Guidelines for Manuscript Preparation
Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation
Submission Procedure

BIOSYSTEMATICA is an international peer reviewed biannual journal publishing basic and applied research articles. Manuscripts submitted to this journal should be in accordance with the guidelines mentioned here and are accepted on the understanding that they are based on original research and have not been published, submitted or accepted for publication elsewhere. All papers will be first assessed by a Reviewing Editor. Papers not in agreement with the terms of the overall requirements of the journal will be returned to the authors. The others will be sent to at least two referees for detailed review. Authors of these papers will be intimated acceptance or need for revision within three months of submission. Papers once rejected cannot be resubmitted. Authors should affirm that text and illustrations are not protected by copyrights of third parties.

Guidelines for Manuscript Preparation

Language: Manuscripts should be in English.

Types of manuscript: Manuscripts can be published as scientific articles, short communications.

Form of manuscripts: Please submit manuscripts as MS Word 97 or other recent word processors with a page size of 21.0 x 29.7 cm (A4). Type all pages as double-spaced (Single spacing should be used only in reference section) with 1.25 cm margins. Use single-column format with the font Times New Roman of size 12 points. Number all lines and pages consecutively, beginning with the title page

The manuscript should be arranged in the following order

Title: The title of the manuscript should be descriptive and concise. Center-justify the title using capital initials (except for prepositions and articles). Scientific names in the title should be followed by the descriptor’s name (do not mention the year) and by the order and family names in parentheses.

Author[s] line: Unabbreviated and complete first name (additional names should be abbreviated) and surname[s] of author[s], should be divided by commas, and the last author linked with the symbol “&”. The affiliations and addresses (including e-mail) of the authors must be included. Call numbers should be used for more than one address. The name, full postal address and e-mail address of the corresponding author should be given.

Abstract: The abstract should not exceed 150 words. It must not contain any abbreviations or statistical details. In the case of new species description, key diagnostic characters must be included in the abstract. It should be followed by Key words in not more than ten words separated by commas; words not present in the title are preferred.

Sections of the Manuscript Major headings should be in bold and lower-case letters. They should be placed at the beginning of the line. The text of the paper should, as far as appropriate, be divided with internal main headings into the following standard sections:

• Introduction
• Materials and methods [including a list of abbreviations and conventions used and/or reference to such a list published earlier]
• Results [or Systematic section] and Discussion
• Acknowledgements
• If necessary, an Appendix, e.g. with longer data tables, etc.
• References Modifications to these headlines and structures can, of course, be made when required.

Introduction The introduction should clearly state the problem, the hypothesis, and the objectives of the study.

Materials and Methods The subtitle Material and Methods should be in bold and center-justified. Include all information for replication of the study, including the statistical design used and, if appropriate, the statistical program used for data analysis. It should include a list of abbreviations and conventions used and/or reference to such a list published earlier. For new species description, the type depositories should be mentioned with their standard abbreviations.

Abbreviations Define all abbreviations used in the text under Materials and Methods section as the last paragraph. Do not begin sentences with abbreviations or use abbreviations in titles, subtitles, and abstract. Abbreviations rather than words should be used in presenting units and percentages (cm, mm, kg, ml, %, etc.). Units of measure should be metric or, preferably, SI.

Results and Discussion : The conclusions should be stated at the end of the Discussion.

Scientific Names : Genus and species names should be in italics. Write the scientific names in full, followed by the descriptor’s name, whenever they are mentioned for the first time in the manuscript. Example: Xylotrechus quadripes Chevrolat. Use the abbreviated generic name in the rest of the paper, including tables and figures. Example: X. quadripes.

New Descriptions : In the case of description of a new taxon, papers should conform to the articles and recommendations of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (ICZN). The abbreviations gen.nov., sp.nov., syn.nov. & comb.nov. should be used to distinguish all new taxa, synonymies, or new combinations. The complete data of the holotype and paratypes, and the name of the depository (in abbreviation) should be provided in the original description.

All material examined should be listed in similar format as follows: Localities should be cited in order of increasing precision. Names of countries should be in capitals.

Example: Holotype: Male: INDIA: Kerala, Malappuram, Calicut University Campus, 11°7’N 75°5’E, 35 m, coll. T.C.Narendran, 22.vi.1977 (IARI). Paratypes: 3 Females, 2 Males, INDIA: Rajasthan, Jaipur, Samod, 27°12’N 75°49’E, 400 m, ex. seeds of Ephedra foliata Boiss, coll. C.A.Meyer, 17.vii.2005 (BMNH; NMNH).

Taxonomic Reviews and Revisions : Brief diagnosis should be provided for all the known species examined and mentioned by the author in the manuscript.

Citations Each citation in the text must be accompanied by a full reference in the list of references and vice versa. Footnotes should be avoided. There are two ways of citing references in the text depending on sentence structure; e.g., Author 1 and Author 2 (1994) or (Author 1 and Author 2, 1994).

When the cited reference has more than two authors, the citation should be done as follows: Author 1 et al. (2005) or (Author 1 et al., 2005). Citations of unpublished work are listed in parentheses in the text only; e.g., Author 1 (personal communication); (Author 1, personal communication); according to Author 1 (unpublished data) or (Author 1, unpublished data).

Acknowledgements : The subtitle should be in bold and centralized. Acknowledgements should be concise and contain your recognition to people first, and then to affiliations or sponsors.

References : There must be a reference list including all those references cited in the text. Your references should provide the reader with needed information to retrieve and examine the cited reference. Please follow the guidelines mentioned for references below
References should be typed in a separate page, in alphabetical order. The author’s last names are typed in full and capital initials. Commas separate the names of authors. The first author is cited by the last name first and then name initials; all others are cited by their name initials first and then last names in full. Use the symbol “&” before citing the last author. Place single-authored articles before those in which the individual is a senior joint author. List two or more titles chronologically when the authors of these references are identical. Use the letters a, b, etc. to indicate two or more titles by the same authors in the same year. egs., 2005a, 2005b, etc. The titles of journals and books must be in must be in full and italics. Volume number of the journal must be in bold, followed by a colon and then page numbers separated by hyphen.
Please avoid citations of dissertations, theses, and extension materials. Do not cite restricted circulation materials (such as institutional documentation and research reports), or abstracts of papers presented at scientific meetings exceptions only in the case of descriptions available in older cases, Reports of FRI, Dept. of Agri., etc.

All literature cited in the text must be listed in the references in the following format

Research paper

Taylor, L.R. 1961. Aggregation, variance and the mean. Nature, 189: 732-735.
Parrella, M. P., J. P. McCaffrey, & R.L. Horsburgh. 1981. Population trends of selected phytophagous arthropods and predators under different pesticide programs in Virginia apple orchards. Journal of Economic Entomology, 74: 492-498.

Parrella, M.P., J.P. McCaffrey, & R.L. Horsburgh. 1981. Population trends of selected phytophagous arthropods and predators under different pesticide programs in Virginia apple orchards. Journal of Economic Entomology, 74: 492-498.

Book

Steel, R.G., & J.H. Torrie. 1980. Principles and procedures of statistics: A Biometrical Approach (2nd Edition). McGraw-Hill Publishing Co., New York. 481 pp.

Chapter in a Book

Boucek, Z. & Noyes, J.S. 2004. Two new species of Chalcidoidea (Hymenoptera: Pteromalidae, Encyrtidae) associated with Icerya pattersoni Newstead (Hemiptera: Margarodidae) a pest of coffee in Kenya. In: Rajmohana, K., Sudheer, K., Girish Kumar, P. & Santhosh, S. (Eds.) Perspectives on biosystematics and biodiversity. Prof. T.C. Narendran commemoration volume. Systematic Entomology Research Scholars Association (SERSA), Kerala, India. pp 138-145.

Conference Presentation Reitz, S.R., J. E. Funderburk, E. A. Hansen, I. Baez, S. Waring, & S. Ramachandran. 2002. Interspecific variation in behaviour and its role in thrips ecology. In: R. Marullo & L.A. Mound (Eds.) Thrips and Tospoviruses: Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on thysanoptera. Australian National Insect Collection, Canberra, Australia. pp. 133- 140.

Website reference Author, 2006. Title of website, database or other resources, World Wide Web electronic publication. Publisher name and location (if indicated), number of pages (if known). http://xxx.xxx.xxx/ [Date of access: date. month. Year].
eg. Noyes, J.S. 2003. Universal Chalcidoidea Database, World Wide Web electronic publication. The Natural History Museum, London. http:// www.nhm.ac.uk/entomology/chalcidoids/index.html [Date of access: 05-Sep-2003]

Guidelines for Figure and Table Preparation

All illustrations (line drawings and photographs) must be of a high quality for good reproduction. The only formats allowed are those which can be opened and modified by Adobe Photoshop version 5.0 or higher. Accepted raster image-based file types are the following: .TIFF, .JPG, .BMP, and .GIF files. (.TIFF for single photographs or drawings, or .JPG & .GIF files for high resolution). Under no circumstance any files (illustrations, graphics, charts, etc.) in other file formats may be submitted, which have not been quoted here as being useful.

Website reference It is extremely important that the correct resolution be used when submitting digital artwork. The minimum requirements for resolution in raster files are:

• 600 dpi (dots per inch) for line art (Bitmap [.bmp] or Grayscale mode)
• 350 dpi for halftones (i.e., black and white photos) (Grayscale mode)
• 350-400 dpi for color photos
• 600 dpi for combination halftones ( i.e., images containing illustrations/photos and text labeling) (Grayscale mode)

Line drawings must always have a high resolution and must be absolutely sharp and focused, without any grayscale blurring of the lines. For line drawings a minimum resolution (at final printing size), 240 pixels per cm (ca. 600 dpi) are required. The figure should not look fuzzy, jagged, pixilated, or grainy at intended print size. Sometimes higher resolution figures can be required after manuscript approval and if so, the corresponding author will be intimated after the acceptance of the paper.
Combination figures can be anything with text laid over an image (including plate labels: A, B, C, etc.). Any text in a combination image should be created at 600dpi; when creating a combination file, it is usually best to start with the raster image (for example, a photomicrograph preferably already at 300 dpi or higher) and use Photoshop or a similar program to increase the resolution to 600 dpi. Add text to the 600dpi version and save the file.
Figures should not normally exceed 8.5 cm wide (single column) or 17.5 cm wide (double column) when printed. Do not submit illustrations of size smaller or larger than these published page dimensions. Printing charges varies according to the size of the photograph

The names of files must be clear and unambiguous. Each illustration must be provided as a separate file and identified by its number and name of the author(s). Illustrations should be numbered consecutively. It is best to combine an abbreviation of the author’s name, of the title and the number of the illustration (for example: “Santhosh-Epyris-Fig.1.psd). Please avoid multiple numbering or complicated structures of numbers (egs. to be avoided: Plate 1, Fig. 1; Plate 1, Fig. 2 or Fig. 1a; Fig. 2b; Fig. 3c).
A brief legend should be provided with each of the illustrations. The captions, however, should be provided on a separate page and included after the reference and tables (if any) section. All illustrations should be cited in the text.

If paper copies are submitted, the following rules have to be followed:

• Paper originals must be A4 or smaller.
• Black and white illustrations which are submitted (singly or mounted as plates) on paper must be of high quality. Poor pictures cannot be improved significantly by scanning them.
• Picture numbers and other lettering and numbering within the pictures must be clearly indicated on accompanying photocopies only and should be excluded from the original photographs or drawings when submitted.
• All illustrations must show a clear and exact scale.
• A clear identification of the name(s) of the author(s), abbreviated title and illustration number(s) must be given on the back or on the edges (outside the picture frame).

Authors are strongly advised to provide digitized illustrations suitable for printing. If this scanning and graphic work is too voluminous and takes too much time, authors submitting illustrations on paper must be aware that we shall send an invoice to cover all costs of the digitizing process.

Tables: Tables and respective titles should be typed in MS Word 97 or other recent programs should be separate as one per page, after the References section. Please number tables consecutively with Arabic numerals followed by a full stop, in the order they occur in the text. Tables must be double-spaced and on separate pages. Use only the table function of Word or plain tabulators, but never use spaces for tables. Tables or charts if produced from Excel files must be submitted separately as Excel files, including the original data sets. All tables should be numbered consecutively, given concise titles, cited in the text. Tables should be included at the end of the paper along with other illustrations.

Maps can be delivered as halftones or line drawings. The map of India, if forming part of an article, must conform to official maps released by the Survey of India, giving reference to the source map.

Short Communications

Manuscripts that register new records, rediscovery of the species and new methods for the study can be accepted. Manuscript requirements are the same as for scientific articles but can have up to 2 printed A4 pages.

Submission Procedure

All manuscripts should be submitted electronically to the Managing Editor at biosystematica@gmail.com. Alternatively authors can submit the manuscripts on a disk or CD via letter.
All illustrations should be submitted, in separate files preferably in a high quality digital version in a CD-ROM, suitable for printing process. Illustrations submitted as originals (or highest quality photocopies) on paper have to be digitized here. If there is no section editors corresponding to the specialization of your paper, the authors are also requested to submit names and postal addresses (including email) of three referees in their respective field of specialization.

Page Charges

Authors should pay INR 100.00 (In India)/USD 10 (Abroad) per page and only one of the authors need to pay the subscription charge (INR 350/ USD 30). The members of the Research Council need not pay the subscription charge. Color reproduction will only be included when it is highly necessary. Authors should pay additionally for the colour photographs/pictures which will be intimated upon the acceptance of the manuscript. Charge varies according to the size of the photograph (single column or double column). All articles can be accessed and downloaded from the Biosystematica website (www.tcntrust.org/journal.php).

Review of the Manuscript

When a manuscript is received by the Managing Editor, it will be send to at least two qualified peer reviewers and normally requests the reviewers to complete the review within one month. However, the reviewing process will normally take longer, depending on the length of the manuscript and other reasons.

Proof: The proof will be sent to the corresponding author. The editors unambiguously reserve the right to make minor changes in spelling, form or layout to conform to the standards of Biosystematica. Authors are requested to check such changes during proof reading and accept or correct them if an error of interpretation has been made. Corrections should be returned to the Managing Editor within two weeks.

Further information:

Dr. M. Nasser,
Managing Editor, Biosystematica,
Department of Zoology,
University of Calicut,673 635,
Kerala, India.
Email: biosystematica@gmail.com

Important note: In any case of compatibility problems (irrespective whether of hardware or software), the author alone is responsible for submission of a version of the file complying with the journal guidelines which can be used by the editors for printing.