Submissions

Author Guidelines

Authors are invited to make a submission to this journal. All submissions will be assessed by an editor to determine whether they meet the aims and scope of this journal. Those considered to be a good fit will be sent for peer review before determining whether they will be accepted or rejected.

SCOPE 

Biogeography Research welcomes all research relevant to the discipline, including but not limited to: conservation biogeography, functional biogeography, island biogeography, landscape ecology, paleobiogeography, phylogenetic (historical) biogeography, phylogeography and geogenomics, spatial and geographical elements of community ecology and macroecology, & statistical and parametric biogeography.

ARTICLE TYPES

• Original research: A typical original research article has the standard IMRaD structure of the scientific literature. It will present novel datasets (either collected anew or collated from multiple existing sources) and original analyses thereof. Analyses are expected to be detailed and comprehensive, providing a robust description and interpretation of the dataset, contextualized in existing concepts and theory. They advance the field through presentation of robust hypothesis-based descriptive, experimental, or (meta) analytical research and thus examples that corroborate or question components of existing theory.
• Methods: A Methods article describes a purpose and need for a procedural advance, and delivers a tool to achieve that advance. Typically statistical and/or software tools, Methods may also introduce new equipment and novel deployments thereof. A provisional dataset should be included as illustration.
• Letter: A Letter article has a modified I(RD)aM structure. It will present original research and analyses, being concise but still detailed and thorough, providing a robust introduction to an emerging phenomenon that has implications for existing concepts and theory. They advance the field through presentation of particularly novel findings or interpretations that corroborate or question aspects of existing theory in a succinct form. 
• Opinion/Perspective: A typical opinion/perspective article has a provocative introduction that may take a position on a consequential topic. It develops a framework for interpreting the existing literature, possibly in contrarian ways, and indicates areas for future work that will refute or support the thesis. Articles may address mainstream ideas, or those that have historically been on the fringe or forgotten. A perspective differs from an opinion in having a more moderate rhetorical style, greater integration of evidence, and evaluation of different viewpoints. 
• Review: A typical review article has a motivating introduction that encourages readers to continue reading. It develops a general thesis that frames a comprehensive discussion of the existing literature and indicates areas for future work. Reviews in Biogeography often are meta-analyses or other systematic approaches to synthesis of large datasets and/or findings.
• Editorial: By invitation only. Pre-submission proposals, detailing the title, authors, timeliness (30 words), importance (30 words), and abstract (200 words) for the piece should be sent to the Chief Editor at biogeographyjfab@gmail.com

FORMATTING MANUSCRIPTS 

Initial submissions may be in any format as long as they consider the standard sections for modern scientific publications (e.g., IMRaD structure; see 'article types' and 'brief overview'), including page and line numbering.

Figures and tables may be embedded in the manuscript as best fits the flow of information; key details should be clear. Separate, high resolution, figures will be required after acceptance. 

After first editorial recommendation, manuscripts should be reformatted to journal style, see templates (pending) for guidance. 

Brief overview of requirements

Original research, Methods, and oftentimes Review article types will usually have each of the sections, in order, as listed below.  Letters may re-order the methods section. Opinions and Perspectives will typically have structured arguments that read as an integrated Introduction+Discussion. 

Cover/Title page - Abstract - Introduction - Methods - Results - Discussion - Conclusion {optional} - Acknowledgements - References - Other sections:  Author contributions {see CRediT – https://credit.niso.org/} -  Competing Interests - Funding sources - Data availability {data, code, sample deposition and availability} - Ethics statement {animal welfare, collecting permits, etc; if relevant} - Figures {preferably embedded in the main text} - Tables {preferably embedded in the main text} - Appendix {optional; e.g. for meta-analysis sources} - Supplementary documentation {optional}

Before making a submission, authors are responsible for obtaining permission to publish any material included with the submission, such as photos, documents and datasets. All authors identified on the submission must consent to be identified as an author. Where appropriate, research should be approved by an appropriate ethics committee in accordance with the legal requirements of the study's country.

EDITORIAL AND REVIEW PIPELINE, INCLUDING DECISIONS

New article submissions will be handled initially by the most relevant Section Editor (SE), who will assess the manuscript for fit with the journal’s scope and disciplinary standards; they will either reject the manuscript or forward it to an Associate Editor with relevant expertise. The AE will again assess the manuscript against disciplinary standards and either recommend rejection or send it for peer review. On receiving reviews, the manuscript and reviews will be assessed by the AE, who will make a detailed recommendation to the SE, who will verify the recommendation and inform the authors of a decision (including reviews, editorial assessments, and guidance for revisions as appropriate.) Decisions will be one of the following: Final reject, Reject with option to resubmit, Major revision, Minor revision, Accept pending, Accept. Manuscripts receiving a decision involving revision will, when submitted, usually follow the same pathway. Accepted manuscripts will be checked by the journal’s Data and Code editor to ensure compliance with DCAS, the Data and Code Availability Standard (https://datacodestandard.org/), for reproducibility and Open Science practices. Read our minimum requirements for supporting data and code. 

Final submissions for manuscripts that have been accepted should be in Word or LaTeX and be accompanied by separate high resolution files for each figure.

We aim for a respectful and constructive editorial and review process that is also timely. If a first decision has not been issued within 2 months, we welcome status enquiries from authors. 

We aim to follow best practices such as those recommended for editors by the Committee on Publication Ethics (COPE).

Artificial Intelligence: The following guidance is adapted from the COPE position on Authorship and AI tools. Authors who use AI tools in the writing of a manuscript, production of images or graphical elements of the paper, or in the collection and analysis of data, must be transparent in disclosing in the Materials and Methods (or similar section) of the paper how the AI tool was used and which tool was used. Authors are fully responsible for the content of their manuscript, even those parts produced by an AI tool, and are thus liable for any breach of publication ethics. In that context, we note that (1) AI tools cannot meet the requirements for authorship as they cannot take responsibility for the submitted work and, as non-legal entities, they cannot assert the presence or absence of conflicts of interest nor manage copyright and license agreements, and (2) that, given the derivative nature of AI, its use in any formative writing of a manuscript passes off the work of others as one’s own and therefore constitutes plagiarism. Use of tools that employ artificial intelligence for minor language editing are permissible; the tools and extent of their use must be described in the Ethics statement.