Biological Letters

General information

The semiannual journal Biological Letters is published in English and includes papers on all topics related to biology. It appears both in print and in open-access electronic format. We welcome submission of original articles, review articles, short communications, and proceedings of international conferences. Before submission, authors are strongly encouraged to follow the helpful "EASE Guidelines for Authors and Translators", which are freely available as PDFs in many languages at http://www.ease.org.uk/guidelines/index.shtml.
All papers must be in English. Authors whose native language is not English are encouraged to have their manuscripts read by a native English-speaking colleague before submission. The manuscript should be double-spaced, with at least 3-cm left margin. It should not exceed 25 typed pages (including references, figures, and tables). The manuscript should be divided into the following sections:
1. Title page
1.1. Title
1.2. Complete name(s) of author(s)
1.3. Affiliation
1.4. Corresponding author
1.5. Received/Accepted dates
1.6. Running title
2. Abstract
3. Keywords
4. Introduction
5. Material and methods
6. Results
7. Conclusions
8. Acknowledgements
9. References
10. Figure captions
11. Figures
12. Tables

Title page

Title should be concise (see description of the article style).
Author(s) and affiliation. Give full forenames and surnames of author(s), affiliations and full postal address (without phone and fax numbers). Give the forename and surname of the corresponding author below affiliations. In the line below the corresponding author name and e-mail, add ‘(Received on… )’.
Running title. Please provide a running title of no more than 60 characters (including spaces).
Abstract should be informative, i.e. should specify the objective, methods, and most important findings and conclusions of your paper. It should be limited to 250 words and should not contain literature citations or allusions to tables or figures.
Keywords. Avoid using words from the title as keywords.

Species names

International scientific names of all species used in the study (including authorship and year) must be supplied. Only the names of taxa lower than subfamily should be in italics. Zoological nomenclature must be in agreement with the International Code of Zoological Nomenclature (4th edition 1999), which came into force on 1 January 2000. Author(s) of species names must be provided only at the first mention of each scientific name (the year of publication needs not be given as well as its full reference in the reference list). Authors of plant species names need not be given.

Metric units

Units must follow the SI system.

References

Author names should be written in small capital letters. The references should be cited in the text as follows: (SMITH 1999) either (SMITH & JONES 1999) or (BROWN et al. 1999). Consecutive references must be separated by a semicolon (;), and should be ordered chronologically. All papers cited in the text should be listed in the references section and all references should be cited in the text. The list of references should be ordered alphabetically by author’s surname(s). Titles of papers published in languages other than English should be followed by their English translation in square brackets, with an explanatory note at the end, e.g. (in Russian).
When there is more than one reference of a given author in the same year, the references should be distinguished by the letter ‘a’ used for the first reference and ‘b’, ‘c’ for the following ones.
1) Journal article
AUTHOR(S). Year of publication. Title. Abbreviation of journal title. Volume: range of pages.
Example:
HOEKSTRA F. A., GOLOVINA E. A., BUITINK J. 2001. Mechanisms of plant desiccation tolerance. Trends Plant Sci. 6: 431-438.
2) Journal article with DOI
AUTHOR(S). Year of publication. Title. Abbreviation of journal title. DOI.
Example:
MATUSZEWSKI S., BAJERLEIN D., KONWERSKI S., SZPILA K. 2009. Insect succession and carrion decomposition in selected forests of Central Europe. Part 2: Composition and residency patterns of carrion fauna. Forensic Sci. Int. doi:10.1016/j.forsciint.2009.11.007.
3) Books
AUTHOR(S). Year of publication. Title. Publisher, Publication place.
Example:
EFRON B., TIBSHIRANI R. J. 1993. An Introduction to the Bootstrap. Chapman & Hall, London.
4) Chapter in a book
Author(s) of chapter. Year of publication. Chapter title. In: Book title (EDITOR(S)) of the book, Ed(s)), Chapter range of pages, Publisher, Publication place.
Example:
LING K. H., PAETKAU V., MARCUS S. F., LARDY H. A. 1966. Phosphofructokinase: skeletal muscle. In: Methods in Enzymology (COLOWICK S. P., KAPLAN N. O., Eds), vol. 9, pp. 425-425, Academic Press, New York.
5) Conference proceedings
AUTHOR(S). Year of publication. Title. In: Conference name (EDITOR(s)), Date, Place of conference, Range of pages, Publisher, Publication place.
Example:
CHRISTIAN E. 2002. Copepoda from forest floor habitats in Vienna. In: Proceedings of the 6th Central European Workshop on Soil Zoology (TAJOVSKÝ K., BALÍK V., PIŽL V,Eds), April 23-25, 2001, České Budějovice, Czech Republic, pp. 19-24, Tisk Josef Posekaný, České Budějovice.
6) Thesis or dissertation
AUTHOR(S). Year of publication. Title. Information on thesis type, place of publication. Example:
ROSLIN T. 1999. Spatial ecology of dung beetles. PhD thesis, University of Helisinki, Finland.

Statistical conventions

For significance tests, give the name of the test followed by a colon, the test statistic and its value, the degrees of freedom or sample size (whichever is the convention for the test), and the P value. Degrees of freedom may be presented as a subscript to the test statistic, e.g. ANOVA: F2,91 = 3.24, P = 0.002, or rs = -0.43, N = 63, P < 0.001). P values should be expressed as an exact probability value. Departure from a significance threshold of 0.05 should be stated and justified in the Methods. Nonsignificant outcomes should be indicated as exact probability values or as ‘ns’.

Figure caption

Captions to all figures should be grouped at the end of the text, on a separate page. They should be numbered consecutively: Fig. 1, Fig. 2, etc.

Figures

Figures should be inserted in Word as JPEG, GIF or TIF files, and grouped below Figure captions. The following resolutions are optimal: 600 dpi for photographs, 300 dpi for figures. They should be suitable for double reduction of size in reproduction (this is especially important when the size of symbols, inscriptions, descriptions of plots, line thickness, etc. are selected). References in the text to figures should be as follows: Fig. 1, Figs. 1-5.

Tables

Tables should be as simple as possible, and understandable without reference to the text. All tables with their captions should be grouped at the end of the text, below figures (each table on a separate page). Tables should not contain vertical rules, and the main body of the table should not contain horizontal rules. The supplementary descriptions should be added under the table. Give extra information as a footnote below the table. All tables should be referred as Table 1, etc., and numbered in the same order as they are mentioned in the main body of the article.

Submission

An electronic version of the manuscript (pdf), a cover letter, and a statement that the manuscript has not been published or submitted for publication elsewhere should be sent as attached files to the Managing Editor (Dr. Daria Bajerlein), e-mail: biollett@amu.edu.pl

Editorial process

Biological Letters is blind peer-reviewed journal. Every manuscript is independently reviewed by at least two referees selected by editors before it is accepted for publication. Authors can provide names and addresses of at least three researchers of recognized competence who may be considered as reviewers. In e-submission, authors should be informed about manuscript acceptance or rejection within three months. In paper submission, the decision may take up to six months. The authors will receive galley proofs. They should be checked immediately and sent back to the editorial office within 48 hours. Corrections of the proofs must be restricted to printer’s errors only. Otherwise, the authors would be charged for any other substantial changes in the proofs. The authors will receive 10 reprints and one copy of the volume free of charge. Further reprints may be ordered in the editorial office when the proofs are returned.

Page charges

The journal does not have article processing charges (APCs) nor article submission charges. There are no page charges in our journal