About the Journal

Focus and Scope

Acta Biológica Colombiana publishes original scientific research articles that provide a significant advance in the field of natural sciences, specifically in the areas of biological sciences, conservation, and biodiversity. The journal is interested in high-quality, comprehensive research in a broad thematic coverage in all areas of biology including: anatomy, botany and plant science, cell biology and microbiology, biochemistry and molecular biology, genetics and heredity, developmental biology , zoology, ornithology, entomology, behavioral life sciences, marine and water biology, ecology, biodiversity conservation, theoretical and evolutionary biology.

The journal considers articles in all fields of theoretical biology as applied biology. Integrating different biological scales, from molecules and cells to populations, ecosystems, and landscape. No works are published that only add details or cases of previously known phenomena, species lists, new species records without detailed analyses, preliminary studies or reports of highly specialized limited interest.

The journal encourages the presentation of interdisciplinary studies that address biological issues, through the publication of results of general interest through manuscripts in the form of review articles, articles of reflection, research articles and brief notes. The main objective of the journal is to promote communication between the different fields of biology, with a special interest in related works or carried out in the neotropical region.

Criteria for publication

The quantity and quality of new information of interest to readers are generally the criteria for acceptance of the publication of manuscripts. With the aim of contributing to the dissemination of avant-garde knowledge, the journal will only publish manuscripts of general interest that have the following criteria: originality, importance, and innovation, as well as being of interest to scientists from other areas of knowledge and of easy understanding for non-specialist readers. Articles must demonstrate a rigorous methodology with significant sampling and solid experimental design, as well as providing new biological knowledge in depth with substantial evidence of their findings.

Peer Review Process

Every article submitted is subject to the editor’s specialist evaluation (first filter), followed by the evaluation of at least (3-6) potential international academic peers (assigned one-three days after the manuscript is submitted), next is the evaluation of at least two (2) national or international peers.

Reviewers will have up to three weeks to assess the paper. Based on the responses received from at least two peer reviewers, the specialist editor will issue a decision in a span of five days. Authors should address the comments issued by the reviewers within a period not exceeding 15 days via the feedback form to the editor. Corrected items will be returned to the editor for their feedback. Once the article is accepted by the chief editor, the corrected version will be proofread for English, Portuguese and Spanish usage, before undergoing the layout process and final edit (15 days). The authors must return final edit corrections within 3 business days. The author must approve style and language suggestions. Once final edit is done, the author may not make further amendments to the text. Normally, articles will be published "first on-line" within 15-20 days from the date of submission to the journal. Reviewers should have recent international publications in the subject and Ph.D degree to be selected.

Publication Frequency

The journal publish three times at year in January, May, and September.

Open Access Policy

This Journal follows open access policy. All publications shall be available immediately upon their publication, without any charges or embargo period.

Publication ethics and agreement of possible bad practices

The Acta Biologica Colombiana Journal assures that all of the parts (authors, reviewers and editors) strictly follow the ethical international rules in the publication process.

ABC follows the ethic rules in the COPE Best Practice Guidelines for Journal Editors and the International Standars for Editors and Authors published by the Committee on Publication Ethics.

Manuscripts are checked with plagiarism detection software TURNITIN.

Unique submission format

Every submitted article must be accompanied by the Unique submission format (clic to download).

Author certify that:

1. It is an original work that complies with the requirements and norms of presentation for publication in the journal Acta Biológica Colombiana.

2. The work has not been sent nether it will not sent for review, and it is not published, partially or totally, in any other scientific journal or technical-scientific publication, national or foreign.

3. The authors have participated in the research that derives in the work, as well as their writing, review and final approval.

4. The authors agree with the order in which the authors appear in the article and we confirm that there are no additional persons who satisfy the criteria of authorship that have not been included in the list of authors of the work.

5. The authors understand that the person designated as correspondence author is the only contact during the editorial process and therefore the person responsible for communicating with the rest of the authors and who authorizes the final version of publication.

6. In the event that the work is approved for publication the authors agree to publish the work under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International (CC BY 4.0) license. Likewise, we authorize the publisher Universidad Nacional de Colombia to distribute and divulge the final article in all forms and means that it considers appropriate.

7. There are no conflicts of interest that may affect the content, results or conclusions of the article. In case of conflicts, the authorse must gve a declaration

Response letter to the editor

Every article accepted with minor or major modifications must be accompanied of the response letter from to the editor in order to make the final decision. Download here

Sources of Support

Journal History

Acta Biológica Colombiana is a publication of the Departamento de Biología, Universidad Nacional de Colombia. Acta Biológica Colombiana is an Open Access journal published since 1982. The review, management and production process is financed by the Universidad Nacional de Colombia (Bogotá-Colombia). Neither authors nor readers have any charge for publish or access the journal.