SALAMANDRA - German Journal of Herpetology
Instructions for authors
Scope
SALAMANDRA is a broadly based herpetological journal published by the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Herpetologie und Terrarienkunde e.V. (DGHT). It publishes results of original research articles in all fields of herpetology, including phylogeny, systematics, ethology, ecology, physiology, conservation biology, and captive breeding, given scientific relevance. All contributions, particularly those on faunistics and natural history, as well as species checklists are only accepted, if findings provide substantive new scientific insight. Review articles are accepted, if these do not only constitute summaries of already published data, but include analyses leading to new scientific insight.
Submission
Manuscripts have to be submitted electronically to DGHT:
Articles are exclusively published in English (preferably British English). If you are not a native speaker, it is recommended to consult a native speaker to review your manuscript prior to submission. Checking the text for correct grammar and typing errors prior to submission is obligatory.
Authors must suggest at least three potential referees accompanied by their e-mail addresses. These suggested persons should not be close collaborators and should not have participated in joint publications recently.
Submitted manuscript files have to be in Microsoft Word docx-format (1.5 lines spacing, Times, font size 12 pt, left justified). Upon submission, figures (low resolution), and tables should be added on separate sheets following the text body (not imbedded within the text). Figure and table captions should be consecutively numbered using Arabic numerals (combined figure plates should contain subdivisions using capital letters) and include all necessary information detailed enough for understanding without consulting the main text. Abbreviations used in tables, drawings, and graphs should be explained in the respective caption.
Large tables must be considered and formatted as an electronic supplement. There is also the possibility to provide additional figures and video files as electronic supplement. These supplements must be mentioned in the manuscript.
Guidelines and format
All manuscripts should have a title page with only title, author(s) plus address(es), and suggested running head.
Major articles should include title, author(s), authors' addresses, indicate one corresponding author (with optional ORCID-ID), detailed abstract that includes basic results (at maximum about 10% of the length of text body), up to 10 key words in addition to the title, and in the following order Introduction, Materials and methods, Results, Discussion, Acknowledgements, References (which can be followed by an Appendix or Appendices). The sections Material and methods, Results, and Discussion can be combined or exchanged by other sections, if expedient. Start figure captions on a new page at the end of the manuscript. All scientific genus and species names must be in italics. Do not use italics in any other part of the text. Use small capitals for authors cited in text and in references, as well as for all other person names. Do not use small capitals for institutional names. Do not use completely CAPITALIZED words or author names in any part of the text. Do not use any format of letters except of italics, bold, and Small Capitals. Avoid using footnotes. Do not use hyphenation. Throughout the manuscript never use tabs, nor double or more space typing.
Only literature cited within the text shall be included in references. Multiple publications by an author or a team of authors within the same year should be indicated by a, b, c forth. Use “&” (not “and”) in the text when citing a reference by two authors and “et al.” when more than two authors are involved. Avoid comma between author(s) and year of publication except when author(s) of taxa is/are meant: e.g. Trichobatrachus robustus Boulenger, 1900 or Atelopus cruciger (Lichtenstein & Martens, 1856). Personal communications or unpublished data shall be cited as follows (examples): (W. Böhme pers. comm.) or (W. Böhme unpubl. data). Worldwide web sources have to be cited by author and year in references.
Shorter contributions are also accepted and should include title, author(s), address(es), abstract, key words, main text body, acknowledgements, references, and if appropriate electronic supplement. Generally, the text of shorter contributions should follow the structure of major articles; however, do not include headings with the exception of acknowledgements and references. These shorter contributions will appear as so-called Correspondence in the issue.
Molecular data submitted for publication to SALAMANDRA must be deposited at a recognised archive, such as the National Institute of Health’s GenBank (National Center for Biotechnology Information, NCBI, USA). Representative voucher specimens must be deposited in scientific collections. Accession numbers for molecular sequences and voucher specimens must be provided in the manuscript.
For correct style and format, especially of citations including World Wide Web citations, refer to one of our exemplified published publications provided below in the download links.
Example: Description of new taxa
Example: Major article
Example: Correspondence
Nomenclatural acts
Taxonomic works must follow the current International Code of Zoological Nomenclature. Descriptions of new species/subspecies must include at least designation of a preserved holotype, collection number, exact locality including political units, e.g. departments, altitude above sea level, and geographic coordinates (e.g. Isecheno, 00°12’39’’ N, 34°46’36’’ E, 1,550 m above sea level, southern Kakamega Forest, Kakamega District, Western Province, Kenya), detailed description of the holotype and a diagnosis (the diagnosis should compare the new species/subspecies with all closely related taxa). Include measurements, as usually used for the respective taxonomic group, of the holotype and photographs or detailed drawings of same specimen.
For proper registration of a new zoological taxon and a nomenclatural act in zoology, we require two specific statements to be included in your manuscript. In the Results section, the Life Science Identifier (LSID) should be listed under the new or changed species name, for example:
Brookesia micra sp. n.
ZooBank LSID: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:act:D1A239D6-93E8-4C34-A428-F79A2C8B6405
You will need to contact ZooBank to obtain a LSID. Please do this as early as possible to avoid delay of publication upon acceptance of your manuscript. It is your responsibility to provide us with this information so we can include it in the final paper. After publication, you will need to update the ZooBank registration of the article with year, volume and pages, as otherwise the new taxon will not appear in the database.
Please also insert the following text into the methods chapter, in a paragraph to be called "Nomenclatural acts":
The electronic edition of this article conforms to the requirements of the amended International Code of Zoological Nomenclature, and hence the new names contained herein are available under that Code from the electronic edition of this article. This published work and the nomenclatural acts it contains have been registered in ZooBank, the online registration system for the ICZN. The LSID (Life Science Identifier) for this publication is: urn:lsid:zoobank.org:pub: XXXXXXX. The electronic edition of this work was published in a journal with an ISSN, and has been archived and is available from the following digital repositories: salamandra-journal.com, zenodo.org.
Ethics
Contributions based on permanent removal of specimens from the wild must be in agreement with respective national and international regulations and have to indicate the localities, collections, and catalogue numbers of voucher specimens. The numbers of requisite permits and licenses must be mentioned in the acknowledgements.
Authorship implies responsibility. All authors must have played a significant role in designing and performing the study and/or in writing the manuscript. Those whose efforts were limited solely to providing materials and financial support or commenting on the manuscript, should be recognised in acknowledgements. Honorary authorship must be avoided. The corresponding author has to sign a copyright form on behalf of all authors, implying that all authors agree with the publication in the submitted form and no competing interest are known.
Review process
Editors will conduct a pre-check with respect to suitability of publication in the journal. If the required format and other formalities are not followed, the editor may reject the manuscript even when its content is suitable and ask for re-submission after modification. If the pre-check reveals a content not suitable with regard to the journal scope, or due to major scientific or methodological flaws, the manuscript might be rejected for publication without a review process. When appropriate, the editor will send the manuscript to two peer reviewers, which are not necessarily among those suggested by the authors. In case of a certain conflict, authors may ask the editor to exclude a potential reviewer. Acceptance or rejection of a manuscript will be based upon the recommendations of the reviewers and communicated by the editor.
After review (if not rejected), authors should prepare one document of the revised manuscript in the ‘track changes’ mode, a second document with all applied changes included and a rebuttal letter referring to the reviewer’s and editor’s comments in detail. All files have to be sent back to the responsible editor.
After final acceptance of the manuscript, photographic pictures must be send to the editors as electronic files in high resolution TIFF or JPEG format with minimum width of 200 mm at 300 dpi; line drawings, maps and diagrams must be submitted as TIFF or JPEG with at least 800 dpi at 200 mm width. Figures and tables have to be numbered. Make sure that text and numbers within figures are large and clear enough, even if reduced to column width in printing.
Page proofs are sent to authors by the layouter. Authors are committed to answer questions asked by the layouter and modify text and figures accordingly, if required. Publication is attached to publication fees, depending on DGHT-membership.
After being published, the corresponding author will receive a notice to download a high resolution PDF of the article from the SALAMANDRA website.
Please find the checklist for authors here.
Find the copyright form here.