Instructions for authors
Updated on February 24th 2023 regarding points 6-8 below.
Cover letter
Please provide in this letter the addresses (email) of three possible reviewers for your paper. Copy and paste this letter in the "comments to editor" - field during the submission process.
Manuscript
Prepare your manuscript as one file (.doc or .rtf) with tables and figures inserted either in the text or after “references”. Supplementary files can be submitted in any format under Step 2 during the submission process. Please refer to the Section Policies for the different types of articles and possible word limitations.
- Title Page
The title page should include:
- A concise and informative title
- The name(s) of the author(s)
- The affiliation(s) and address(es) of the author(s)
- The e-mail address of the corresponding author
- The running title
- Language
Manuscripts should be written in British English (BE). Linguistic usage should be correct and checked by a native speaker BEFORE submission.
- Abstract
Please provide an abstract of no more than 260 words. The abstract should not contain any undefined abbreviations or unspecified references.
- Keywords
Please provide up to six keywords which can be used for indexing purposes.
- Text Formatting
Please submit manuscripts in Word (.doc or .rtf), using a normal, double spaced, plain font (e.g., 10-point Times Roman) for text. Use the automatic page numbering function to number the pages. Provide continuous line numbers throughout the manuscript. Place figures and tables at the end of the manuscript. Try to limit your file size to 5MB.
Headings
Please use no more than three levels of displayed headings. Please do not use italics, capital letters or small caps for any headings. Stick to the established sequence of Introduction, Material and Methods, Results and Discussion. If desired the Results and Discussion sections may be amalgamated. Acknowledgments of people, grants, funds, etc. should be placed in a separate section before the reference list. The names of funding organizations should be written in full.
Abbreviations
Abbreviations should be defined at first mention and used consistently thereafter.
Units
Leave a space between figures and their unit, e.g. 300 m, 50 L, 0.66 mm etc. EXCEPT for temperatures: 20°C and percentages: 80%
Leave a space before and after an equality sign or similar, e.g.: N = 57, P < 0.001; seed set = 8.15 ± 0.51 (mean ± S.E.)
Use capital, italic letters for, e.g.: sample numbers N, P-values P, F-values F
Use a comma to separate thousands, millions, etc.: 2,630 m a.s.l.; 2,967,300 individuals
- Acknowledgements
Please list any contributors who do not meet the criteria for authorship as well as funding organisations in the Acknowledgements.
- Data availability
JPE strongly encourages authors to deposit data in a suitable repository for sharing and further use by others and indicate here where the data may be found.
- Conflict of Interest
Please include a disclosure statement, mentioning any or no potential conflict of interest.
- References
An automatic citation style for use with Zotero and other CSL 1.0-compatible clients can be downloaded from the Zotero Style Repository. The style used for JPE is the same as for “Oecologia” except that in-text citations have “&” instead of “and” for two authors and except that JPE uses full journal titles in the reference list. All authors should be listed in the bibliography.
An adapted EndNote style can be downloaded HERE, thanks to Laurian Parmentier (Ugent)!
The reference list must adhere to these examples once the submission is accepted.
In-text citations
Cite references in the text by name and year in parentheses and order them chronologically. Separate two authors with “&”. In case of more than two authors cite the first author’s name plus et al. (NOT italicised!!). Separate several citations with “;”.
e.g. (Thompson 1990), (Kearns & Inouye 1993), (Heinrich 1975; Bawa 1995; Proctor et al. 1996).
Reference list
Entries should be alphabetized by the last names of the first author of each work. Use full journal titles. Please add DOIs (Digital Object Identifiers) to all references when possible as in the example below. You can add DOIs and check your references easily here: https://apps.crossref.org/SimpleTextQuery
Journal article
Byrne DN, Buchmann SL, Spangler HG (1988) Relationship between wing loading, wingbeat frequency and body mass in homopterous insects. Journal of Experimental Biology 135:9-23. https://doi.org/10.1242/jeb.135.1.9
Book
Moore PD, Webb JA (1978) An illustrated guide to pollen analysis. Hodder and Stoughton, London.
Book chapter
Buchmann SC (1983) Buzz pollination in angiosperms. In: Eugene CE, Little RJ (eds) Handbook of experimental pollination biology. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company Inc., New York, pp 73-114.
Online document (not DOI)
Packer L, Owen R (2001) Population genetic aspects of pollinator decline. Conservation Ecology 5(1): 4. [online] URL: http://www.consecol.org/vol5/iss1/art4/.
- Figures and Tables
Figure legends
Legends should be sufficiently detailed to enable the reader to understand the figure without reference to the text.
Example:
Figure 1. Number of thrips and estimated plant size in (A) 2012 and in (B) 2014.
Table 1. The abundance of thrips in different parts of the season, by species and lifestage.
Refer to figures in the text as “Fig. 1”, “Fig. 3A-C” or “Fig. 4A, D, E” for example. And to tables as “Tab. 1”.
Figures
For publication, photographic figures should be at 300 d.p.i.
Line figures should be saved as vector graphics (i.e. composed of lines, curves, points and fonts; not pixels) in pdf, eps, ai or wmf format, and embedded as such in Word, as this enhances their display when published online. If line figures cannot be saved in vector graphics format, they can be saved for example in tiff format at high resolution (i.e. 600 d.p.i.) and uploaded as supplementary files if necessary.
Figure parts should be denoted by uppercase letters in plain font (A, B, C, etc.). Figures should be designed to fit one-column size (8.0 cm) in width. When necessary, also two-thirds (12 cm) or two-column size (16 cm) is possible. Increase the font size of all labels and symbols so that they are clearly readable at these sizes. Do NOT use bold letters. Use a font sans-serif like e.g. Arial.
See example figure :
Figure 1. This is an example figure showing (A) a poorly formatted figure and (B) a well formatted figure. (source: Oecologia)
Tables
All tables are to be numbered using Arabic numerals. Don’t use tab stops or blanks to separate columns!!! Avoid combining cells, this makes formatting very difficult. For each table, please supply a table heading. Tables should always be cited in text in consecutive numerical order.
Cover image
Please prepare a small cover image or photograph (< 300 kb) for your article which will be displayed in the table of contents and the abstract view.
Supplementary files - Appendices
For additional tables and figures, please provide a single word (.doc or .rtf) or pdf-file with all appendices and their captions; please make sure that everything is correct since responsibility lies with the authors. This file will be put online WITHOUT any editing by JPE. Video material can also be provided (preferably as .mp4, .mpeg or .wmv files taking less space).
In the manuscript, add the following before “Acknowledgements”:
Appendices
Additional supporting information may be found in the online version of this article:
Appendix I. provide a short caption (not the whole caption as stated in the appendix)
Appendix II. provide a short caption
Appendices are optional but note that we strongly encourage authors to publish their datasets as online files as part of the Open Access process. Files with data do not need to be added during the peer review process but are welcome after acceptance.
Manuscripts that do not correspond to these instructions may be returned without review.
