the animals and, where appropriate, the influence (or association) of sex on the results of the study should be reported.

Supplementary material

Describe any supplementary material published online with the manuscript (figures, tables, videos, spreadsheets, etc.). Give the name and title of each item as follows: Figure S1: title, Table S1: title, etc.

Article processing charge

There is no article processing charge (APC) for publication in the journal for all submissions.