Aims & Scope
Acta Oecologica is venue for the publication of original research articles
in ecology. We encourage studies in all areas of ecology, including ecosystem ecology, community ecology, population ecology, conservation
ecology and evolutionary ecology. There is no bias with respect to taxon, biome or geographic area. Both theoretical and empirical papers
are welcome, but combinations are particularly sought. Priority is given to papers based on explicitly stated hypotheses.
The forum
section is reserved for short papers with critical discussion of current issues in ecology, as well as comments and viewpoints on previously
published papers. Acta Oecologica does not publish book reviews, but comments on new books are welcome in the forum section.
Submission
of Articles General
Submission of an article implies that the work described has not been published previously (except
in the form of an abstract or as part of a published lecture or academic thesis), that it is not under consideration for publication
elsewhere, that its publication is approved by all authors and tacitly or explicitly by the responsible authorities where the work was
carried out, and that, if accepted, it will not be published elsewhere in the same form, in English or in any other language, without
the written consent of the Publisher.
Funding body agreements and policies
Elsevier has established agreements and developed
policies to allow authors who publish in Elsevier journals to comply with potential manuscript archiving requirements as specified as
conditions of their grant awards. To learn more about existing agreements and policies please visit http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/funding
Copyright
Upon acceptance of an article, authors will be asked to sign a "Journal Publishing Agreement'' (for more information
on this and copyright see http://www.elsevier.com/copyright. Acceptance of the agreement will ensure the widest possible
dissemination of information. An e-mail (or letter) will be sent to the corresponding author confirming receipt of the manuscript together
with a 'Journal Publishing Agreement' form or a link to the online version of this agreement.
If excerpts from other copyrighted
works are included, the author(s) must obtain written permission from the copyright owners and credit the source(s) in the article. Elsevier
has preprinted forms for use by authors in these cases: contact Elsevier's Rights Department, Oxford, UK: phone (+44) 1865 843830, fax
(+44) 1865 853333, permissions@elsevier.com . Requests may also be completed online via the Elsevier homepage http://www.elsevier.com/permissions.
Authors' rights
As an author you (or your employer or institution) retain certain rights; for details you are referred
to: http://www.elsevier.com/authorsrights.
Role of the funding source
You are requested to identify who provided financial support for the conduct of the research
and/or preparation of the article and to briefly describe the role of the sponsor(s), if any, in study design; in the collection, analysis
and interpretation of data; in the writing of the report; and in the decision to submit the paper for publication. If the funding source(s)
had no such involvement then this should be stated. Please see http://www.elsevier.com/wps/find/authorshome.authors/fundingContributors
Each author is required to declare his or her individual contribution to the article: all authors must have materially
participated in the research and/or article preparation, so roles for all authors should be described. The statement that all authors
have approved the final article should be true and included in the disclosure. Conflict of interest
All authors are requested
to disclose any actual or potential conflict of interest including any financial, personal or other relationships with other people or
organizations within three years of beginning the submitted work that could inappropriately influence, or be perceived to influence,
their work. See also http://www.elsevier.com/conflictsofinterest Acknowledgements
List here those individuals
who provided help during the research (e.g., providing language help, writing assistance or proofreading the article, etc.).
Submission
Instructions
The text should be written in English.
There are no page charges.
Submission to this journal proceeds
totally online. Use the following guidelines to prepare your article. Via the homepage of this journal http://www.elsevier.com/journals
you will be guided stepwise through the creation and uploading of the various files. The system automatically converts source files to
a single Adobe Acrobat PDF version of the article, which is used in the peer-review process. Please note that even though manuscript
source files are converted to PDF at submission for the review process, these source files are needed for further processing after acceptance.
All correspondence, including notification of the Editor's decision and requests for revision, takes place by e-mail and via the author's
homepage, removing the need for a hard-copy paper trail. After acceptance, the manuscript will be edited according to the style of the
journal, and authors must read the proofs carefully.
The above represents a very brief outline of this form of submission. It can
be advantageous to print this "Guide for Authors" section from the site for reference in the subsequent stages of article preparation.
If you have difficulty with your submission or any other questions, please contact the editorial office: acta.oecologica@agroparistech.fr
In case of necessity, our postal address is:
Acta Oecologica
Ecologie des populations et communautes
AgroParisTech
16, rue Claude-Bernard
75231 Paris cedex 05
France
Tel. +33 1 44 08 86 34
Fax. +33 1 44 08 72 57
General points
We accept most wordprocessing formats, but Word, WordPerfect or LaTeX is preferred. Always keep a backup copy of the electronic file
for reference and safety. Save your files using the default extension of the program used.
Authors are invited to suggest the names
of one to three potential referees.
Language Editing
Authors who require information about language editing and copyediting
services pre- and post-submission please visit http://www.elsevier.com/locate/languagepolishing or contact authorsupport@elsevier.com
for more information. Please note Elsevier neither endorses nor takes responsibility for any products, goods or services offered by outside
vendors through our services or in any advertising. For more information please refer to our Terms & Conditions http://www.elsevier.com/termsandconditions
Manuscript preparation
Manuscripts should be double spaced, with 2.5 cm margins. All pages must be numbered consecutively.
In the main text, lines must also be numbered continuously. The title page should contain the title, author's name(s), complete affiliation
address(es), address for correspondence, fax number, e-mail. A running title should also be suggested.
Full papers
Articles should be divided into sections in the following sequence: title page, abstract, keywords, introduction, materials and methods,
results, discussion, conclusion, acknowledgements, references, tables, legends of figures and figures.
Methods should be explained
in sufficient detail to permit replication.
An abstract not exceeding 250 words is required for articles. The abstract should indicate
the main results and conclusions.
Forum
The Forum section is reserved for short papers containing critical discussion
of current issues in ecology, and welcomes comments and viewpoints on previously published papers.
Units
Use the form:
mL?h-1?mg-1. Use standard international units (SI).
References
Journal titles should be abbreviated according to the
list of serial title word abbreviations (standard ISO) published by the ISSN International Centre, 20, rue Bachaumont, 75002 Paris, France.
In the text, refer to author(s) names(s) and year of publication. References cited together should be arranged chronologically, for example
(Petal, 1978; Grant and Dunham, 1988), or Petal (1978) and Grant and Dunham (1988). Citations such as 'submitted for publication', 'in
preparation', and 'personal communication' should be included parenthetically in the text and must not appear in the reference section.
The reference list should be arranged in alphabetical order.
The following examples for the reference list cover most situations.
The punctuation must be followed exactly.
Begon M., Harper J., Towsend C., 1990. Ecology. Individuals, Populations and Communities,
Blackwell Scientific Publications, London.
Grant B., Dunham A., 1988. Thermally imposed time constraints on the activity of the
desert lizard Sceloporus meriami . Ecology 69, 167-176.
Petal J., 1978. The role of ants in ecosystems. In: Brian M.V. (Ed.), Production
Ecology of Ants and Termites. IBP 13, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, pp. 293-325.
Figure captions, tables, figures,
schemes. Present these, in this order, at the end of the article. They are described in more detail below. If you are working with
LaTeX and have such features embedded in the text, these can be left, but such embedding should not be done specifically for publishing
purposes. Further, high-resolution graphics files must be provided separately (see Preparation of illustrations).
Electronic
Illustrations
General points
Always supply high-quality printouts of your artwork, in case conversion
of the electronic artwork is problematic.
Make sure you use uniform lettering and sizing of your original artwork.
Save
text in illustrations as "graphics" or enclose the font.
Only use the following fonts in your illustrations: Arial, Courier,
Helvetica, Times, Symbol.
Number the illustrations according to their sequence in the text.
Use a logical naming
convention for your artwork files, and supply a separate listing of the files and the software used.
Provide all illustrations
as separate files and as hardcopy printouts on separate sheets.
Provide captions to illustrations separately.
Produce
images near to the desired size of the printed version.
A detailed guide on electronic artwork is available on our website:
http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructionsYou are urged to visit this site; some excerpts from the detailed information
are given here.
Formats Regardless of the application used, when your electronic artwork is finalised, please "save
as" or convert the images to one of the following formats (Note the resolution requirements for line drawings, halftones, and line/halftone
combinations given below.): EPS: Vector drawings. Embed the font or save the text as "graphics". TIFF: Colour or greyscale photographs
(halftones): always use a minimum of 300 dpi. TIFF: Bitmapped line drawings: use a minimum of 1000 dpi. TIFF: Combinations bitmapped
line/half-tone (colour or greyscale): a minimum of 500 dpi is required.DOC, XLS or PPT: If your electronic artwork is created in any
of these Microsoft Office applications please supply "as is".
Please do not:
Supply embedded graphics in your wordprocessor
(spreadsheet, presentation) document;
Supply files that are optimised for screen use (like GIF, BMP, PICT, WPG); the resolution
is too low;
Supply files that are too low in resolution;
Submit graphics that are disproportionately large for the
content.
Captions Ensure that each illustration has a caption. Supply captions on a separate sheet, not attached
to the figure. A caption should comprise a brief title (not on the figure itself) and a description of the illustration. Keep text in
the illustrations themselves to a minimum but explain all symbols and abbreviations used.
Colour illustrations
Please make sure that artwork files are in an acceptable format (TIFF, EPS or MS Office files) and with the correct resolution.
If, together with your accepted article, you submit usable colour figures then Elsevier will ensure, at no additional charge, that these
figures will appear in colour on the Web (e.g., ScienceDirect and other sites) regardless of whether or not these illustrations are reproduced
in colour in the printed version. For colour reproduction in print, you will receive information regarding the costs from Elsevier after
receipt of your accepted article. Please indicate your preference for colour in print or on the Web only. For further information on
the preparation of electronic artwork, please see http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions.
Please note: Because
of technical complications which can arise by converting colour figures to "grey scale" (for the printed version should you not opt for
colour in print) please submit in addition usable black and white versions of all the colour illustrations.
Preparation of supplementary
data.
Elsevier accepts supplementary material to support and enhance your scientific research. Supplementary files offer the
author additional possibilities to publish supporting applications, movies, animation sequences, high-resolution images, background datasets,
sound clips and more. Supplementary files supplied will be published online alongside the electronic version of your article in Elsevier
Web products, including ScienceDirect: http://www.sciencedirect.com. In order to ensure that your submitted material is
directly usable, please ensure that data is provided in one of our recommended file formats. Authors should submit the material in electronic
format together with the article and supply a concise and descriptive caption for each file. For more detailed instructions please visit
our artwork instruction pages at http://www.elsevier.com/artworkinstructions
Page proofs
One set of page
proofs in PDF format will be sent by e-mail to the corresponding author (if we do not have an e-mail address then paper proofs will be
sent by post). Elsevier now sends PDF proofs which can be annotated; for this you will need to download Adobe Reader version 7 (or higher)
available free from http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/readstep2.html. Instructions on how to annotate PDF files will
accompany the proofs. The exact system requirements are given at the Adobe site: http://www.adobe.com/products/acrobat/acrrsystemreqs.html#70win.
If you do not wish to use the PDF annotations function, you may list the corrections (including replies to the Query Form) and return
to Elsevier in an e-mail. Please list your corrections quoting line number. If, for any reason, this is not possible, then mark the corrections
and any other comments (including replies to the Query Form) on a printout of your proof and return by fax, or scan the pages and e-mail,
or by post.
Please use this proof only for checking the typesetting, editing, completeness and correctness of the text, tables and
figures. Significant changes to the article as accepted for publication will only be considered at this stage with permission from the
Editor. We will do everything possible to get your article published quickly and accurately. Therefore, it is important to ensure that
all of your corrections are sent back to us in one communication: please check carefully before replying, as inclusion of any subsequent
corrections cannot be guaranteed. Proofreading is solely your responsibility. Note that Elsevier may proceed with the publication of
your article if no response is received.
Offprints The corresponding author, at no cost, will be provided with a PDF file
of the article via e-mail or, alternatively, 25 free paper offprints. The PDF file is a watermarked version of the published article
and includes a cover sheet with the journal cover image and a disclaimer outlining the terms and conditions of use. Additional paper
offprints can be ordered by the authors. An order form with prices will be sent to the corresponding author.
Submission checklist
It is hoped that this list will be useful during the final checking of an article prior to sending it to the journal's Editor for review.
Please consult this Guide for Authors for further details of any item. Ensure that the following items are present:
One
author designated as corresponding author:
E-mail address
Full postal address
Telephone and fax numbers
All necessary files have been uploaded
Keywords
All figure captions
All tables (including title, description,
footnotes)
Further considerations
Manuscript has been "spell-checked" and "grammar-checked"
References are in the correct format for this journal
All references mentioned in the Reference list are cited in the text,
and vice versa
Permission has been obtained for use of copyrighted material from other sources (including the Web)
Colour
figures are clearly marked as being intended for colour reproduction on the Web (free of charge) and in print or to be reproduced in
colour on the Web (free of charge) and in black-and-white in print
If only colour on the Web is required, black and white versions
of the figures are also supplied for printing purposes
