Caldasia

Author Guidelines

CALDASIA

A journal for the study and understanding of biodiversity

INSTRUCTIONS FOR AUTHORS

(updated in English, November 2020)

Contact: revcaldasia_bog@unal.edu.co

Webpage: revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/cal/index.

SCOPE OF THE JOURNAL

After 40 years as a bianual journal, beginning in 2022 Caldasia will publish three issues per year, and will continue to be an open access journal of the Instituto de Ciencias Naturales de la Facultad de Ciencias de la Universidad Nacional de Colombia, which has published the journal uninterrupted since 1940.  Its name honors Francisco José de Caldas, the first Colombian naturalist, killed fighting for the independence of Colombia on October 29th, 1816.

The journal publishes high impact contributions on the documentation, understanding, or conservation of biological diversity written in Spanish or English. The journal´s main emphasis is biodiversity in the broad sense and so includes papers on botany, zoology, ecology, biodiversity, biogeography, taxonomy, systematics, conservation, anthropology, and related disciplines. Preferably the journal publishes full scientific papers, review papers, or short communications.

Caldasia is classified by the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development system (OECD) in the following categories: Large area: 1 natural sciences; Area: 1E earth and environmental sciences, and 1F biological sciences; Disciplines: 1E03 paleontology, 1F10 botany and plant sciences, 1F11 zoology, ornithology, entomology, behavioral and biological sciences, 1F12 marine and freshwater biology, 1F13 ecology, 1F14 biodiversity conservation, and 1F16 other fields of biology.

Caldasia is included in Publindex, National Indexing System of Colombian Scientific Journals and in the most important bibliographic and citation databases. In 2020 its impact factor was 0.562 according to Journal Citation Reports. In Scopus its 2020 CiteScore was 0.8. In Publindex 2020 it was in category B.

POLICIES OF ORIGINALITY, AUTHORSHIP, AND CONFLICT OF INTEREST

The authors of works submitted to Caldasia must agree with the policy of originality, responsibility for authorship and conflict of interest described below. In this sense, in order to submit an article to the journal, authors must submit a signed Single Submission Form. In this form the topics of declaration of originality, responsibility of authorship, conflict of interest and transfer of rights are discussed. The Single Submission Form can be downloaded in this link: https://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/cal/libraryFiles/downloadPublic/48

Originality. Papers submitted to Caldasia must be original and should not be under evaluation in another journal or publication of any type.

Responsibility of Authorship. In agreement with guidelines of organizations such as the Publication Ethics Committee (COPE) (publicationethics.org/resources/guidelines) and the International Committee of Medical Journal Editors (www.icmje.org), Caldasia considers that listing an author in a paper is because of their significant contribution to the scientific content of the work. As a consequence, an author must have participated significantly on the conception, design, data collecting, analyses, or paper writing and must agree with the content of the submitted document and be responsible for the ideas present there. However, for efficiency, Caldasia will maintain contact only with the corresponding author, who must be indicated in the presentation letter.

Caldasia accepts that the order of authorship in a paper is the result of a mutual agreement; consequently, for multi-authored papers a final section of Author´s contributions as described below must be included. Additionally, Caldasia assumes that nobody who contributed significantly to the study has been left out of the authors list.

Conflict of interests. Caldasia assumes that the interpretation of the data and the objectivity of the analyses in the paper are impartial and follow the standards of the discipline, and, in no case, is there bias of interpretation because of economic or personal interests or of the financing entities. The journal requests that the authors submitting work sign the declaration of originality, responsibility for authorship, and conflict of interest (http://revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/cal).

ETHICS POLICY

If required, authors must indicate in the Materials and Methods section their agreement with regulatory laws regarding experimental ethics and collecting permits.

If voucher specimens are generated, collection repository must be indicated. DNA sequence access numbers and repository databases must be indicated.

PAPER SUBMISSION AND EVALUATION

Caldasia promotes excellence, transparency, and criteria for objectivity for evaluation of the paper. Submitted papers are first checked by the editorial board for compliance with the journal´s scope and instructions for author guidelines. All submitted papers are checked through the Turnitin writing system (turnitin.com). The scientific merit of the contributions, and hence the possibility of publication in the journal, depends on the concept of the referees. Papers that do not fit the journal´s scope or that do not follow instructions for author guidelines are returned to authors without evaluation. Papers that pass the requirements described above are formally accepted for evaluation and receive a reference code indicated in the acknowledgement of the receipt letter. A copy of this letter is send through e-mail to all the authors; however, subsequent mail contact will be exclusively with the corresponding author. This first stage of the article´s evaluation takes seven (7) days.

Papers accepted for evaluation are sent to at least two referees for peer-review. Authors may suggest in their presentation letter three referees, giving their full names, e-mail addresses, and web page if available. The editorial board selects referees from any academic institution worldwide if they comply with two criteria: 1. Number of publications related to the study that have appeared recently in high impact journals, and 2. Independence of these referees from the paper´s authors in terms of research association or institutional affiliation. Referees will have 20 days to send their evaluation to the editorial board.

The editorial board will make decisions about the submitted paper for publication in Caldasia based on a synthesis of the concepts provided by the referees. Papers submitted to the journal for evaluation may receive any of these four concepts: 1. Acceptable as submitted, 2. Publishable with changes, 3. Requires a second round of review, and 4. Not publishable.

If the evaluation is positive and if changes are requested, authors can take up to 15 days to submit a corrected version to our platform system. A letter with a detailed explanation of the changes to the document should be included. If the paper is evaluated with the third option, it means that the paper has valuable information or interesting data but the current version is deficient and requires extensive changes in the text.

Caldasia uses the Open Journal Systems (pkp.sfu.ca/ojs/) platform for the review process of manuscripts. To submit your paper for review, please create an author profile at revistas.unal.edu.co/index.php/cal/index. To do so choose the option “My profile” that is located at the top left part of the page. Once the profile has been created, you can follow the instructions to upload your paper. The journal will not accept papers for evaluation sent directly to the contact address or any other mean (See user registration manual on the OJS platform at the following link: https://docs.pkp.sfu.ca/learning-ojs/es/user-accounts#roles-en-OJS)

PREPARATION OF MANUSCRIPTS

Caldasia publishes three types of contributions and the major differences between these are related to their length and detail of the study. Other parameters described below are applied to all manuscripts.

Full papers. These contributions should include all the classic components of a research project such as: Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, and Discussion. The authors can combine these last two parts if they believe it is convenient. The length should not exceed 30 pages including figures and tables, it should follow the general instructions for submitting manuscripts and it should result in an efficient compilation of the sampling effort, complexity of the analyses, and the research problem. In the case of taxonomic papers that exceed the page limit, authors should consult the editorial board before submission.

Review papers. These papers describe and synthesize the state of the art of a specific topic, identifying critical areas and perspectives for future growth. The editorial board will invite leading experts to submit these contributions to the journal.  The paper length should not exceed 30 pages and should follow general author guidelines.

Short communications. They are works with a total length of no more than five pages. They can include some of the sections of a complete article which are not separated by subtitles and can include reports of specific observations that carry interesting and novel information for the public. Distribution records are publishable if they imply a significant extension of the range of a species.

The editorial board may accept letters or opinions about attractive topics that fall into the scope of the journal. These contributions may not exceed three pages on submission.

Tables, figures, lists, and appendices that are not strictly required for understanding the manuscript will be published on the webpage of the journal as supplementary material.

Manuscripts must be submitted with a letter of presentation where authors highlight the value of the most significant contribution, indicate the corresponding author, and list the suggested referees. Likewise, to proceed with the evaluation, the Declaration of originality, responsibility for authorship and conflict of interest must be signed. This file must be uploaded at the supplementary Files Tab.

English written papers by non-English native authors should be edited by a professional fluent in that language or by any professional editing service.

The file should be written on a word processor in Word for Windows permitting the editing of texts. Type settings must be Times New Roman typeface with a font size 12pt. We do not accept manuscripts in pdf. Figures for paper evaluation should be in low resolution but clearly visible; these should be JPEG files, 72dpi, and 12 cm width. High resolution figures should be TIFF format with no compression, 300 dpi, and 15 cm width and these should be sent only after the paper´s acceptance.

The document must be written in letter size, double spaced, including table and figure headings, and references. Leave 25 mm wide margins on all sides of text and tables and figures. All pages and lines must be numbered using automatic numbering systems. Please do not include footnotes or mark the sheets with the names of the authors. Use a fluid and direct style, avoiding as much as possible parentheses as a resource to explain specific aspects.

The first page must include in the following order: 1. Spanish and English title; 2. Author´s name, institutional address, land address and e-mail from every author; 3. Explicit indication of the author for correspondence in the case of works with more than one author. Authors that use two last names are encouraged to hyphen them and to abbreviate the second last name by the first word. This change will facilitate author retrieval by the bibliographic systems. For example: Rodríguez-J. for Rodríguez Jiménez.

The Abstract should be analytical and should not exceed the 250 words. It must contain the following sections: 1. Identification of the problem under study and of its importance, 2. Main goal of the research, 3. A concise description of the methods, 4. A synthesis of the major results, and finally 5. A description of the impact of the work. The following distribution of word percent in the abstract is suggested 18-2-20-60-10. No references to literature, figures or tables should be included. A Spanish Resumen of the Abstract should be provided.

Key words (=Palabras claves): between two and five key words should be included. Keep in mind that these words are used by search engines to bring your work to a researcher´s attention who might be compiling information about a topic; thus, key words should be significant in your area of research and should be different from these used in the title.

The following order for the paper´s sections is suggested: Introduction, Methods and Materials, Results, Discussion, Author contributions (only in multi-authored papers), Acknowledgements, and Cited literature. If preferred, authors may combine Results and Discussion into a single section. Subtitles within main sections may be included if needed. Please remember that the Introduction is not a detailed review of literature but a list of arguments to support your case.

Author´s contribution: This final section applies to multi-authored papers. In should be an explicit statement of the participation of every author on the several aspects of the paper such as: problem conception, research design, data collection, analysis, and paper writing. In this case use the initials of an author as follow: Pedro Rafael Pérez-Aldana = PRPA. Example: PRPA concept and experimental design, JJLO and DDFE data gathering and analyses, PRPA and JJLO writing of paper.

Nomenclature. Caldasia follows the policies of the Nomenclature Codes for the respective biological groups for taxon citation. Taxonomic authorship should be indicated the first time that a species is cited either in the main text of the paper or in a table. For botanical species indicate the author, and for zoological species author and year should be indicated. Taxonomic authorship should not be indicated in following text citations of the species nor in the title of the paper. Latin names of species should be in italics. Besides using italics for species or genus names, do not use any other special font in the text. Remember that abbreviations such as sp., nov,. spp., etc., are not names and should not be written in italics.

Units. Use the metric system for all measurements, except for the textual citation of other works. Do not use periods after unit abbreviations such as gr, mm, m, etc; use the European system for date citations (for example: 9 Feb 1997). Separate the quantities of the units by a space. When they are not followed by units, whole numbers up to fifteen are written with a word (one, two, eleven). Decimal figures must be separated by a comma in the Spanish language and by a period in the English language. Geographic coordinates should comply with the following format: 5º45’ North, 75º45’ West. Except for abbreviations widely accepted by the ISO system (mm, gr, km, m, etc), any abbreviation should be explained in full the first time used. Numbers under four digits should be written without spaces, e. g. 1987 and not 1 987, 1,987, nor 1.987. Numbers above four digits should be written inserting a single space every three digits starting on the right. E.g. 10 987 and not 10987, 10,987, nor 10.987. These instructions do not apply to citations of specimen labels, with labels a literal transcription of the information should apply.

TABLES AND FIGURES

All tables and figures must be cited in the text. Avoid table, figure, and text redundancy. Please check a recent issue of the journal to get a clear idea of the style employed. Prefer figures over tables. Number tables and figures in the order they are cited in the text. Tables and figures should be presented on separate pages at the end of the paper. Numbers and headings of every figure and table should go at the top left part of the page. Figures and table headings should not need references to the text. The symbology of the table should appear at the end of the legend, remember that the tables should be created in Excel for Windows and keep them as simple as possible. Avoid color gradations. Use three horizontal lines only, at the top, at the bottom, and between the column titles and data, and do not use vertical margins or another type of margin.

Line drawings, photos, maps, flowcharts, and statistical graphs are classified as figures. Figures should be sharp and of excellent esthetic quality but remember that during the evaluation process figures should be in low resolution but of good legibility. Once the paper is accepted, send the figures in TIFF format without compression, minimum 300 dpi, and 15 cm real width. Do not send figures embedded in a Word or Excel file. Maps and structure illustrations should use a metric scale. Avoid using isolated figures, it is better to group them into composite images of related topics, each labeled with a lowercase letter located in the upper left corner and with a white circle as the background. Cite figures as follows: Fig. 3a, Fig. 5d, Figs. 5a-c.

Figures must be developed in such a way that good legibility of the texts that are included is considered once the final layout is finished. The journal regularly handles figures that are 10cm wide, and the reduction compared to the originals is 30%.

Maps: They should have the following aspects: their components should be arranged following the reading order of the texts, that is, on the left the general location map (s) and on the right the specific map of the study area. The specific map must have geographical coordinates only in the right and lower outer margins. Do not put coordinates on both sides, they are redundant. There should be an indication of north and a metric scale. In both cases use simple models. Avoid obvious titles like "Legend", as well as scales and north signs using many elements. Try to develop a figure where you maximize the space and take advantage of non-informative sectors to insert location maps or legend.

DESCRIPTION OF NEW SPECIES

In addition to the standard sections of a scientific paper such as Introduction, Methods and Materials, and Discussion, species descriptions should contain the following sections in the cited order: Name of the new species. Latinized names should be use in accordance with internationally accepted nomenclature codes; The type specimen, holotype, with the collection data such as country, department or state, province, exact locality, geographic coordinates, altitude, date and collector´s number should be provided. Isotypes, allotypes and paratypes, if available, should be listed with their collection data and the museum depository. Diagnosis should be included using the languages recommended by the respective nomenclatural codes; diagnosis should be the list of characters that differentiate this species from the more similar. Description should follow a logical order for characters; for animals proceed from anterior to posterior area and from dorsal to ventral side; for plants from vegetative to reproductive regions. Etymology is an explicit indication of the new name´s characteristics. Distribution and ecology when available, should be provided. General comments are any comments about affinities, uses, etc. and are welcome.

Museum names and acronyms should follow any of the following sources: Index Herbarium (Holmgren et al. 1990), Leviton et al. (1980) “Museum acronyms”, Herpetol. Rev. 11:93-102., or the arthropod museum list of the Bishop Museum: http://hbs.bishopmuseum.org/codens/. We strongly encourage authors to add catalogue codes for color description from a standard reference such as Ridgway (1912) or Smithe (1975, 1981, etc).

Zoobank

Accepted papers that include new zoological species and nomenclatural changes must be registered in Zoobank and the sentence added to the following paragraph at the end of the Materials and Methods section: "This article has been registered in the Official Zoological Nomenclature Registry (Zoobank) as [code provided by Zoobank] .... ". In this way we comply with the requirements of the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (Article 8.5.3).

SPECIMEN CITATION

To cite collected specimens in taxonomic treatments, use the following format as much as possible:

For botanical specimens: COUNTRY. State, Department or Province: Exact location, geographic coordinates, elevation, date, Collector (s), and collection number (HERBARIO). Example: COLOMBIA. Boyacá: Laguna de Tota, 3500 m, Aug 25, 1967, R. Jaramillo et al. 2763 (COL).

For zoological specimens: COUNTRY. State, Department or Province: number, sex, municipality, exact location, geographic coordinates, elevation, date, collector (s), collection number, COLLECTION, and catalog number. Examples: COLOMBIA. Risaralda: one adult male, Mistrató, 1400 m, 12 Dec. 1992, C. Meléndez 202. ICN-MHN 20539 (Vertebrates).

In contributions where biodiversity catalogs, lists, and inventories are presented, follow the following format as much as possible: Family. Gender. Species. Author. Country. State / Department / Province. Municipality. Location. Latitude. Length. Altitude. Collector and Collection No.

LITERATURE REFERENCES AND CITED LITERATURE

Use only strictly needed references. There should be strict correlation between cited literature and references in the text. Only published documents should be listed in the cited literature. Thesis and web page citation should follow requirements described below. Caldasia follows the guidelines of the Council of Scientific Editors https://www.councilscienceeditors.org/ using the “last name, year” version. The instructions can be found at the following link: http://www.scientificstyleandformat.org/Tools/SSF-Citation-Quick-Guide.html

Please order references by date from the oldest to the most recent as follow: “...according to Chávez (1986) and Ramírez and Alpírez (1993)...” or “...as found by Ibañez (1978), Menéndez and Meléndez (1981), López (1983, 1985), Rodríguez et al. (1988)” or “... there are two species (Velázquez 1975, Juárez and Suárez 1980, 1983, Martínez et al. 1990)...” Please note the use of comma. For papers with three or more authors use et al. in italic font; use a, b, c, etc. in text citation to distinguish between papers published by the same author in different years. Unpublished or submitted works should be cited in the text only. These works should be cited as unpublished or unpublished data: (Pérez, unpublished) and in the same should be cited for oral or personal communications: (Alvarez, pers. comm.). Avoid these last two ways of referencing information as much as possible, as well as unpublished theses.

Cited literature. References should be ordered by the last name of first author and year. Write all author names and do not use et al. For metadata additions: 1. do not use a special font other than that indicated for the main text, 2. Do not separate the information of a reference by a page break, and 3. Separate each reference using a blank space.

Journal abbreviations should follow an official list. There are several databases with this information such as:

http://images.webofknowledge.com/images/help/WOS/A_abrvjt.html  

http://www.issn.org/services/online-services/access-to-the-ltwa/#lettres

For articles: Author. Year. Title. Abbreviation of Journal Name. Volume (number): pages. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.000002/rbt.230.7355.1222.

Text citation: (Author year), Author1 and Author2 (year), Author1 et al. (year)

Examples: Hernández-N R. 1965. Análisis de redes ecológicas centrados en la especie invasora Menganius fulanii. Rev. Biol. Trop. 5:112–115. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.000002/rbt.230.7355.1222.

Text citation: (Hernández-N 1965) alternatively you can use Hernández-N (1965)

Hernández R. 1965. Análisis de redes tróficas de Menganius fulanii. Rev. Biol. Trop. 5:116–121.  doi: https://www.doi.org/10.000002/rbt.230.7355.1223.

Text citation: (Hernández 1965) alternatively you can use Hernández (1965)

Hernández-N R, Fernández-T G. 1992. Filogenia del género Menganius (Coleoptera: Menganiidae). Beetle J. 62(1):6–8. doi: https://www.doi.org/10.000002/rbt.230.7355.1244.

Text citation: (Hernández-N and Fernández-T 1992) alternatively you can use Hernández-N and Fernández-T (1992)

Hernández-N R, Fernández-T G, Fernández-C F. 2012. Filogenia del género Menganius (Coleoptera: Menganiidae). Beetle J. 63(1–2):15–81. doi: https://www.doi.org/01.002/bj.210.7355.1222.

Text citation: (Hernández-N et al. 2012) alternatively you can use

Hernández-N et al. (2012)

Hernández-N R, Fernández-T G, Fernández-C F. 2012a. Análisis de caracteres en el género Menganius (Coleoptera: Menganiidae). Beetle J. 63(1–2):1–15. doi: https://www.doi.org/01.002/bj.210.7355.1222.

Hernández-N R, Fernández-T G, Fernández-C F. 2012b. Filogenia del género Menganius (Coleoptera: Menganiidae). Beetle J. 63(1–2): 15–81. doi: https://www.doi.org/01.002/bj.210.7355.1278.

Text citation: (Hernández-N et al. 2012a,b) alternatively you can use Hernández-N et al. (2012a,b)

For Books: Author. Year. Title. Edition. City (Include country if there are cities with the same name in different countries or states): Publisher. Unless specifically indicated, in-text citation follows the same parameters described for articles.

For Entire books:

Chivian E, Bernstein A, Annan K. 2008. Sustaining Life: How Human Health Depends on Biodiversity. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

For books authored by organizations:

[ICZN] International Commission on Zoological Nomenclature. 1961. International code of zoological nomenclature. First Edition. London: International Trust for Zoological Nomenclature London.

Text citation: (ICZN 1961) alternatively you can use ICZN (1961)

Citation of full books developed by editors:                                                                          Fernández F, Sharkey MJ, editors. 2006. Introducción a los Hymenoptera de la Región Neotropical. Bogotá: Sociedad Colombiana de Entomología y Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Book chapters of a book developed by the same editors:

Magurran A. 2004. Measuring biological diversity. Malden: Blackwell Science Ltd. Chapter 2, The commonness, and rarity, of species; p.18–71. 

Chapters of a book whose authors are different from editors:                                             

Author2, Author3. Year., Title of chapter. En (or In if the work is in English): Author editor1, Author editor2, editors. Title of book. Edition. City: Editorial.

Olmi M. 2006. Familia Sclerogibbidae. En: Fernández F, Sharkey MJ, editors. Introducción a los Hymenoptera de la Región Neotropical. Bogotá: Sociedad Colombiana de Entomología y Universidad Nacional de Colombia. p. 393–396.

Thesis

Abuhatab YA. 2011. Actividad metabólica diaria del biofilm en el sector medio de un río de alta montaña (Río Tota, Boyacá - Colombia). [Thesis]. [Bogotá]: Universidad Nacional de Colombia.

Electronic documents, DVDs, CDs, or web pages

Yu DS, Achterberg K, Horstmann K. c2012. World Ichneumonoidea 2011. [DVD].

Text citation: (Yu et al. c2012) alternatively you can use Yu et al. (c2012)

Samuelson A, Evenhuis N, Nishida G. c2001. Insect and spider collections of the world web site. [last accessed: 27 Mar 2016]. http://www.bishopmuseum.org/bishop/ento/codens-r-us.html

Text citation: (Samuelson et al. c2001) alternatively you can use Samuelson et al. (c2001)