FFS Manuscript Guidelines

 

1. Publication criteria

Topics of articles

FFS is designed to publish primary scientific research. We welcome submissions in any zoological discipline or interdiscipline that will contribute to the base of scientific knowledge on fauna, ecology, evolution, taxonomy, diversity, bionomy and zoogeography of fauna in the Carpathian and Pannonian regions.

FFS publishes the following categories of papers:

We will not consider:

 

Language

The article is presented in an intelligible fashion and is written in standard English, Slovak or Czech languages (Slovak and Czech manuscripts must have English abstract). Editors and reviewers do not edit and correct manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. We may reject papers that do not meet these standards. If the language of a paper is difficult to understand or includes many errors, we may recommend that authors seek independent editorial help before submitting a revision.

Prior to submission, authors are encouraged to use language–editing and copyediting services (it is the responsibility of the author, and should be done before initial submission).

 

Results reported have not been published elsewhere

FFS does not accept for publication studies that have already been published, in whole or in part, elsewhere in the peer–reviewed literature.

All figures included in manuscripts should also be original, and should not have been published in any previous publications.

We will consider manuscripts published in a thesis and work that has been presented at conferences.

 

Creative Commons and cultural licence

All figures and photographic images will be published under a Creative Commons Attribution License (CCAL), which allows them to be freely used, distributed, and built upon as long as proper attribution is given. Please do not submit any figures or photos that have been previously copyrighted unless you have express written permission from the copyright holder to publish under the CCAL license.

 

2. Format Requirements

All submissions should be prepared with the following files:

Authors may submit their manuscript files in MS Word (as .doc or .docx) format, RTF or TXT format. PDF is not an acceptable format for submission.

If your manuscript contains equations, make sure that equations are editable.

File formats for tables and illustrations are specified below.

The editors reserve the right to make minor editorial changes in line with these instructions without the approval of authors. 

 

File naming conventions

FFS recommends to name files with surname of the first authors and the 'content descriptor' (e.g. 'Pastoralis–text.docx', 'Obona–Figure–1.tif', 'Varga–Table1.xlsx').

 

Biological nomenclature

Application of names at any taxonomic level must follow the guidelines mentioned in actual version the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Corresponding nomenclature and classification system to the Fauna Europaea is recommended, application of other naming system should be explained in the capter Discussion.

Species, subspecies and genus names should be written in italics, authors and year of description should be mentioned at the first occurrence in the text, e.g. Scythris buszkoi Baran, 2004 (authors should not be written in small caps, and separated by comma from year). Author names should not be abbreviated, e.g. 'L., 1758' will not be accepted.

If the manuscript contains the table where all species are listed, list authors and year of description there instead of text.

 

Geographic coordinates

Only coordinates based on World Geodetic System WGS 84 are accepted. Geographic coordinates can be in any standard format (e.g., decimal degrees, or degrees minutes seconds; DD MM SS, DD MM,MMM or DD,DDDDD).

All geographic coordinates should be written in the same datum and format, without spaces between numbers (e.g., 38°57’56.4”N, 95°13’35.9”W; datum = WGS84). The datum must be specified for geographic coordinates because the same coordinates can have different locations when they are based on different datums.

 

Dates

The format used for dates is the following one: D. M. YYYY, so the 17 June 2012 will be written ‘17. 6. 2011’ (but not 17. 06. 2012 neither 17. VI. 2012). Space should be inserted between day, month and year, full stop should be after day and month.

 

Mathematical Signs and Symbols

Punctuating mathematical symbols

 

Measurement Units and Abbreviations

Follow the International System of Units (SI), and use SI abbreviations in the text, tables, and figures for units of measured variables or data. Common measurement units and their abbreviations include:

 

Statistical abbreviations

 

Symbols and special characters

Only unicode characters should be used in the manuscript.

There are several 'alternatives' of some symbols, authors should use exclusively following symbols while typing manuscripts:

Following table can help you easily type characters missing on keyboards:

character meaning Alt + numkey Unicode Alt–x
± plus–or–minus sign 241 00B1
× multiply   00D7
÷ divide 0177 00F7
° degree
(use in case of temperature, coordinated, angles...)
0176 00B0
µ micro 0181 or 230 00B5
female 12 2640
male 11 2642
per mille 0137 2030
infinity   221E
right single quotation mark;
use as 'minute' in coordinates
0146 2019
right double quotation mark;
use as 'second' in coordinates
0148 201D
left single quotation mark 0145 2018
left double quotation mark 0147 201C

If submitted manuscript contains any inapropriate symbols, it will be returned for adjustments.

 

How to cite resources

All citation mentioned in the article must be listed in the chapter References and vice versa, all listed references must appear in the text.

References in the main text should be written in Small Caps case and without commas as follows:

Multiple references should be cited as (Smith 2000; Smith & Jones 2002; Jones et al. 2001). References published in the same year by more then two authors and containing the same first author’s surnames should be differentiated as follows: ‘Smith et al. (2000a)’, ‘Smith et al. (2000b)’. In the references list, the same convention (letters a, b, c, etc.) should be used. Use chronological order for in–text citations.

Authors are encouraged to apply Appropriate Citation of Taxonomy: the authors who want their citations of taxonomic names to be considered as references (and consequently to appear in the references list) should formally cite the taxonomic papers where they originate in their articles.

Mention, there is no letter in italics in citations, e.g., '(Smith 2001a,b)' or 'Smith et al. 2012'.

Information about the chapter References is below.

 

Numbers

Always spell out a number used at the beginning of a sentence (e.g., Twenty species…).

Spell out all whole numbers less than 10, except as noted below.

Use Arabic numerals:

Numbers with four digits are not separated by comma (e.g., 5280).

Numbers with five or more digits use commas (e.g., 15,280)

Numbers or letters in a list should be fully enclosed in parentheses; e.g., (1), (2), (3); not 1), 2), 3).

 

3. Manuscript structure

FFS considers manuscripts of any length. There are no explicit restrictions for the number of words, figures, or the length of the supporting information, although we encourage a concise and accessible writing style.

Manuscripts should contain following sections:

Articles may be organized in different ways and with different section titles, according to the authors' preference.

Figures should not be included in the main manuscript file. Each figure must be prepared and submitted as an individual file. Find more information about preparing figures here

Abbreviations should be kept to a minimum and defined upon first use in the text. Non–standard abbreviations should not be used unless they appear at least three times in the text.

Standardized nomenclature should be used as appropriate, including appropriate usage of species names and SI units.

 

4. Standard sections preparation

Generally, there is not required font and size of text (except of comments in illustrations), however any serif font, size 12 is recommended (e.g. Cambria, Times, Georgia).

If you use symbol from special font sets, embed fonts to file (check Properties in MS Word).

Use italics exclusively for taxon names of genus and lower ranks.

Switch off the automatic hyphenation in your text processor.

 

Title

The full title must be 150 characters or fewer. It should be specific, descriptive, concise, and comprehensible to readers outside the subject field. Avoid abbreviations if possible. Where appropriate, authors should include the species or higher taxon name. Do not include authors and year of taxon description in the title (except of taxonomic revision, species descriptions etc.).

The title should always include the reference to the two higher hierarchical taxonomic categories of the taxon under discussion, e.g.: 'New species of moths (Lepidoptera, Momphidae) from Western Carpathians'.

The short title (running title) (up to 50 characters), which will appear at the top of the PDF upon publication if accepted. Only the full title should be included in the manuscript file; the short title will be entered during the online submission process.

 

Authors and Affiliations

All author names should be listed in the following order:

Each author should list an associated department, university, or organisational affiliation and its location, including city, zip code, state/province (if applicable), and country.

All researchers, who qualified to authorship by e.g., influencing the conception and design of the work, data acquisition, or analysis and interpretation of data should be listed. Those who contributed to the work but do not qualify for authorship should be listed in the acknowledgments.

One author should be designated as the corresponding author.

Corresponding author should inform coauthors about the manuscript prior to its submission (to avoid unintended double–publishing).

 

Abstract

The abstract should:

Abstracts should not include:

 

Key Words

Key words listed in alphabetical order, and each word or phrase is separated by a semicolon; only the initial word in each term is capitalized. E.g.:

 

Introduction

The introduction should:

 

Materials and Methods

This section should provide enough detail to allow suitably skilled investigators to fully replicate your study.

Specific information and/or protocols for new methods should be included in detail. If materials, methods, and protocols are well established, authors may cite articles where those protocols are described in detail, but the submission should include sufficient information to be understood independent of these references.

Detailed information on the research sites should include name of sites, geographic coordinates (or mapping grid squares of DFS et least), and orographic units.

Dates of sampling should be listed.

Observational and field studies which require permits and approvals (e.g. research at protected areas or of protected species) for the work should should include the full name of the authority that approved the study. If permits were required for any aspect of the work, details should be given of all permits that were obtained, including the full name of the issuing authority. This should be accompanied by the following statement: 'All necessary permits were obtained for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.'. If no permits were required, please include the following statement: 'No permits were required for the described study, which complied with all relevant regulations.'.

 

Results, Discussion (and optional Conclusions)

These sections may all be separate, or may be combined to create a mixed Results and Discussion section. These sections may be further divided into subsections, each with a concise subheading, as appropriate.

These sections have no word limit, but the language should be clear and concise.

Together, these sections should describe the results, the interpretation of these results, and the conclusions that can be drawn. Authors should explain how the results relate to the hypothesis presented as the basis of the study and provide a succinct explanation of the implications of the findings, particularly in relation to previous related studies and potential future directions for research.

Redundancy of data should be avoided.

The Discussion will consider the findings of the paper in the context of the wider literature and indicates progress made within the field.

 

Acknowledgments

People who contributed to the work but do not fit the criteria of authorship (see above) should be listed in the acknowledgments, along with their contributions. You must ensure that anyone named in the acknowledgments agrees to being so named.

Use initials instead of first names for individuals.

Funding sources may be included in the acknowledgments.

'Acknowledgments' should be spelled without “e” following “g”, but not 'Acknowledgements'.

 

References

All citation mentioned in the article must be listed in the chapter References and vice versa, all listed references must appear in the text.

Only published or accepted manuscripts should be included in the reference list. Manuscripts that have been submitted but not yet accepted should not be cited (mention them as 'personal communication' or 'unpublished data' in hte text).

References must be listed at the end of the manuscript and sorted alphabetically.

You can use a style sheet of FFS reference style in style if you use the Reference manager software.

Proper formatting of the references is crucial, manuscripts not applying this style will be rejected.

Generally:

Examples of references are shown below:

 

Figure Legends

Figure legends should be placed after the References in your manuscript. Figure legends should describe the key messages of a figure.

Legends should have a short title of 15 words or less. The full legend should have a description of the figure and allow readers to understand the figure without referring to the text. The legend itself should be succinct, avoid lengthy descriptions of methods, and define all non–standard symbols and abbreviations.

 

Tables

Tables should be included at the end of the manuscript.

All tables should have a concise title. Footnotes can be used to explain abbreviations. Citations should be indicated using the same style as outlined above.

Tables occupying more than one printed page should be avoided, if possible.

Larger tables (more then 5 × 5 cells) should be submitted as separate files in formats of MS Excel.

Title and Footnotes

Each table needs a concise title of no more than one sentence, placed above the table with the table number (e.g., Table 1). The legend should be placed as separate sentence between the table title and the table body. Footnotes may be used to explain abbreviations.

Tables with varying numbers of columns should be divided and renumbered as separate tables.

In the published version, tables will be formatted in FFS own style (including alternate row shading, data aligning in cells, borders etc.) so any format of tables applied by authors in manuscripts will be removed.

Tables must:

Tables must not:

If submitted table contains any of these elements, it will be returned for adjustments.

 

5. Figures

Figures should not be included in the manuscript text file, but submitted in separate graphic files instead.

Titles and legends (captions) for figures should be included in the main article file after the references but before tables, not as part of the figure files themselves.

Do not include author names or the article title within the figure files. Instead, list the following information for each figure at the end of the article file:

Recommended graphics software

Several graphics software packages are available to help you create, improve and compose a high–quality graphics:

Figures like charts, graphs, or histograms generated from cell data created in MS Excel should be submited with all data in file. Other than creating charts, graphs, or histograms, Excel should be only be used to make tables (see Table Guidelines for more information on formatting tables).

MS Paint does not create files at higher than 96ppi resolution, so we strongly recommend that you never use it in creating your figures.

 

Figure Preparation

Figure dimensions

Figures for publication will be sized to fit 1 or 2 columns of the final printable PDF of the article (7,8 or 16 cm). Please follow the sizing recommendations below for your original submission to create high–quality, appropriately sized figures. See table below for sizing information of figures for articles (at resolution of 300 DPI):

  cm pixels
Width for 1–column figures 7,8 922
Width for 2–column figures 16 189
Height maximum for all figures 25,2 2977
 

 Figure File Types

Multimedia files will be rejected.

 

6. Special papers

Software Papers

Manuscripts describing software should provide full details of the algorithms designed.

Describe any dependencies on commercial products or operating system. Include details of the supplied test data and explain how to install and run the software.

A brief description of enhancements made in the major releases of the software may also be given.

Authors should provide a direct link to the deposited software from within the paper.

 

Database Papers

For descriptions of databases, provide details about how the data were curated, as well as plans for long–term database maintenance, growth, and stability.

Authors should provide a direct link to the database hosting site from within the paper.

 

New Zoological and Protist Taxons

For proper registration of a new taxon of animals or protists, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript.

In the Results section, the globally unique identifier (GUID), currently in the form of a Life Science Identifier (LSID), should be listed under the new species name, for example:

Authors are required to register newly described taxon in Zoobank according to recent amendments of ICZN.

Please also insert the following text into the Methods section, in a sub–section to be called 'Nomenclatural Acts':
'The electronic edition of this article conforms to the requirements of the amended International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and hence the new names contained herein are available under that Code from the electronic edition of this article. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN. The ZooBank LSIDs (Life Science Identifiers) can be resolved and the associated information viewed through any standard web browser by appending the LSID to the prefix 'http://zoobank.org'. The LSID for this publication is: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: XXXXXXX. The electronic edition of this work was published in a journal with an ISSN, and has been archived and is available from the following digital repositories: DFS [author to insert any additional repositories].' All articles published in FFS are deposited also in the Databank of Slovak Fauna (DFS).

Descriptions and redescriptions of taxa should be concise and uniform throughout the paper. Use standardized abbreviations in the text: gen. nov., sp. nov., ssp. nov., syn. nov., comb. nov., stat. nov., stat. restit.

Type material deposition should be specified.

 

Faunistic notes

The structure of faunistic notes providing information on one or few records of of single or more species can be reduced to:

Faunistic record should be accompanied by illustration with proof of the record.

 

7. Submission procedure

Manuscript finalised in accordance with the guidelines should be submitted via online form at the journal website www.ffs.sk and sent to address ffs.sk@hotmail.com as an email attachment. Alternatively, it can be submitted on most recent digital media (DVD, CD, ZIP, CF, sD medium, memory stick).