GUIDELINES

1. Types of Papers

Short Communication (SC): a brief manuscript that presents original and significant material. SC is not a way of publishing preliminary results. A SC should possess up to 5 pages and follows the same structure of a full paper. A maximum of 3 illustrations (figures or tables) is allowed.

Research Article: reports the results of original research. This paper should include the following items: Title page (with Abstract), Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion, Conclusions, Acknowledgments, and References.

Review: addresses a subject that is related to the scope of this journal. The authors are free to establish the subdivisions of the review paper. Manuscripts can be any length.

Short Review: addresses a specific topic that is related to the scope of this journal. The idea is bringing the reader fresh and updating information about one specific topic. A Short Review should possess up to 5 pages (including references) in the format of submission.

Hypothesis: a manuscript that presents an untested original hypothesis backed up solely by a survey of previously published results rather than any new evidence. Hypothesis articles should not contain new data. This type of paper should possess up to 3 pages (including references) in the format of submission. A maximum of 3 illustrations (figures or tables) are allowed. See an example at the link.

Policy Brief: a text type that summarizes information on a topic of public interest, suggesting options for decision-making and specifying courses of action for formulating and evaluating policy. Policymakers are the target audience of a policy brief. Nonetheless, policy briefs present an excellent opportunity to return the conclusion of scientific research to leaders of indigenous peoples, traditional communities, and other specific social groups, as they bring evidence that has direct implications for these actors. In the Section “Manuscript Structure”, under “Policy Brief”, we list some general and writing guidelines, as well as examples that can help you construct a policy brief. 

Primer: provides a first entry into a field like the traditional dictionaries. A Primer should possess up to 5 pages (including references) in the format of submission. We stimulate the use of figures to illustrate the presented ideas. We expect a solid personalized, and well-grounded view of the author on the field or theme, rather than offering different perspectives on the subject.

Checklist: we invite original research articles that present lists of species known and utilized in specific social-ecological contexts. We aim to serve as a repository for high-quality, list-generating research that can support the development of studies seeking patterns in the relationship between people and nature (e.g., systematic reviews and meta-analyses). We will only consider papers that provide comprehensive information on the social, cultural, and ecological aspects of the studied sites, as well as on the sampling procedures and specimen identification. Given our primary goal of delivering robust species-use lists, manuscripts will only be considered if the list comprises at least 80% of species identified at the species level. We only accept lists beyond the local scale but encompass studies of at least regional scope.

Study-Area Characterization

Authors are strongly encouraged to pay particular attention to the study-area description. Mandatory information includes:

• The name of the studied community(s), settlement(s), or analogs, and the higher administrative units (e.g., municipality, province, region, and country).

• Geographical coordinates of the study area. If, for some reason, the authors believe this information should be omitted from the manuscript, they must explain their reasons in the cover letter.

• Community size (number of people or number of families in the studied community(s) or region(s)).

• Ethnical characterization of the studied communities and their main economic or subsistence activities (e.g., agriculture, wild food plant harvesting, tourism, etc.).

• The environmental context of the study area (biome or ecosystem, mean temperatures, and precipitation).

Sampling Procedures

Regardless of the type of research, authors should explain how they selected interviewees/participants. Mandatory information includes:<

• Type of sample (e.g., random sampling, theoretical sampling, quota sampling, convenience sampling, etc.). Studies that performed a census instead of sampling must include this information in the manuscript.

• Sampling unit (e.g., individuals, families, households, etc.).

• Exclusion criteria (e.g., exclusion of children and adolescents).

• Universe and sample size (total number of individuals, families, or households and the number of interviewed people).

• When the sampling unit is the family or household, the manuscript must indicate how interviewees were selected (e.g., joint interviews with all family members, only the most knowledgeable member on a given subject, etc.).

Studies developed with a subgroup of the community(s) (e.g., local specialists, healers, hunters, etc.) should avoid generalizing their findings to the entire community(s).

Plant and Animal Collection and Identification

Authors should mention the institutions where the collected biological material was deposited. In the case of plants, it is necessary to refer to the collector's number or deposit number of each specimen. For animals, whenever possible, zoological material recorded should be collected and deposited in scientific collections, and a voucher number should be indicated. If obtaining zoological material is not possible, ethnozoological studies should use a checklist of animal species based on published works on animals conducted in the surveyed area.

2. Attach Files

Make sure to send the following files when submitting:

• Cover letter: the letter should emphasize the relevance of the manuscript and include a statement that all authors are aware of the contents of the paper.

• Manuscript: in DOC, DOCX, or doc formats compatible with MS Word, e.g., OpenOffice, LibreOffice, and BrOffice

• Figures

• Supporting information, when available

3. General Formatting

Writing

Submit manuscripts in clear, concise, and grammatically correct English (British or American, never a combination of both).

Template

Publication of any paper in EC requires strict compliance with the template available here . The standard font is Arial, size 12, text single-spaced text and fully justified, except for the manuscript title, which should appear centered and bold. For paragraphs, use tab space, not the spacebar. The default page size is A4, with all margins at 2.5 cm. All pages must be numbered.

 

Citation

Cite references by using the system author-date. For studies with three or more authors, cite only the first author followed by "et al.". A semicolon should separate different citations in a parenthesis. If among the references, there is an author that published in the same year more than one article, use letters after the year (separated by comma) to distinguish references. See some examples below.

• While zootherapeutic practices have wide geographical distributions and deep cultural origins (Alves et al. 2010; Cooper 2008),
• …including use for treatment of diseases in humans and animals (Albuquerque et al. 2007; Barboza et al. 2007; Vieira et al. 2009a,b,c).
• According to Alves and Rosa (2006, 2007)…

Reference List

Organize references in alphabetical order. The final list will include only references you quoted in the text (published or accepted for publication). We do not accept personal communications and unpublished works as references. We provide some examples of reference styles below. Besides, if you use a reference manager like EndNote, JabRef, Mendeley, Zotero, etc., you will find a style for “Ethnobiology and Conservation” on them.

• Journal article

Albuquerque UP, Lucena RFP, Monteiro JM, Florentino ATN, Almeida CFCBR (2006) Evaluating Two Quantitative Ethnobotanical Techniques. Ethnobotany Research & Applications 4:51-60

Alves RRN, Rosa IL (2007a) Zootherapy goes to town: The use of animal-based remedies in urban areas of NE and N Brazil. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 113:541-555.

Alves RRN, Rosa IL (2007b) Zootherapeutic practices among fishing communities in North and Northeast Brazil: A comparison. Journal of Ethnopharmacology 111: 82-103.

• If a journal article has a DOI, include the DOI in the reference.

Kretser HE, Johnson MF, Hickey LM, Zahler P, Bennett EL (2012) Wildlife trade products available to U.S. military personnel serving abroad. Biodiversity and Conservation 21: 967-980. doi: 10.1007/s10531-012-0232-3

• Book/ Edited book

Alves RRN, Souto WMS, Mourão JS (2010) A Etnozoologia no Brasil: Importância, Status atual e Perspectivas. 1 ed. NUPEEA, Recife, PE, Brazil

Berg BL (2001) Qualitative research methods for the social sciences. 14 ed. Allyn & Bacon - A Pearson Education Company, Boston, USA

Berkes F (2008) Sacred Ecology. 2 ed. Routledge, New York/ Oxon, UK

• Book chapter

Stearman AM (2000) A Pound of Flesh: Social Change and Modernization as Factors in Hunting Sustainability Among Neotropical Indigenous Societies. In: Robinson JG, Bennett EL (eds) Hunting for sustainability in tropical forests. 1 ed. Columbia University Press, New York, pp. 233-250

Pellens R, Garay I, Grandcolas P (2009) Biodiversity conservation and management in the Brazilian Atlantic Forest: Every fragment must be considered. In: Kudrow NJ (ed) Conservation of Natural Resources. 1 edn. Nova Science Publishers, Inc., New York, pp. 101-136

• Web page

Bleisch B, Brockelman W, Timmins RJ, Nadler T, Thun S, Das J, Yongcheng L (2008) Trachypithecus phayrei (In: IUCN Red List of Threatened Species 2011). IUCN. [http://www.iucnredlist.org/apps/redlist/details/22040/0] Accessed 29 April 2011

Gravlee L (2002) The Uses and Limitations of Free Listing in Ethnographic Research. [http://gravlee.org/ang6930/freelists.htm] Accessed 30 December 2010

• PhD thesis and Dissertations

Henfrey TB (2002) Ethnoecology, Resource Use, Conservation and Development in a Wapishana Community in the South Rupununi, Guyana. PhD Thesis, University of Kent, Canterbury, UK

Contesso C (2009) Bushmeat and European migratory birds conservation. MSc. dissertation, Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, Falls Church, VA, USA

Swensson J (2005) Bushmeat Trade in Techiman, Ghana, West Africa. Undergraduate thesis, Uppsala University, Uppsala, Sweden

4. Manuscript Structure

Title Page

This page should include:

• Manuscript Title: original and concise, in bold and centered.

• Author names and affiliations: provide full author names. Place affiliation immediately below the list of authors. Indicate all affiliations with a lower-case superscript number (¹) immediately after the author's name and in front of the appropriate address. Affiliations must have the full postal address and email. Indicate the corresponding author with a superscript asterisk (*) after the affiliation number.

• Significance Statement:  submit a clear statement with no more than 150 words highlighting the originality and relevance of your manuscript.

• Abstract: prepare an abstract up to 250 words. The abstract should contain brief information that addresses the study's problem, with emphasis on the main results. Provide three to five keywords after the abstract.

• Abstract(s) in the mother language of the corresponding author or first author (optional). Insert a version of the abstract in another language. When writing this version, apply the same guidelines available for abstracts.

Main Sections

The main sections of the manuscript are Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion (combined or separated), Conclusions (optional), and References. Indicate headings in bold; subsections, if necessary, shall have their titles highlighted in italics. Place acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc., in a separate section before the reference list. Write the names of funding organizations in full.

Additional Files

Indicate Additional files in the text in sequential order (i.e., Add File 1, 2...) and submit in separate files with logical names, e.g., Add file 1.mpg, 2.xls Add file, etc. Specify captions or legends for additional files after the references.

Format exception - Policy Brief (PB)

PB manuscripts can have a maximum of 2000 words, 1 to 5 scientific references (to support your arguments), and objectively cover a specific problem or situation. The general guidelines and instructions below are helpful:

• You must write the policy brief in a language spoken by your target audience, avoiding the use of technical and scientific jargon.

• Manuscripts must be brief, objectively addressing a specific problem or situation.

• Your policy brief might contain graphs, charts, and other visual aids that make it easier to digest the critical information within the manuscripts.

Manuscripts must bring following information:

• Provide title, authors, and affiliation, following the guidelines of our Journal.

• Indicate the target audience, if (1) policymakers in a particular governmental sphere or (2) leaders of the communities to which the brief refers.

• Specify the scope, if national, regional, or local. If the study has a local scale, it is necessary to be specific and indicate, when applicable, the name of the conservation unit, name of the local community, etc.

• Make sure that your body text contains: (1) context or scope of the problem, (2) main evidence, and (3) clear and feasible political recommendations. 

• Others: Conflict of interest, statement of contribution, and bibliographic references.

• If necessary: acknowledgments and funding.

In the links below, you can view examples of policy briefs that can inspire you to construct yours, considering the guidelines of Ethnobiology and Conservation. 

• Como melhorar a governança dos recursos hídricos no Brasil? Link

• A House Undermined: Transforming relations between mining companies and Indigenous Peoples in the Americas. Link

• Mental Health and Suicide Prevention, Nunavik, Quebec. Link

5. Additional information

Ethical considerations

When working with human subjects, you should state in the Methods section that your research protocol complies with the guidelines of the Declaration of Helsinki and Tokyo for research with humans. Besides, inform the Ethics Board that approved your project (when applicable) and the process of obtaining the informed consent with people.

When using animals in experiments, you must state that you followed international principles for laboratory animal use in the Methods section. When collecting wild species, provide the name of the agency that approved the animal gathering and the license number.

The absence of information about the ethical procedures of the work may result in the rejection of the paper by referees and editors.

Nomenclatures, non-English names, units, and abbreviations

When reporting species names, follow the standard codes (e.g., International Code of Botanical Nomenclature, International Code of Zoological Nomenclature). Use italics for non-English words in the text (e.g., vernacular names), except for proper names. Avoid non-standard or uncommon abbreviations; but, if essential, define the term upon the first mention. Only use SI units in your manuscript.

Plant and animal collections

Cite the institutions at which the biological material collected is available (e.g., Herbarium at University x). Especially for plants, refer to the number of the collector or number of deposits of each specimen.

Table guidelines

Number tables consecutively by their appearance in the text, e.g., Table 1, Table 2… Tables should also have an upper title that summarizes its content. Captions should be concise.

Tables should be formatted using the 'Table object' in MS Word™ processing program or equivalent to ensure that columns of data will keep aligned when the file is sent electronically for review. Columns and rows should be delimited by borders. Use decimal points and not commas. Do not use color and shading. To highlight specific parts of the table, use symbols or bold text, explaining their meaning in a table caption.

Larger datasets or tables too wide for a page can be uploaded separately as additional files. These files will not be displayed in the final PDF of the article but as a separate link.

Figure Guidelines

Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text. Use a logical naming convention for your artwork files, e.g., Figure 1, file name Figure 1.tif.

For vector graphics, the preferred format is EPS. For color or grayscale photographs (halftones): Use TIFF format and a minimum of 300 dpi. In other types of images, use at least 600 dpi and choose the tiff format.

Insert figures in the text with the respective captions (below the image). In addition, we ask authors to send the figures in separate files.

Chemical formulas and equations

Send chemical formulas as figures. In the case of simple equations (one line), type the text, e.g., use solidus “/” for small fractional terms. Send complex equations as figures. Please, do not embed in text Microsoft© Mathematics™ equations, Microsoft© Office™ 2007/2010 equations, or any other equation originating from text editor tools that you use.

6. Review preferences

Submit the names and emails of three to five potential referees working outside your home institutions. You may also provide the name of reviewers that you would prefer not to evaluate your manuscript because of any conflict of interest. Such suggestions will be regarded as a guide only, and the Editors are under no obligation to follow them. An Editor-in-Chief will select the most appropriate Editor to manage peer-review of each manuscript.

7. Editorial Flow

When we receive your manuscript, it can be handled directly by the editor-in-chief. Alternatively, the chief editor may designate a section editor or a member of the editorial board to work on your text. The editor in charge will forward your manuscript to our reviewers. The reviewers then provide their opinion that will serve as a guide for the decision-making of the editor in charge (second level decision). The final decision will rest with the editor-in-chief (first level decision).

Manuscripts from members of the editorial team will follow the same flow and will always be handled by an editor not directly related to the submitted text. Editorial team members can publish up to two papers of their own per year (except editorials).

8. Editorial Transparency and Ethics

As EC editors, we do not encourage reviews that are: defamatory; false or misleading; insulting, threatening, or abusive; obscene or of a sexual nature; offensive, racist, sexist, homophobic; or discriminatory against any religions or other groups. Also, the editors must be polite and not use swear words, any discriminatory or abusive expressions directed to authors.

Some considerations on ethics publication are important to EC. Therefore, we reproduce below some of them we found in Hindawi Journals (member of the Committee on Publication Ethics - COPE).

Peer review

All manuscripts should be kept completely confidential. Editors should not use any of its insights until after publication.

Reviewers are anonymous to the authors unless they choose to disclose their identity by signing the review report. At no time should an Editor communicate the names of the reviewers to the authors, or to anybody else in the community.

If an editor becomes aware of any publication ethics issues on a manuscript you are handling, including plagiarism, authorship disputes, duplicate and redundant submission, or manipulation of data and figures.

Concerns highlighted after publication, as well as concerns about research ethics in general, should also be reported to the editors-in-chief.

Conflicts of Interest

Conflicts of interest (COIs, also known as ‘competing interests’) occur when issues outside research could be reasonably perceived to affect the neutrality or objectivity of the work or its assessment. Potential conflicts of interest must be declared—whether or not they actually had an influence—to allow informed decisions. In most cases, this declaration will not stop work from being published nor will it always prevent someone from being involved in a review process.

Editors (and reviewers) should decline to be involved with a submission when they:

• Have a recent publication or current submission with any author.

• Share or recently shared an institutional affiliation with any author.

• Collaborate or recently collaborated with any author.

• Have a close personal connection to any author.

• Have a financial interest in the subject of the work.

• Feel unable to be objective.

Reviewers must declare any other types of potential interest in the ‘Confidential’ section of the review form, which will then need to be considered by you.

Authors must declare all potential interests in a ‘Conflicts of interest’ section, which should explain why the interest may be a conflict. A clear declaration of all possible conflicts – whether they actually had an influence or not – allows others to make informed decisions about the work and its review process. Declared conflicts of interest should be considered by the editor and reviewers during peer review and included in the published article.

Finally, editors and reviewers must also declare if they have previously discussed the manuscript with the authors.

Citations

Editors and reviewers must not ask authors to include references merely to increase citations to their own or an associate’s work, to the journal, or to another journal they are associated with. This does not mean that you cannot ask authors to include references to your work at all; instead, each request must be fully justifiable and proportional to the overall body of work on the topic.

9. Make an impact with a video abstract (optional)

Send an abstract video of your paper approved for publishing. The video will be permanently linked to your article on the EC website. As a general rule, prepare the video in your mother language. Below, we list some general guidelines:

• Make it short: 60 to 210 seconds.

• Be clear and to the point, answering these questions: what question did you want to say with your research? What main conclusions?

• Prefer images and schemes instead of text. Make it readable: if you are using presentation slides with text or images on them, make sure there is not too much on the slide, so others can easily read them while still listening to you talk.

• Technical specifications: format: .mov, .mpg, or .mp4; frame rate: 24, 25 or 30 fps; frame type: 1080p (min), 4K is preferred.

Please, submit your abstract video directly to the editor in charge of your article along with the final version of your accepted manuscript.

10. Publication Fees

In case of acceptance, authors must pay a fee, which is fully reverted to hosting maintenance and improvements of the journal. The standard publication fee is USD 400. The work of our editors is entirely voluntary.

In EC we use the fee to support the publishing process as follows:

• 30%, for internet and information services;

• 40% for editorial services, such as text edition and revision;

• 30% for administrative costs.

The EC operates a transparent waiver policy to help support researchers who cannot meet some or all of the costs associated with publishing open access. For example, EC provides an automatic 100% or 50% waiver for Article Processing Charges depending on the country in which the corresponding author is based (see countries listed below). In addition, authors can request an additional discount, in the cover letter, with a reasonable justification.

100% Discount: Afghanistan, Angola, Bangladesh, Belize, Benin, Bhutan, Burkina Faso, Burundi, Cambodia, Cameroon, Cabo Verde, Central African Republic, Chad, Comoros, Congo, Cook Islands, Côte d’Ivoire, Cuba, Democratic People’s Republic of Korea, Democratic Republic of the Congo, Djibouti, Dominica, Equatorial Guinea, Eritrea, Eswatini, Ethiopia, Gambia, Ghana, Grenada, Guinea, Guinea-Bissau, Haiti, Kenya, Kiribati, Kyrgyzstan, Lao People’s Democratic Republic, Lesotho, Liberia, Madagascar, Malawi, Maldives, Mali, Marshall Islands, Mauritania, Micronesia (Federated States of), Mozambique, Myanmar, Nauru, Nepal, Nicaragua, Niger, Niue, Papua New Guinea, Republic of Moldova, Rwanda, Saint Helena, Saint Lucia, Saint Vincent and the Grenadines, Samoa, Sao Tome and Principe, Senegal, Sierra Leone, Solomon Islands, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Suriname, Syrian Arab Republic, Tajikistan, Timor-Leste, Togo, Tokelau, Tonga, Tuvalu, Uganda, United Republic of Tanzania, Vanuatu, Venezuela, Yemen, Zambia, Zimbabwe.

50% Discount: Albania, Algeria, Antigua and Barbuda, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Belarus, Bolivia (Plurinational State of), Bosnia and Herzegovina, Botswana, Brazil, Colombia, Ecuador, Egypt, El Salvador, Fiji, Gabon, Georgia, Guatemala, Guyana, Honduras, Iraq, Jamaica, Jordan, West Bank and Gaza Strip, Lebanon, Libya, Mauritius, Mongolia, Montenegro, Morocco, Namibia, Nigeria, North Macedonia, Pakistan, Palau, Paraguay, Peru, Saint Kitts and Nevis, Serbia, Seychelles, Sri Lanka, Tunisia, Ukraine, Uzbekistan, Vietnam.

Furthermore, to honor the effort of our editorial board, we provide a 100% waiver for manuscripts accepted from our editorial board. Each editor is entitled to one full waive per year. We also credit the work of our reviewers by providing a 10% voucher for each review submitted. These discounts are only valid for the same year in which the reviews were performed.

 

Ethnobiology and Conservation Contact 

Editors-in-Chief

Dr. Rômulo R. N. Alves

Universidade Estadual da Paraíba, Brazil

E-mail: rrnalves@yahoo.com.br

 

Dr. Ulysses Paulino de Albuquerque

Universidade Federal de Pernambuco, Brazil

E-mail: ulysses.albuquerque@ufpe.br